editor’s introduction since the first issue of scientia et humanitas in 2011, the journal has upheld a twofold mission. not only does scientia strive to showcase the highest quality of student research at mtsu, but it attempts to introduce students to the rigor of the peer-review publishing process. publication is no walk in the park. authors are asked, usually several times, to revise their work in the fullest sense of the word—i.e., to re-envision and to reevaluate the content, purpose, and organization of their articles. revision can be discouraging because it sometimes requires the writer to remove whole paragraphs or to go in search of more sources. in her book the writing life, annie dillard describes the writing process in terms of building a house. the writer uses her hammer to tap the walls of the building, checking for stability, and sometimes comes to the sad realization that not all of the walls can stay: “there is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. knock it out. duck.” the articles featured in scientia’s eighth issue are the product of the patient and determined writers, from both the undergraduate and graduate student body at mtsu, who persevered through peer-review, faculty review, and multiple rounds of copyediting and proofreading. their houses have stood the test of a thorough revision process. i am proud of their work and of the opportunity as this year’s editor to present their efforts in a formal publication. in keeping with the journal’s title, this year’s issue features a variety of topics and disciplines that range from the sciences to the humanities. jennifer rideout received the deans’ distinguished essay award for her analysis of the way joseph conrad uses the tragic event of the russian influenza as an extended metaphor in the secret agent. andrew black, another representative of the humanities, writes about ralph waldo emerson’s essay, “self-reliance,” and the various misreadings that have been applied to emerson’s infamous question, “are these my poor?” in addition to the humanities, there are a series of articles that range from nursing to communication studies. elizabeth jordan assesses the current state of the science related to nursing-driven protocol for enteral feeding of critically ill patients. cassandra mihalko investigates whether a callus tissue culture of the king of bitters plant can be made of its anti-inflammatory property, neoandrographolide. mary de la torre conducts an ethnographic study of the way societal attitudes affect the treatment of prison inmates in rural tennessee. finally, katelyn brooks examines how the new media landscape ushered in by the rise of social media platforms requires a reassessment of the long-standing assumptions established by agenda-setting theory. i am also grateful for the team of people who volunteered their time as reviewers and copyeditors. this year’s scientia staff includes the following group of graduate and undergraduate reviewers: andrew black, gregory bronson, corey cummings, jasmin laurel, rachel marlin, wyatt may, ella morin, and hillary yeager. without their help in (re)reading articles, attending to minute issues of syntax and grammar, and without their general enthusiasm for the journal itself, this year’s issue would not have made it into your hands. a special thanks goes to megan donelson, my associate editor, who headed up our social media campaign to solicit articles, and who also helped review and manage many of the submissions we received this year. i would also like to thank the honors college administrative faculty of scientia. both dr. phillips and dr. vile helped us secure some of the faculty reviewers for this year’s issue. susan lyons is responsible for the design of the printed edition. finally, marsha powers has been an indispensable support for scientia. not only did she solicit articles, she was also generous with her time by allowing me to sit in her office and talk through all of the challenges that come with publishing an academic journal. i hope that you enjoy the eighth edition of scientia et humanitas. this is my third and final year working with the journal. scientia has been an invaluable resource for me as a writer and researcher, and i hope that it will continue to be beneficial to mtsu students for many more years. nicholas dalbey editor in chief editor’s introduction one of the exciting things about scientia et humanitas is that as a journal showcasing student research, our contributors come from many academic fields of study across the middle tennessee state university campus. the scientia tradition is proudly supported by the honors college, and since 2011 the journal has provided a home for students who wish to share their work with the academic world. in this volume, we have work on topics as disparate as navajo literature and quantum computing. while variety is important, our ultimate goal is to produce a journal of the highest quality. our article acceptance rate this year was 42%, reflecting the competitive nature of our submissions process. as a student of composition and rhetoric, i know the benefit of communicating effectively to an audience. i also understand the many challenges when attempting to be an effective communicator. our journal’s contributors have worked hard to produce manuscripts for publication, but they also endeavor to create pieces that have the potential to alter a reader’s understanding of the world. those who engage with volume 9 of scientia will undoubtably benefit from these new perspectives. this year’s submissions underwent a rigorous review cycle from peers, editors, and faculty. those who worked through the process and persevered have proven their unyielding dedication to excellence. our team of staff members, all of whom are students, worked around busy schedules to provide contributors with quality editing and detailed feedback these student editors are likewise worthy of admiration. i am proud of both the contributors and staff represented by our journal. this text is a monument to the labor and educational growth of all our participants. volume 9 boasts a diverse set of articles, half of which focus on religious studies and popular culture. hanan beyene, a junior in the college of liberal arts, gives an analysis of the critically acclaimed 2016 album lemonade by beyoncé knowles-carter through a mobilization of delores s. williams’s definition of womanist testimony. ansley morgan pearson, a graduating senior in animation, applies several theoretical concepts central to religious studies depicted by the world-building of nintendo’s beloved legend of zelda video game series. aaron selby, senior in behavioral and health science, reframes work of several scholars and the concept of soteriology in narrative in order to correlate the impact of films from disney’s “renaissance” and american attitudes regarding salvation. madison ellis, a graduating senior named student of the year for the philosophy department along with the outstanding undergraduate of the year for the college of liberal arts, provides us with a rumination on the use of aristotelian ethics in the business world. ultimately, ellis combines her understanding of both disciplines and outlines the incompatibility of these philosophies, stating that “it is imperative that we do not confuse the two, treating them as equals in practice and theory.” miranda uselton, a senior in basic and applied sciences, provides an informative article with “investigating quantum computation.” she outlines the exciting recent developments in quantum computing in an accessible way that provides insights regarding the advantages new understandings in the field can have on machine learning, i mathematics, and cryptography. the article also covers the dangers of hackers who may use quantum computers to gain sensitive online data. finally, in “nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality,” master’s candidate in english studies jess bennett interrogates the role of the “berdache” in native american society and literature. bennett mobilizes a perceived gap of gender difference in foucault’s work and evaluates this schism through the lens of native american literature that explores both gender and sexual fluidity. in closing, i would like to state that i believe scientia is a journal that produces significant work and plays a valuable role at mtsu. my time as its editor has come to an end, but i am hopeful that this year’s volume will bring a sense of accomplishment to everyone who had a hand in its production. i am equally hopeful that this journal will be a teaching tool and an example to other members of our campus community in the future. i would like to thank jacob castle, gabrielle morin, katelin macvey, myranda uselton, michael mcdermott, brielle campos, britney brown, and matthew spencer for all their hard work. your kindness, camaraderie, dedication to the journal, and care for our contributors made this year a joy. working with each one of you was an honor. i also owe so much to marsha powers whose experience and sage advice made everything easier. susan lyons has kept me afloat technologically speaking, and i am eternally grateful for her knowledge and assistance. i would have also been lost without the patient guidance of digital scholarship librarian alissa miller. last but not least, i owe a debt of gratitude to our faculty advisor, philip e. phillips, who provided me with this opportunity. i have found his graciousness and wisdom to be invaluable. amy harris-aber editor in chief ii scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2020 kant, hegel, sellars: the structure of knowledge benjamin standifer abstract this paper examines the refutation of skepticism elaborated by g. w. f. hegel in the introduction to his phenomenology of spirit. this refutation is motivated by what hegel sees as a fundamental incoherence in modern philosophy initiated by descartes and culminates in the ‘subjectivist’ conclusions reached by kant. more specifically, the incoherence concerns the inability to categorically represent the thing-in-itself. he approaches the problem by articulating kant’s original unity of apperception as a kind of transcendental comparison of knowledge and being. this, along with a fichtean elaboration, allows him to frame the distinction of phenomena and reality as a distinction internal to consciousness itself. the thing-in-itself is realized as not some detached, external reality, but a point of orientation, a functional role, against which consciousness of this being is brought into relief. by positing a theoretically inaccessible standard for what counts as knowledge, skepticism is revealed as misunderstanding the very nature of knowing.    scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 83 spring 2020 the shockwave that was kantian philosophy left several pivotal epistemological issues unarticulated and, in some cases, unresolved. the chimerical thing-in-itself, as well as the true nature of apperception, was left to be elaborated by a generation of thinkers bearing the moniker of “german idealism.” in a broadly transcendental framework, j. g. fichte, f. w. j. schelling, and g. w. f. hegel all set out to articulate and, at times, repudiate critical aspects of kant’s epistemological doctrine. the most critically successful was hegel, who, in the introduction to his phenomenology of spirit, posits a sharp ultimatum: we must either establish that the detached, unreachable thing-in-itself is an incomprehensible notion or admit a fundamental separation between ourselves and the absolute, inevitably leading to skepticism. in this paper, i will outline hegel’s refutation of this path toward skepticism. i will argue that hegel frames the notion of an epistemological standard, a standard by which knowledge gauges its validity, as a by-product of the always-apperceptive process of conceptualization. finally, i will trace the intellectual trajectory of such a view to the 20th-century philosopher, wilfrid sellars, whose anti-foundationalist views helped usher analytic philosophy into its “kantian stage” (sellars 3).            to understand why hegel felt this refutation necessary, one must first examine kantian epistemological doctrine, particularly the notion of apperception. for kant, the ability to represent to oneself an object of perception rests on the ability to subsume a sensuous intuition under a number of categories, conditions for the possibility of objects of experience. further, correlated with each category is a logical form of judgment. these forms of judgment are forms that propositions must take, insofar as they elicit, a categorical determination. for instance, the category of “being” corresponds to propositions of the form “a is b.”  now, a crucial aspect of kant’s system is that judgment, the elementary unit of thought, is fundamentally self-conscious. kant makes this aspect explicit by describing his notion of judgment as “nothing but the manner in which given modes of knowledge are brought to the objective unity of apperception” (b141). kant’s point is that to judge is not just to make the judgment but to accompany the judgment with the fact that one is doing the judging. this means that for a judgment to count as such requires not only that it be itself an act but also that it be the object of a higher-order level of awareness. this level of higher awareness is the apperceptive “i think.” for judgments or thought determinations to be taking place, an “i” must be present that is always already the nexus of all these thought determinations, otherwise, these determinations do not seem to be made by anything. insofar as judgments are taking place, “i” am the one doing the judging, and insofar as “i” am always doing the judging, the thinking, judging “i” is itself a synthetic unity, a one-in-many. it is the “i”s being there for all these thought determinations that constitute scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2020 its unity. in this way, knowledge of how one has determined something to be is also the knowledge that one has made the determination, and vice versa. a concept, as abstraction, is a determinate expression of the “i think” that is a priori present in all representation.  what kant is arguing is that all conceptualization is an exercise of the original synthetic unity of apperception, that a concept is itself an abstraction on the same order as the “i think.” he all but confirms this with statements like, “the synthetic unity of apperception is… that highest point, to which we must ascribe all employment of the understanding. indeed, this capacity is the understanding” (b134). additionally, he writes, “the synthetic unity of the manifold of intuitions, as given a priori, is thus the ground of the identity of the perception itself, which precedes a priori all my determinate thinking” (b134). with this crucial statement, kant solidifies what before might have been merely implied; determinate thought is grounded in the power of apperception.            now, it is not without importance to probe briefly the mediating role played by fichte in facilitating hegel’s refutation. fichte, for his part, is often recognized as a transitional figure between kant and hegel. this role is at least in part because of his clarification of the nature of apperception as well as its implications for transcendental philosophy. he saw the thing-in-itself as not simply an abstraction from all forms of representation but also the exact thing one is thinking of when one is determinately thinking. in his “attempt at a new presentation of the wissenschaftslehre,” fichte writes, “of all possible thoughts i could be thinking, i am [always already] thinking precisely of the thing-in-itself. i have freely made myself into such an object” (84). for fichte the thingin-itself was not to be distinguished from the purely abstract ego located at the nexus of all thought determinations. in self-consciousness, one is always thinking of this thing-initself just because one is always thinking of oneself as making the determination.  this is, to be sure, a crucial development in the chain stretching from kant to hegel. in his essay titled “critical philosophy” hegel points out, “[concerning kant’s categories] fichte has the great merit of having called attention to the need of… deducing them” (31). in this way, “the determinations of thought… would no longer be merely taken from observation and so only conceived empirically, but deduced from [the nature of ] thought itself ” (31). we can see that for hegel to have reached such an uncompromising view regarding epistemological frameworks required this pivotal fichtean contribution. without it, the notion of a self-supplanting standard for knowledge would not be understood for what it is: an aspect of the apperceptive selfpositing present in all determinate thinking.             hegel was willing to accept the significance of the self-relating nature of apperception as presented by kant but, like fichte, was in no way committed to the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 85 spring 2020 arbitrary set of categories advanced by kant nor the ontological implications of a thingin-itself beyond categorical determination. hegel begins the introduction to the phenomenology by admitting the natural tendency in philosophy to investigate the medium or instrument of knowing as opposed to directly investigating what there truly is. this admission is aimed at philosophers like kant who attempted to circumvent tedious ontological classification by formulating epistemic conditions that must be valid of any possible object, whatever. for hegel, this presupposition by kant of certain arbitrary categories is unwarranted. he does not deny that we bring to the table forms of thought determination but rather that one cannot simply presuppose these as objectively given themselves. as commentator robert pippin writes, “hegel charges that kant did not realize that knowledge of the conditions for knowledge could not be appropriately obtained within these conditions” (42). they must be worked through dialectically. the fundamental categories of thought are later worked out in hegel’s logic; in the introduction to the phenomenology he is merely pointing out the necessity for a system of science that does not itself presuppose blunt, given conditions of possible objects or, correlatively, conditions on what counts as knowledge of possible objects. hegel thinks that the presupposition of such a blunt, given standard for what counts as knowledge is precisely what is at work in the positing of the thing-in-itself. he proposes a system of epistemology that sees such a theoretical standard for what it is: a recurring, functional role in the process by which consciousness moves through higher forms of knowledge.             another way of framing the issue would be to say that the standard by which knowledge’s validity is gauged cannot be an utterly detached, external thing-in-itself, for this would lead to an absurdity. such a standard would not be capable of serving as a criterion for what counts as knowledge about it. any attempt to examine the standard itself would yield only what the standard is for me—it would yield yet more knowledge of it, as opposed to what it is in itself. this leads to what robert brandom refers to as a “gulf of intelligibility.” for hegel, squashing skepticism about an external, detached reality depends on the task of demonstrating the internality of the distinction between what the thing is for me and what the thing is in itself. he does this by invoking the fundamentally recursive nature of apperception as a self-relating process by which consciousness establishes higher and higher standards of what constitutes knowledge. hegel writes, “consciousness is, on the one hand consciousness of the object, and on the other, consciousness of itself… since both are for the same consciousness, this consciousness is itself their comparison” (54, emphasis added). this last statement cannot be overemphasized as it concisely sums up hegel’s notion of consciousness as consisting of moments. the moments of this self-relating proscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2020 cess establish what only appears to be a hard distinction between knowledge and reality. the distinction formed between what the object really is and how it is for consciousness is a comparison made simply in virtue of the fact that consciousness has an object at all. consciousness, in having an object, also has an implicit awareness of itself as being the one who has this object, being the one for whom the object is. this, of course, leads us straight into the body of the work itself where hegel begins navigating the different shapes of knowing. starting with what simply is, he establishes the inadequacy of such a model of being-in-itself by moving out and framing that first level of being as simply for consciousness, a consciousness that was always already there but not yet brought into relief. one might ask, “[h}ow is it that these ideas have matured over time?” what has been made of them in the time since german idealism?” the mid-century, analytic philosopher wilfrid sellars concludes our story by picking up the intellectual trajectory initiated by kant and developed by hegel. sellar’s project involved exposing certain dogmas held by empiricists, both of the classical humean variety and the 20th-century logical variety. empiricism relies on basic, observational vocabularies for forming statements about sensations or qualia, vocabularies that can then be used to construct more general, conceptual vocabularies. in this framework, propositions or reports concerning what is given in sensation are considered the ultimate court of appeals. in contrast, sellars essentially argued that non-inferential reports that come as the result of sense data (immediate sense certainties in hegelian parlance) do not constitute an autonomous stratum of language. he writes in section viii of empiricism and the philosophy of mind, “the metaphor of foundation [or ‘givenness’] is misleading… in that it keeps us from seeing that if there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation reports, there is another logical dimension in which the later rest on the former” (78). observational vocabularies simply cannot stand on their own. any proposed empiricist observational vocabularies that might serve as the vanguard for subsequent inferences already rely on their semantic content on background conceptual capacities, given that propositions draw directly on conceptual capacities. even the recognition of something as simple as the color red cannot be recognized as red until red already plays a role in a conceptual space. like hegel, sellars advances the radical notion that what is seemingly given in immediate, sensory awareness is, in fact, mediated by evolving conceptual frameworks or shapes of consciousness.  sellars is perhaps most in lockstep with hegel when he writes near the end of section viii of epm that, “empirical knowledge… is rational, not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise, which can put any claim in jeopardy, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 87 spring 2020 though not all at once” (79). it is the dynamic nature of rational knowledge that makes that knowledge immediately about an object, for it is the processes of conceptual change that render certain conceptual shapes more or less adequate. only a changing, self-correcting process can allow knowledge to be about something outside itself; it is the scrutiny that a concept undergoes which whittles it into an adequate representation. for sellars, as for hegel, there is no immediacy without mediacy, no direct contact with an object of inquiry without self-correction. whatever immediacy amounts to, it does so in virtue of changing conceptual frameworks. this is sellars’ crucial advancement on the hegelian notion of “consciousness implies self-consciousness.” our consciousness of an object is always already employing structures of knowledge.             to conclude, hegel demonstrates that skepticism about the in-itself is a misunderstanding about the nature of knowing. skepticism hypostatizes a merely internal comparison into an actual, external difference between knowing and reality. hegel shows that this move is simply incoherent, leading to an infinite regress by which we never actually encounter the object. it is, ironically, through this argument for the incoherence of the detached thing-in-itself, that hegel avoids commitment to any kind of subjective idealism. rather, as stated above, he is only committed to the view that a detached thing-in-itself cannot serve as a standard for what counts as knowledge about that thing. he does not deny that there are external, enabling conditions (empirical reality), but it is mistaken to take these conditions themselves as determinative of what makes thoughts about them true or false. as sellars would help show, truth is a notion that corresponds to and appears in virtue of rational processes, processes of conceptual change. skepticism is revealed as missing the point of knowing entirely. by not fully developing the notion of apperception with its momentary character, the skeptic leads herself into absurdity. as richard dien winfield puts it, “in a sense, all we can acquaint ourselves with is what necessarily holds true of all our representations.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2020 works cited allison, henry. kant’s transcendental idealism. yale up, 2004. brandom, robert. “conceptual realism & the semantic possibility of knowledge.” knowing and representing: reading hegel’s introduction to the phenomenology of spirit. 30 may 2011, u of munich. lecture. brandom, robert. “sellars’ critique of empiricism (robert brandom inferentialism).” youtube, uploaded by philosophy overdose, 12 april 2014, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=utfonwgzl1o&t=600s. brassier, ray. “the myth of the given: nominalism, naturalism & materialism (ray brassier).” youtube, uploaded by philosophy overdose, 25 may 2013, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=di5mz2kbk9m&t=689s. fichte, j. g. “attempt at a new presentation of the wissenschaftslehre.” introductions to the wissenschaftslehre and other writings, edited and translated by daniel breazeale, hackett, 1994. hegel, g. w. f. “critical philosophy.” immanuel kant critical assessments, translated by william wallace and m. j. inwood, edited by ruth f. chadwick, vol. 1, routledge, 1992. hegel, g. w. f. phenomenology of spirit. translated by a. v. miller, oxford up, 1977. kant, immanuel. critique of pure reason. translated by norman kemp smith, the humanities press, 1929. macbeth, danielle. “sellars on the rationality of empirical inquiry.” youtube, uploaded by philosophy overdose, 15 january 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqid3vd8ejg&t=2s. mcdowell, john. “what is the phenomenology about?” the ii international congress hegel in dialogue: hegel and mcdowell. 13 may 2015, federal u of minas gerais, belo horizonte, brazil. lecture.  pippin, robert. “hegel’s phenomenological criticism.” g. w. f. hegel critical assessments, edited by robert stern, vol. 3, routledge, 1993. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfonwgzl1o&t=600s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfonwgzl1o&t=600s scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 89 spring 2020 pippin, robert. “the significance of self-consciousness in idealist theories of logic.” youtube, uploaded by philosophy overdose, 22 august 2017, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=ald0rzqssmq&t=0s&index=13&list=llneg6smgpwzufdaxd1dv61w. sellars, wilfrid. empiricism and the philosophy of mind. harvard up, 1997. winfield, r. d. “hegel’s project in the science of logic.” youtube, uploaded by philosophy overdose, 22 august 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9xpwrbxohc&t=343s&list=wl&index=22. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2020 rhyme and revolution nash meade abstract william wordsworth’s poetry stands as a reflection of the sociopolitical landscape of his time. his focus on the natural landscape instead of the sculpted is one of the best examples of artistic revolution in history, as wordsworth uses his natural landscape focus as a way of protesting the rapidly developing industrial revolution in england. beyond anything wordsworth could have expected, however, this focus on natural landscapes, combined with his concern with a person’s individuality, turned him into the progenitor of a new era of poetry and literature: the romantic period. thus, wordsworth’s poetry and ideals stand as a revolution of both the contemporary poetic style and sociopolitical ideals of his time.   scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 45 spring 2020            william wordsworth is one of the most revered poets of the last few centuries. his works both revolutionized poetry and defined many of the motifs of the romantic period all on their own. but, this revolution was a revolution on many fronts. william wordsworth is often considered a gateway into a new era of poetry not only because of his new style but also because of the ideas that he explored. although nature was not an unheard-of source of imagery for poetry before wordsworth, he most certainly changed the way in which many looked at it. to wordsworth, nature became a bastion of beauty and harmony in a world that was being upended by the industrial revolution. as the masses flooded into the cities, looking for work and leaving behind the lush greenery of the more rural lifestyle, wordsworth fled from them, grasping to a beauty that was quickly becoming obsolete. just as nature was becoming a source of beauty and rest for some, it became threatened by the looming industrial revolution. thus, he stands as a revolutionary poet who worked to change the minds of his time towards a new way of thinking: one who upheld the beauty of nature as something higher than the works of humankind and saw boundless creativity as the true path of the artist. beyond his interest in nature, though, wordsworth also worked to change the political and religious spheres of england. in the glowing words of william hazlitt in his the spirit of the age: “he takes the simplest elements of nature and of the human mind, the mere abstract conditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound a new system of poetry from them; and has perhaps succeeded as well as anyone could” (hazlitt 232).            before breaking down how his writing was so revolutionary, however, it would be good to get a sense of the person behind the words. wordsworth was born in 1770 in cockermouth, cumberland. his childhood was rural and comfortable until the deaths of both of his parents: one when he was eight and the other when he was thirteen. although life became chaotic for some time after his parents’ deaths, he started writing poetry in grade school. he wrote throughout his schooling, often drawing on experiences he had had in nature and in his travels around most of western europe. he co-published lyrical ballads in 1798 with samuel taylor coleridge. his poetry was radically political while he was young, but he became more conservative as he grew older. upon the release of many of his earlier works, including lyrical ballads, he had many critics, who, although agreeing with his belief in making the language of poetry more common, disagreed with his use of imagery (davies, ch. 8). but, soon enough, he became known and revered as a master of the craft, and most of his critics went mute. he died in 1850.            a comparison of wordsworth’s poetic style to that of alexander pope highlights how revolutionary wordsworth’s poetry was. pope, much like wordsworth, also championed a form of poetry: the heroic couplet. pope brought the heroic couplet to its scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2020 peak, publishing many poems in this form, such as the essay on man or essay on criticism. although the form allows for long-form poetry, it is also rigid and leaves little room for experimentation, especially in comparison to the variability of form and rhythm found in wordsworth’s lyrical ballads.              where the two men differed the most, however, was in their themes. pope’s most famous works often focused on two things— the great chain of being and landscaping–although his extensive poetic career leads to many other critical works and themes to be explored. pope believed in the philosophical belief system known as the great chain of being, which suggests that all of creation is ordered in a specific way, and for any one thing to attempt to leave its station would be to upend the whole system. wordsworth, on the other hand, saw nature as its own harmonious system created to be beneficial and self-sufficient, with man as a sort of outsider or as something which had fallen out of harmony with the rest of nature. this thought is characterized by a single phrase repeated twice in his poem “lines written in early spring”: “what man has made of man” (wordsworth, lines 8, 24). unlike pope, wordsworth saw humankind as a force that often succeeds in destroying its own harmony and the harmony of the nature around it. this change in tune around humanity’s place among the natural world was most likely brought on by the industrial revolution, a time which pope never experienced and which wordsworth lived through. during the industrial revolution, wordsworth saw a side of humankind that pope did not often see, if at all: the side of humanity that sees nature as nothing more than a place to develop and from which to extract resources. in pope’s time, although there was some manufacturing development, it was small-scale and limited to the largest cities and port towns. wordsworth, however, watched in horror as humankind completely stripped the natural world, replacing it with massive industrial stonework and the black smoke of factories in almost every city in england.            another concept that shows wordsworth’s radical change from previous poets is that of the landscape garden. landscaping was a popular practice in europe, and especially great britain, from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. landscaping was a way for human beings to subdue and manipulate the unruly wilds of nature into something more valuable, or, at least, that is how many saw it. pope said this in his poem “to richard boyle, earl of burlington”: “to build, to plant, whatever you intend,/ to rear the column, or the arch to bend,/ to swell the terrace, or to sink the grot,/ in all, let nature never be forgot” (pope, lines 47-50). through the manipulation of nature in these landscape gardens, many, like pope, thought that they were making nature more beautiful and more useful. this sentiment eventually slipped away into the industrial revolution, where making nature more beautiful was replaced with the idea scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 47 spring 2020 of transforming nature into a resource. wordsworth stood against these ideas, along with many of his contemporaries at the time.             during wordsworth’s time, landscape gardening had changed radically. instead of manipulating nature, the point was to capture it in its most untouched form. landscape gardening went from trying to create something pleasing to the eye to an attempt to capture its natural beauty. the landscape garden, however “natural,” was, to wordsworth, artificial. that said, he was himself a committed gardener. some have even argued that he should be viewed as one of the greater landscape architects. in his article “william wordsworth, landscape architect,” ian h. thompson says: “i believe it is appropriate to think of wordsworth as a landscape architect, or at least as one of the spiritual and intellectual precursors of the profession, a view supported by the range, scale and depth of his interests in landscape beyond the boundaries of the garden” (196).  although wordsworth was a committed gardener, he never reconciled his views about nature with landscaping as, in almost all of his poetry, he uses naturally occurring landscapes as the sources of his imagery, not gardens. consider the third stanza of “lines written in early spring”: “through primrose tufts, in that green bower,/ the periwinkle trailed its wreaths;/ and ’tis my faith that every flower/ enjoys the air it breaths” (wordsworth, lines 9-12). in most of wordsworth’s poems, there are descriptions like the one in “lines written in early spring”: descriptions of nature, without human influence or human works, in its most natural and simplistic beauty. wordsworth, unlike pope, saw landscaping as a perversion of nature, not a way of making it more beautiful. this view is often seen as one of his most distinguishing features. in an essay by linda r. jeffrey, which is one of twelve essays in the book creative people at work: twelve cognitive case studies, she says, “a key feature of william wordsworth’s poetry is its naturalism. he was among a few poets of his epoch who made the first break with previous poetic tradition— by trying to write in natural language about natural things. he was also a nature poet because he literally went into ‘nature’ in order to describe it” (71). the “natural language” is also something that sets him apart and is one of the most significant changes in form in english poetry.            before wordsworth, poets were often concerned with using “poetic” or lofty language in order to convey meaning. the use of a more common tongue was seen as a debasement of the artistry of poetry. this was most certainly an effect of the desire to imitate the greek poets as well. wordsworth, however, saw the loftiness of the language as quite the opposite. he thought it defeated the point of poetry, and that the use of a more common tongue actually added depth to the beauty of a poem instead of debasing it. william christie argues this in his essay “wordsworth and the language of nature”:            scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2020 “it [meaning the language of rustic life] approximated to, and represented [to wordsworth], this paradisal ideal in which all ‘conceptions’ are denoted ‘adequately,’ in which word and object come together in a way that differed radically from the licentious poetry of the previous century. what annoyed wordsworth was the perversity with which his eighteenth-century predecessors had refused to call a spade a spade… ” (31).  the use of lofty words to accentuate images in poems was, to wordsworth, a show of arrogance in the poet. he felt that it did nothing for the image or, in the worst cases, detracted from it. instead, wordsworth felt that common language better captured the beautiful and was comprehendible by every person instead of only the highly learned. much like the ways in which landscaping nature was a way to make it more beautiful was egregious to wordsworth, the manipulation of language to bring out the beauty in an image was artistically egregious.             these three elements of change that wordsworth effectively pioneered do not necessarily make one a genius or a true revolutionary, however. what makes wordsworth so potent and so important is how he stood in relation to the world of his time, and how much his challenges to the traditional shaped the next century of english poetry. in the words of hazlitt: “mr. wordsworth’s genius is a pure emanation of the spirit of the age. had he lived in any other period of the world, he would never have been heard of ” (hazlitt). there is a reason why wordsworth is seen as the turning point into the english romantic period, and this reason goes far beyond just his style of poetry, going all the way down to his very soul.             wordsworth’s “spirit,” for lack of a better term, took two revolutionary forms, one political and the other philosophical. wordsworth was known to be a political radical, some of which was brought on by his traveling to france during the french revolution (davies, ch.4). he became a pro-democratic writer, which was seen in many of his letters, and some of his poetry as well. in “the leech-gatherer,” wordsworth’s showing of a decrepit and poor older gentleman as wise and peaceful was something completely unheard of before-hand due to the hierarchal structure of british society. this can even be seen in the other name of this particular poem: “resolution and independence.” his “leveling spirit,” as hazlitt says, along with his pro-democratic beliefs, made the showing of any person as intelligent and unique a necessity. in the poem, after meeting the leechgatherer, the narrator says: “i could have laughed myself to scorn to find/ in that decrepit man so firm a mind” (wordsworth, lines 137-138). the leech-gatherer, who is a poor and destitute old man, would have never been shown as intelligent by many of the poets and novelists during or before the time of wordsworth, as this worked against the strict hierarchal structure of british society. although wordsworth was not the first to work scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 49 spring 2020 to bring about a change in how many viewed the poor or “lower classes,” his influence crafted through his poetry made the most impact. when he first showed the poor as intelligent, however, many seemed unsure or even upset at such an elevated and intimate view of someone of lower stature. in gary lee harrison’s book, wordsworth’s vagrant muse: poetry, poverty, and power, he writes: “wordsworth’s contemporaries’ reactions to his depiction of the rural poor—disbelief, mockery, and scorn—indicate that his audience was not fully prepared to grant the marginals and outcasts of their society a sense of character and history, a known and knowable self, and a place within the privileged space of the lyric poem” (71). what is most interesting, however, is that wordsworth became a radical on both ends of the spectrum of the day.             in the mid-1790s, wordsworth read the book, political justice, by william godwin. upon reading this book, he became a believer in the philosophy of necessitarianism, which was a radical, although not uncommon, philosophical belief at the time (chandler 258-263). william a. ulmer, in his article “william wordsworth and philosophical necessity,” says about godwin’s form of philosophical necessity that “if wordsworth believed in philosophical necessity as political justice formulated the idea and articulated its implications, he would have believed that human cognition and behavior were ultimately rational, that an impersonal obligation to the betterment of the whole remained our leading ethical obligation, that social progress was triumphantly inherent in the nature of existence” (176-177). godwin believed and wrote that superior responses to problems would automatically prevail in any given situation, leading to optimism, which wordsworth was unable to embrace. in fact, soon after being a convert, wordsworth slowly distanced himself from godwin’s works. by the time he published lyrical ballads a few short years later, he had all but abandoned the idea for something nearly opposite, with the preface to the second edition of the work, which was produced in 1800, acting, in many ways, as a critique of the belief he once held. although wordsworth’s political views were important and most certainly helped shape how many used poetry after him, it was his view of nature that became his crowning revolutionary achievement.            wordsworth lived through the brunt of the british industrial revolution. wordsworth, of course, rejected this, but his rejections go deeper than just him liking the outdoors. for wordsworth, nature was a way for humankind essentially to return to its inner self. wordsworth saw cities as a place where people were around other people so much that they, ironically, slowly lost their ability to be human. as trees fell for fuel and rivers were polluted with wastes, wordsworth saw the sanity of humankind flowing down the creek as well. this firm belief in the healing power of nature and the “necessity” of getting away from humankind for itself would quickly be picked up by poets and writers scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2020 alike in the years after him. in no uncertain terms, wordsworth could be considered one of the first major environmentalists, although he never became explicitly political with his beliefs about nature. this view soon became influential in the works of the transcendentalists in the united states, along with it being a preliminary version of existential aesthetics, or, in other words, finding meaning in the beautiful.             the change towards a belief in the meaning of the beautiful and the use of feeling as a poetic device is part of the reason why he is considered the gatekeeper to the romantic period. most of wordsworth’s poems were based upon feeling (something which many of his critics opposed), and this poetic motif of feeling bled into love, beauty, and passion. this change, more than any other, is what cements wordsworth as a revolutionary. the change from rigid and imitative poetry to free-flowing style based upon subjective and fleeting feelings is what led to the english romantic period and is why he is considered the gatekeeper to it. more than his politics, his philosophy, or even his use of language, his change towards fleeting feelings created by the observation of nature changed the way many thought about poetry.             william wordsworth is a name above many in the realm of poetry. as the hallmark of age, he completely changed the way many thought about both poetry and the world around them. as a political activist, he brought thoughts of individualism and the freedom of thought to a country that had been stifling it. as a poet, he changed both its style and themes towards something that the world had effectively never seen outside of the realm of some of the greek tragedies. in theory, he changed how one thought about human nature and tied this view to the importance of aesthetics. wordsworth was, and still is, the epitome of a genius: one who has the heart to feel the smallest things, the intellect to turn those feelings into ideas, and hands which can turn those ideas into something beautiful.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 51 spring 2020 works cited chandler, james k. wordsworth’s second nature: a study of the poetry and politics. u of chicago p, 1984. christie, william. the two romanticisms and other essays: mystery and interpretation in romantic literature. sydney up, 2016. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/j. ctt1d10h2h.7.ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hazlitt/william/spirit-of-the-age/complete.html. davies, hunter. william wordsworth. frances lincoln, 2009. harrison, gary lee. wordsworth’s vagrant muse: poetry, poverty, and power. wayne state up, 1994.  hazlitt, william. the spirit of the age: contemporary portraits. the university of adelaide, 2015. jeffrey, linda r. “writing and rewriting poetry: william wadsworth.” creative people at work: twelve cognitive case studies, edited by doris b. wallace and howard e. gruber, oxford up, 1989, pp. 69-90.  pope, alexander. “epistles to several persons: epistle iv.” poetry foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44894/epistles-to-several-persons-epistle-iv. thompson, ian h. “william wordsworth, landscape architect.” the wordsworth circle, vol. 38, no. 4, 2007, pp. 196–203. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/24045318.  ulmer, william a. “william wordsworth and philosophical necessity.” studies in philology, vol. 110, no. 1, 2013, pp. 168–198. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/24392082. wordsworth, william. “lines written in early spring.” poetry foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51001/lines-written-in-early-spring. wordsworth, william. “resolution and independence.” poetry foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45545/resolution-and-independence.      low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 51 impact of three-week educational program on low back flexibility and pain in college students lauren easley j. angela hart murdock, ph.d., and don w. morgan ph. d abstract purpose: the purpose of this study was to document the effectiveness of a three-week educational program on low back flexibility and pain reduction in college students between the ages of 18 and 30 who are at risk for low back pain. methods: fifty college students were assigned to either an experimental group that participated in a three-week educational program or a control group. subjects were assessed preand post-intervention using the following outcome measures: oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire, the fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach test, and preand post-low back pain survey. results: the majority of students decreased in low back pain and felt that the educational program was beneficial in preventing and delaying low back pain. a repeated measures anova revealed that there was no significant interaction between groups over time in low back flexibility and pain intensity, p>0.5. conclusion: an educational program for college students that increases low back flexibility and decreases pain will prevent or delay low back pain among college students. scientia et humanitas 52 spring 2011 introduction low back pain (lbp) is the second most common ailment in the united states affecting sixty to eighty percent of the american population any given year.2 previous studies have indicated the first episode of lbp occurs between the ages of 25 and 55.4 lbp takes place in the lumbar vertebrae where the vertebrae carry the majority of the body’s weight and endure a high amount of stress.2 typically, episodes of lbp are acute and non-specific. lbp duration can be categorized as acute (<6 weeks) and chronic (>12 weeks), and it is defined as specific (i.e. fracture, tumor, infection, or bulging disc) or non-specific, which implies there is not a clear, specific cause.5,6 the majority of lbp experiences can be prevented or delayed with improvements in posture, exercise, and other lifestyle habits.7 with these types of improvements in mind, we have striven to create an educational program that will provide students with information to prevent or delay subsequent episodes of lbp. risk factors for low back pain are aging, lack of physical fitness, weakness of back and abdominal muscles, smoking, obesity, low educational level, high levels of pain and disability, stress, and anxiety.6 occupational risk factors that account for most low pain experiences are manual handling, bending, twisting, whole body vibration, monotonous tasks, poor work relationships, and heavy lifting.6 effective, conservative treatments for low back pain intervention are light to moderate activity, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (nsaids), muscle relaxants, analgesics, exercise therapy, behavior therapy, spine manipulation, and multidisciplinary programs.6 in hopes of decreasing risk factors for students and increase the effectiveness of treatment students seek preventive methods that are conservative and effective such as an educational program. as described in prevention and treatment of acute low back pain: physical therapy and other non-surgical methods, we found that middle tennessee state university students were experiencing lbp as early as 18 years old and preferred conservative treatment. although there is evidence that low back education and conservative treatment are effective,4 this study seeks to measure the effectiveness of a three-week lbp education program. the program consists of lectures describing posture management, exercises, and activities. assessment of the program, including students between the ages of 18 and 30 that are at risk for lbp, is through the analysis of preand post-program surveys. we will also use a secondary measurement to evaluate the effects of the program on hamstring flexibility with the fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach test and level of back pain with the oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire. methods subjects fifty-two students participated in the study which received approval from institutional review board of middle tennessee state university. volunteers were recruited from dr. j. angela hart-murdock’s classes. subjects were separated into a control group and an experimental group. students were excluded from the study if they were not between the ages of 18 and 30 or had an oswestry© disability index score of >40%. low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 53 eligibility screening oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire for 25 years, the oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire has been considered the “gold standard” for measuring low back pain functionality.8 students completed the questionnaire assessing their pain intensity in nine modalities: while standing, conducting personal care, performing sexual acts, sleeping, lifting, walking, sitting, traveling, and socializing. subjects were included in the study if their pain score was ≤ 40%, implying that the students were categorized as having minimal or moderate disability. under these criteria subjects experience low back pain, but daily living is not affected. procedures fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach the fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach has been shown to accurately measure hamstring flexibility but cannot be used to measure low back flexibility. the objective of the test is to measure the ability of subjects to reach a specified distance on the right and left sides of the body. the student’s highest measured distance was recorded to the nearest fourth an inch. six students (three men and three women) chosen randomly from each group completed the sit and reach test. low back pain surveys prior to the lectures, both the control and experimental group completed the lbp survey (figure 1) providing information on age, experiences of lbp, posture while sitting, sleeping, standing, and lifting, and exercise history. after the experimental group completed the educational program, both groups completed another survey (figure 2) to conclude if lbp experiences changed after completing the educational program. low back prevention worksheet after completing the educational program, the experimental group was provided a lbp prevention worksheet (figure 3) that served as an overview of the lectures. the worksheet included proper posture and body mechanics, stretching and strengthening exercises, and moderate to low risk physical activities. the worksheet was given to all students for those who may have missed a lecture or did not comprehend the material during the lectures. intervention fifty-two students were separated into the control and experimental group. the control group consisted of 23 students, and the experimental group consisted of 29 students. the control and experimental groups completed the lbp survey and fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach test. the experimental group completed a three-week lbp educational program. subjects in the control group were informed about the study, but were not given instructions on how to prevent or delay lbp. both groups were reassessed and retested with scientia et humanitas 54 spring 2011 the low back pain lbp questionnaire and the back saver sit and reach at the conclusion of the study. the experimental group received a 10 -20 minute lecture once a week for three weeks. the objective of the lectures was to provide students with the knowledge to prevent or delay lbp. the lectures included information regarding lbp prevalence, forms of conservative treatment for lbp, proper posture management while sitting, driving, lifting, and sleeping, strengthening and stretching exercises that targeted low back muscles, abdominal muscles, back extensors, hip extensors, and leg muscles, and physical activities. the lectures also included videos that demonstrated the how to sit while driving and how to properly pick up an object and included pictures on proper postures and exercises. after completing the lbp educational program, students were given a lbp prevention worksheet to help retain the information from the lectures. data analysis descriptive statistics were calculated on all students to determine personal characteristics (tables 1 and 2). chi-square tests were performed to determine whether relationships existed on the basis of experiencing lbp while sitting, sleeping, standing, and lifting with the number of hours of sitting during the day, knowledge about proper postures for sitting, sleeping standing, and lifting, and improvement of postures for sitting, sleeping, standing, and lifting after completing the three-week educational program using a level of significance accepted at α=.05 (table 3). the fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach flexibility scores and oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire pain scores from the control and experimental groups were compared with an analysis of variance (anova) with two repeated measures using a level of significance accepted as α=.05. results descriptive analysis fifty-two college students participated in this study. ten of the 52 students did not complete the post-lbp survey. the majority of the students were male that completed the study, and forty-one of the forty-two students that completed the study experienced low back pain (table 2). after the three-week educational program, 63.34% of the students indicated lbp decreased compared to 42.11% decreased in lbp in the control group (table 2). using chi-square analysis, we could not reject the null hypothesis of independence of the following factors: experience of lbp when sitting and knowledge of proper sitting posture, experience of lbp when standing and knowledge of proper standing posture, experience of lbp when lifting and knowledge of proper lifting posture, experience of lbp when sitting and improvement of sitting posture, experience of lbp when sleeping and improvement of sleeping posture, experience of lbp when standing and improvement of standing posture, and experience of lbp when lifting and improvement of lifting posture (table 3). however, we conclude experience of lbp is not independent of the number of low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 55 hours a person is seated per day and experience of lbp when sleeping is not independent of knowledge of the proper standing posture (table 3). fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach a repeated measures anova was conducted to determine differences between the experimental and control groups in flexibility scores. as shown in figure 4, there was no statistically significant interaction (p>0.5) between group and time relative to flexibility score. there was no significant effects for group or time with respect to flexibility score (figure 4). oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire a repeated measures anova was conducted to determine differences between the groups in low back pain scores. as shown in figure 5, there was no statistically significant interaction (p>0.5) between group and time relative to pain score. there was no significant effects for group or time with respect to pain score (figure 5). discussion the three-week educational program used in this study appears to be effective in decreasing number of experiences of lbp among college students between the ages of 18 and 30. the educational program’s purpose was to inform students of lbp prevalence, forms of conservative treatment for lbp, proper posture management while sitting, driving, lifting, and sleeping, strengthening and stretching exercises that targeted low back muscles, abdominal muscles, back extensors, hip extensors, and leg muscles, and physical activities. the students attended one 10-20 minute lecture every week for three weeks. prior to the intervention, the majority of the students experienced lbp in the control and experimental groups (table 1). after completing the three-week educational program, a majority of the experimental group decreased in lbp and felt that the threeweek educational program was beneficial in preventing lbp (table 2). the majority of the control group did not decrease in lbp (table 2). although when using chi-square analysis we could not reject the null hypothesis for a majority of the relationships, we could conclude that experience of lbp is not independent of the number of hours a person is seated per day, and experience of lbp when sleeping is not independent of knowledge of the proper standing posture (table 3). although the repeated measures anova performed on the fitnessgram© back saver sit and reach flexibility scores and oswestry© low back pain disability questionnaire pain scores showed no statistically significant change within or between groups, there was a trend for improvement in flexibility and lbp between preand post-testing for the control group. the experimental group did not improve flexibility scores or lbp scores. this trend implied that the three-week educational program did not increase low back flexibility nor decrease level of pain for college students. although speculative, the lack of scientia et humanitas 56 spring 2011 effectiveness may be due to the short duration of the study and to the small sample size used for statistical analysis (anova). conclusion interventions that help delay and prevent lbp among college students are essential, and educational programs may be an effective option. future studies should increase the sample size of the experimental and control groups, increase the length of the education program, and require active participation during the education program by having students perform exercises and practice proper postures. although students reported when they experienced lbp by completing the pre-program lbp survey, students should record their experiences of lbp in a journal during future educational programs. a three-week educational program did not appear to have an impact on low back flexibility and pain intensity, however the majority of students from the experimental group believed the program was beneficial in preventing low back pain. an education program for college students that increases low back flexibility and decreases pain could prevent or delay low back pain among college students. acknowledgements this study was supported by the step mt grant. i would like to thank dr. j.angela hart-murdock, dr. don morgan, and elizabeth holbrook for helping me conduct the study. i would also like to acknowledge the students of dr. j. angela hart-murdock’s classes for being involved in the study. low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 57 references 1 hertling, d., kessler, r. (2006). in lippincott, williams, and wilkins, management of common musculoskeletal disorders: physical therapy principles and methods .4th ed. philadelphia, pa. 2006:843-890. 2 nieman, david c. the exercise-health connection. champaign, il: human kinetics; 1997. 3 trevathan, w., smith e., mckenna, j. (eds.). evolutionary medicine. new york: oxford university press; 1999. 4braggins, sheila. treatment and prevention of low back pain. back care: a clinical approach. london: harcourt publishers limited;2000:137-138. 5 lippincott, williams, and wilkins. exercise and activity for individuals with nonspecific back pain. in wolters kluwer, acsm’s resources for clinical exercise physiology: musculoskeletal, neuromuscular, neoplastic, immunologic, and hematologic conditions.2nd ed. baltimore, md: american college of sports medicine; 2009:148-161. 6 koes bw, van tulder mw, and thomas s. diagnosis and treatment of low back pain. bmj.com;2006;332: 1430-1434. 7 the fit back: prevention and recovery. time life education;1988;1:7-69. 8 fairbank jct, couper j, davies jb. the oswestry low back pain questionnaire. physiotherapy;1980;66:271-273. scientia et humanitas 58 spring 2011 appendix figure 1. low back pain pre-survey low back education survey 1 the purpose of this study is to survey students between the ages of eighteen and sixty years old to determine the education levels of students about low back prevention methods. for additional information about giving consent or your rights as a participant in this study. directions please answer all questions. please ask me any questions if you have any problems. 1. age 2.sex  male  female 3. race american indian or alaskan native white hispanic/ latino asian, pacific islander, or hawaiian native african american or black other 4. have you ever experienced back pain? yes no 5. how often do you experience low back pain?  daily  weekly  monthly 6. do you experience low back pain when sitting? yes no 7. how long do you sit during the day? (i.e. during class, while driving, etc.) 1-2 hours 3-4 hours 5-6 hours 7 or more hours 8. circle the correct sitting posture and box the sitting posture that you find yourself in the most. 9. do you experience low back pain when sleeping? yes no low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 59 10. circle the correct sleeping posture and box the sleeping position that you find yourself in the most. 11. do you experience low back pain while standing? yes no 12. circle the correct standing posture and box the standing position that you find yourself in the most. 13. do you experience low back pain while lifting? yes no scientia et humanitas 60 spring 2011 14. circle all of the correct lifting postures. 15. you experience low back pain more when  sitting sleeping standing lifting 16. how often do you exercise within a week?  0-1 days 2-3 days 4-5 days 6-7 days 17. does your exercise program include exercises that strengthen or stretch your abdominal exercises? yes no 18. do you feel behavioral changes will prevent or delay low back pain? yes no low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 61 figure 2. low back pain post-survey low back pain education survey 2 the purpose of this study is to survey students between the ages of eighteen and sixty years old to determine if the low back pain education lecture delayed or prevented experiences of low back pain for students. for additional information about giving consent or your rights as a participant in this study. directions please answer all questions. please ask me any questions if you have any problems. 1. age 2.sex  male  female 3. race american indian or alaskan native white hispanic/ latino asian, pacific islander, or hawaiian native african american or black other 4. did you improve your posture when sitting? yes no 5. did you improve your posture when sleeping? yes no 6. did you improve your posture when standing? yes no 7. did you improve your posture when lifting? yes no 8. have your experiences of low back pain lessened? yes no 9. do you feel improving posture lessened your experiences of low back pain? yes no 10. have you increased how many times you exercise within a week? yes no 11. do you include exercises that strengthen or stretch your abdominals? yes no 12. do you feel that the lecture was beneficial to you in preventing low back pain? yes no scientia et humanitas 62 spring 2011 figure 3. prevention of low back pain worksheet low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 63 table 1. pre-program personal characteristics for participants pre-personal characteristics control (n) experimental (n) control (%) experimental (%) sex male 11 10 52.17 65.52 female 12 19 47.83 34.48 race white/caucasian 18 18 78.26 55.17 black/african-american 4 7 17.39 31.03 hispanic/latino 0 3 0 10.35 asian/pacific islander/ hawaiian native 0 1 0 3.45 other 1 0 4.34 0 experience lbp yes 22 27 95.65 93.10 no 1 2 4.35 6.90 frequency of lbp daily 4 5 19.05 18.51 weekly 1 8 4.76 29.63 monthly 16 14 76.19 51.85 frequency of exercise 0-1 day 4 9 18.18 31.03 2-3 days 11 12 50.00 41.38 4-5 days 4 7 18.18 24.14 6-7 days 3 1 13.64 3.45 scientia et humanitas 64 spring 2011 table 2. post-program personal characteristics for participants post-personal characteristics control (n) experimental (n) control (%) experimental (%) sex male 9 7 47.37 30.43 female 10 16 52.63 69.57 race white/caucasian 14 17 73.69 73.91 black/african american 4 4 21.05 17.39 hispanic/latino 0 1 0.00 4.35 asian/pacific islander/ hawaiian native 0 1 0.00 4.35 other 1 0 5.26 0.00 experience lbp yes 19 22 100.00 95.65 no 0 1 0.00 4.35 lbp decreased yes 8 14 42.11 63.64 no 11 8 57.89 36.36 exercise increased yes 7 11 36.84 50.00 no 12 11 63.16 50.00 lecture beneficial yes n/a 21 n/a 95.45 no n/a 1 n/a 4.55 low back flexibility and pain middle tennessee state university 65 table 3. results of chi-square testing for independence in experimental group factors chi-squared value (χ2) degrees of freedom (df ) cut off value (α=.05) experience of lbp and amount of sitting per day 6.365 2 5.911 experience of lbp sitting and sitting posture 0.089 1 3.841 experience of lbp sleeping and sleeping posture 6.390 1 3.841 experience of lbp standing and standing posture 0.244 1 3.841 experience of lbp lifting and lifting posture 0.024 1 3.841 experience lbp sitting and improved sitting posture 1.317 1 3.841 experience lbp sleeping and improved sleeping posture 1.498 1 3.841 experience lbp standing and improved standing posture 0.176 1 3.841 experience lbp lifting and improved lifting posture 1.011 1 3.841 scientia et humanitas 66 spring 2011 figure 4. fitnessgram back saver sit and reach flexibility scores *significant interaction of flexibility intervention by time, p>0.5 figure 5. oswestry low back pain disability questionnaire pain scores *significant interaction of flexibility intervention by time, p>0.5 investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 57 investigating quantum computation miranda uselton abstract advancements in computer science and technology make quantum computation increasingly possible, which would result in unprecedented computational efficiency and allow quantum physicists and chemists to completely model complex quantum mechanical systems. quantum algorithms have already shown significant advantages over classical algorithms in terms of both runtime and power. quantum computation opens up new research opportunities in areas such as machine learning, mathematics, and cryptography. however, quantum computation could also pose a danger to online data security. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2019 introduction alan turing catalyzed the beginnings of computer science when he conceived the idea of a programmable machine; this was, of course, the turing machine, revealed to the world in 1936 (nielsen, 2002). since then, generations of scientists worked to bring today’s society the modern computer. with these innovations came immense progress in efficient calculations and communication. while computers today perform algorithmic tasks more quickly than turing could have ever imagined, researchers in computer science are proposing an even faster method of computation on the basis of quantum mechanical theory. these quantum computers have the potential to significantly outperform their classical counterparts and provide unprecedented computational power (bone & castro, n.d.). this paper investigates the inner workings and potential applications of quantum computers, proposes viable materials for constructing a quantum computer, discusses monetary restrictions on quantum computer construction, and assesses the impact of quantum computation on data security. background nobel laureate richard feynman first raised the idea of quantum computation in 1982 when he commented on the difficulty of simulating quantum processes (nielsen, 2002). because of the vast amount of information needed to solve the schrodinger equation and thus completely describe a quantum system calculations and simulations of more than two atoms can only be approximated. this problem inspired the creation of methods such as density functional theory (dft), a computational method that approximates quantum mechanical calculations at a high degree of accuracy (bushmarinov et al., 2017). feynman proposed that one could exactly simulate quantum systems on a quantum-based machine (nielsen, 2002). if true, this prediction provides a world of intrigue to physicists and chemists alike. for the first time, chemists will be able to calculate bond distances and energies without the use of any approximations (kassal, whitfield, perdomo-ortiz, yung, & aspuru-guzik, 2011). in order to construct a computer based on quantum mechanics, one must control individual atoms and electrons, thus achieving complete control over a quantum system (nielsen, 2002). in essence, the key to quantum computing lies in using a more easily controlled quantum system to model another quantum system (kassal et al., 2011). only three years after feynman’s proposition, david deutsch constructed a mathematical model for a quantum computer that could produce simulations of physical systems beyond the abilities of the classical turing machine (deutsch, 1985). not long after, peter shor and lov grover published their respective factoring and search algorithms, which greatly surpassed the scope of any previous classical algorithms (grover, investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 59 1997). although these and other researchers made impressive progress in the theoretical development of quantum computers, lack of viable hardware and other difficulties prevented successful construction of a physical quantum computer until recently. in 2016, international business machines (ibm), launched a cloud-based quantum computer open for public use (international business machines cognitive advantage reports, 2018). researchers are able to use the quantum computer as well as quantum computer simulators to run calculations. in making this cutting-edge technology publicly accessible, ibm hopes to encourage the advancement of quantum computation and open the door to researchers and software developers around the world. classical vs. quantum systems the fundamental workings of classical and quantum computers initially appear very similar. both types of machines process information in bits. however, two important properties distinguish a quantum system from a classical one: superposition and entanglement (nielsen, 2002). superposition is the ability to form a linear combination of two states. in a classical system, a bit is represented as either a 0 or 1. a bit can only take on one of these two states. a quantum bit (qubit), on the other hand, can form a superposition of the states 0 and 1. the state of a qubit is represented using dirac notation: α|0〉 + β|1〉.|0〉 represents the matrix , and |1 〉 represents the matrix . once measured, the qubit will take on the state 0 with a probability of α2 or 1 with a probability of β2 (coles et al., 2018). this superposition of states can be represented graphically as vectors on the bloch sphere (figure 1). superposition is integral to the mathematical operations behind quantum computation and effectively allows the computer to perform several calculations simultaneously. figure 1. the block sphere represents all the possible linear combinations of state for a qubit (nielsen, 2002). 1 0][10][ scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2019 entanglement, superposition, and several other qubit operations can be illustrated through the quantum circuit diagram (figure 2). the diagram is read from left to right, and each operation is written in the order it occurs. the horizontal lines each represent a separate qubit. boxes—called gates—represent specific operations that change the value of each qubit. mathematically, the gates are represented as matrices, and the results of each gate are obtained through matrix multiplication (nielsen, 2002). another key aspect of quantum computing is entanglement, a property in which measuring one qubit yields information about another qubit (nielsen, 2002). quantum entanglement is particularly useful when measuring a very large set of data. in a classical system, retrieving information about an entire set of data requires a large number of measurements. quantum entanglement, however, allows a quantum system to retrieve the information using only one measurement. figure 2. quantum circuit diagram, modified from massachusetts institute of technology’s quantum circuit viewer qasm. qubits and quantum circuits: investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 61 other important operations are the z-gate and the hadamard gate. table 1 gives a list of gates and their results. several operations combine to form quantum algorithms. table 1. common quantum gates and corresponding matrix forms scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2019 quantum algorithms any general computation involves an input, an algorithm that changes the input, and an output (kitaev, shen, & vyalyi, 2002). while classical algorithms must often methodically examine each input value separately, quantum algorithms exploit superposition and entanglement in order to examine several values simultaneously. because of the probabilistic nature of qubits (due to superposition), quantum computers run probabilistic algorithms with bounded error. these algorithms return a result that has a high probability of being correct (wittek, 2014). because a probabilistic algorithm does not need to return a result with 100% certainty, it does not need to measure exactly every element of the input, thus significantly decreasing computation time. this improved efficiency is known as quantum speedup—the potential for quantum algorithms to outperform classical ones by reducing the number of steps for a given process (biamonte et al., 2017). quantum speedup one of the most popular reasons for furthering quantum algorithm development. computer scientists evaluate algorithm efficiency by comparing the size of the input n to the number of calculations the algorithm requires. an algorithm is considered efficient if it runs in polynomial time, meaning the algorithm requires nx calculations where x is a constant (nielsen, 2002). on the other hand, less efficient algorithms run in exponential time, in which the algorithm requires xn calculations in order to reach the output. the two most notable algorithms that demonstrate quantum speedup are shor’s algorithm for factoring large integers and grover’s algorithm for searching randomized data sets. shor’s quantum factoring algorithm, published in 1995, factors large numbers in polynomial time, a feat that classical algorithms can only accomplish in exponential time (biamonte et al., 2017). the problem of factoring large integers has long been of interest to number theorists. while factoring may seem simple for relatively small integers (three digits or less), the problem becomes increasingly more complex as the input sizes grows. in fact, the task is so difficult that it forms the basis of several cryptosystems (shor, 1997). shor’s algorithm tackles the challenge of factoring through the use of the quantum fourier transform, a function analogous to the classical fourier transform. many computer scientists point to shor’s algorithm as a prime example of quantum speedup and the sheer mathematical power behind quantum computation. however, the application of this algorithm could mean the end to modern cryptography and data security. grover’s search algorithm tackles another sought-after mathematical feat: finding a specific value in a set of unordered numbers (grover, 1997). the most common application of this algorithm would be to find the minimum value of a list of numbers. while searching an unordered list may seem a trivial task, it proves quite difficult to classical computers. the only classical method of finding a specific value in a list would be to investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 63 examine each number in the list until the desired value is found. given a set of numbers of size n, a classical algorithm would need on average 0.5n steps to find the minimum (grover, 1997). grover’s quantum algorithm, however, is capable of finding the value in only 0√n〉 steps (grover, 1997). shor’s and grover’s algorithms provide excellent examples of the power behind quantum computation. the widespread use of quantum algorithms could uncover a world of unsolved mathematics problems and innovative methods for completing certain tasks. however, quantum algorithms are difficult to construct because most computer scientists and developers are rooted in classical as opposed to quantum physics (nielsen, 2002). ibm addresses this issue in part through the opening of its cloud-based quantum computer simulator (ibm cognitive advantage reports, 2018). public access to quantum computing software shall encourage further development of quantum algorithms. construction quantum computation serves as a classical example of theoretical research preceding experimental research. while researchers began studying quantum computation in the 1980s, major industries have only produced small quantum computers within the last several years (mullholland, mosca, & braun, 2017). many materials have been proposed for qubits, common examples being electrons in the excited or ground state, polarized photons, and particles with nuclear spin (wittek, 2014). one material that is particularly promising, however, is the single-molecule magnet (smm). the single-molecule magnet exhibits both classical and quantum properties and takes on two separate magnetic spin states, making it a viable candidate for use as a qubit (ritter, 2004). originally proposed as a new material for memory storage, the single-molecule magnet also has potential in quantum computing. a single-molecule magnet exists in two different magnetic spin states and—with enough energy—can switch between these two states (ritter, 2004). however, smms can pass through this energy barrier via the quantum tunnelling effect (ritter, 2004). by exploiting quantum tunnelling to switch the smm’s spin states, one can produce the superposition of states required for quantum computing. in addition, interactions known as magnetic exchange coupling allow for entanglement between several smms (ritter, 2004). although there are several options for materials to construct quantum computers, another challenge lies in keeping the computers running. one important facet of quantum computation is the prevention of decoherence, in which quantum materials lose functional ability through interaction with the environment. to prevent decoherence, qubits must be kept as isolated as possible. this proves difficult, however, since the qubits must interact with the environment in order to be measured (wittek, 2014). one solution to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2019 preventing outside influence is supercooling. for example, the d-wave quantum computer in canada is kept at -273 c°, a mere 0.15° above absolute zero (d-wave systems, n.d.). although extreme, methods such as this keep qubits functioning as long as possible, allowing researchers to fully explore the applications of quantum computing. if institutions want to construct and maintain quantum computers, they must also find a source of funding. while government grants and generous donors may contribute to quantum computer construction funding, the gaming industry could be the quantum computer’s strongest ally. several technologies used in scientific research today, such as the graphics processing unit (gpu) and virtual reality software, were originally released for video gaming. recreational applications are more easily understood (and often more appreciated) by the public, and thus very commercially successful. appealing to both the scientific and gaming markets could kickstart the widespread construction of quantum computers. applications of quantum computation: quantum machine learning the speedup and power behind quantum computation unlocks a world of interdisciplinary applications, especially in machine learning. the primary goal of machine learning is to program a computer to recognize and categorize data patterns. the promising aspect of quantum machine learning lies in the quantum computer’s ability to simulate quantum systems, a task classical computers cannot do. if quantum computers can produce data that classical computers cannot produce, perhaps they can also interpret patterns that classical computers cannot interpret (biamonte et al., 2017). this property would benefit several current machine learning projects, from teaching computers to recognize handwritten numbers to making a program that uses mri scans to identify mental health risks. the ability to analyze complex data patterns would even help advance research in quantum mechanics. quantum machine learning could be used to study quantum data more effectively, thus gathering even more information on quantum mechanics itself. another advantage to quantum machine learning is that general machine learning algorithms are inundated with matrix operations, calculations that form the basis of quantum mechanics (biamonte et al., 2017). as a result, quantum computers would run machine learning algorithms exponentially faster than classical computers (biamonte et al., 2017). several researchers have already written quantum machine learning algorithms and anticipate future use of quantum machine learning. consequences of quantum computation while quantum computers have the potential to provide significant advances in technology, widespread quantum computation poses several threats to cybersecurity and cryptography. because modern cryptography plays a role in nearly every online interacinvestigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 65 tion, it easily goes unnoticed. however, cryptography ensures the security of personal, corporate, and government data. passwords, credit card information, social security numbers, and private communications all fall under the umbrella of cyber secure data. cryptographic methods keep this private information safe from third-party intruders largely by exploiting the classical computer’s inability to factor large numbers easily (flannery & flannery, 2002). unfortunately, shor’s factoring algorithm demonstrates the quantum computer’s ability to break this method (shor, 1997). should quantum computers become readily available, all protected data will suddenly be at risk. incidentally, this threat has resulted in an entirely new field of research: quantum cryptography. a new field is born: quantum cryptography cryptography dates back as far as the time of caesar (flannery & flannery, 2002). one of the most popular ciphers is indeed the caesarean cipher, in which one assigns a number value to each letter of the alphabet (i.e. “a” is 1, “b” is 2, “c” is 3, etc.) and sends a message entirely composed of these numbers. the recipient of the code can then decode it based on his or her knowledge of the assigned letter values. this type of encoding and decoding is known as private key cryptography, in which two parties decide on a key that encodes and decodes the secret messages. this method will only prevent interception by a third party if the two parties can keep the key completely private. this is a difficult task, since the two parties must somehow communicate the key without being intercepted. the other main branch of cryptography is public key cryptography. in public key cryptography, each party publishes a key to encode a message, but withholds the key to decode the message (flannery & flannery, 2002). for instance, if person a wishes to send a secret message to person b, person a will simply look up person b’s public encoding key, encode the secret message, and send the message to person b. person b then decodes the message using his or her secret decryption key. making the encoding key public seems counter-intuitive, especially since many decoding keys can be inferred by reversing the encoding key. public key cryptography is a very secure method of communication, however, if one takes advantage of one-way mathematical operations. these operations are simple to do forward but very difficult to do in reverse. for example, squaring a number is a lot easier than taking the square root of a number. more complicated one-way mathematical operations form the basis of public key cryptography. one of these one-way mathematical operations involves factoring large integers. while it is elementary to multiply several prime numbers, it is much more complex to do this process in reverse by finding the factors of a very large number. the most popular encryption technique based on factorization is the rivest-shamir-adleman (rsa) technique (flannery & flannery, 2002). until recently, this method has been very secure due scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2019 to the classical computer’s inability to factor large numbers efficiently. in light of quantum computation and shor’s factoring algorithm, cryptographers are frantically searching for an encryption system that can withstand attacks from quantum computers. the solution lies in writing quantum algorithms for encryption, thus creating quantum cryptography. besides generally protecting information from quantum hackers, the use of quantum computers in cryptography provides myriad advantages. compared to classical computers, networking quantum computers require exponentially less communication to solve problems (bennett, 1992). efficient computer communication is vital for a secure cryptosystem. quantum laws such as the no-cloning theorem and uncertainty principle also provide extra security against third-party attackers. conclusions quantum computers provide innumerable advances in technology. algorithms such as shor’s and grover’s demonstrate that quantum computers can perform certain operations much faster than classical computers and reach impressive mathematical milestones. in addition, the use of quantum computers would allow quantum physicists and chemists to study and simulate quantum systems much more accurately than any classical method. machine learning would likewise benefit from quantum computation through the quantum computer’s ability to produce (and potentially interpret) complex data patterns and more efficiently implement machine learning algorithms. quantum algorithms are appealing because they allow access to novel solutions to complicated problems. shor’s and grover’s algorithms gained publicity because they could perform tasks that classical algorithms could not. there are several other quantum algorithms that do not receive as much attention because they accomplish tasks classical computers can already accomplish in a timely manner (nielsen, 2002). the most significant gain from quantum computers will be in algorithms that solve problems which classical algorithms cannot. before the world completely switches to quantum computation, however, much progress must be made. quantum algorithms require a completely different way of thinking about problem-solving. even if one does build a large-scale quantum computer, software developers must have enough knowledge of quantum theory to write code for the machines. addressing this issue, ibm’s quantum computer and quantum computer simulator encourage experimentation with quantum computer coding (ibm cognitive advantage reports, 2018). other obstacles to quantum computing include the high cost of materials and budget funding. although quantum computation has widespread applications in many fields such as chemistry, physics, and mathematics, marketing quantum computation to investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 67 the video gaming industry might propel its development the most. quantum computer developers must adapt and respond to challenges such as these if they are ever to produce large-scale quantum computers. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2019 references bennett, c. h. (1992). quantum cryptography: uncertainty in the service of privacy. science, 257(5071), 752+. retrieved from http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy.mtsu. edu/apps/doc/a12582979/ovic?u=tel_middleten&sid=ovic&xid=1de00430 biamonte, j., wittek, p., pancotti, n., rebentrost, p., wiebe, n., & lloyd, s. (2017). quantum machine learning. nature, 549, 195. doi:10.1038/nature23474 bone, s., & castro, m. (n.d.). a brief history of quantum computing. retrieved from https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol4/spb3/ bushmarinov, i., et al. (2017). density functional theory is straying from the path toward the exact functional. science, 355. 49-52. doi: 10.1126/science.aah5975 coles, patrick j., et al. (2018). “quantum algorithm implementations for beginners.” arxiv, 10 apr. 2018, arxiv.org/abs/1804.03719. deutsch, d. “quantum theory, the church-turing principle and the universal quantum d-wave systems. (n.d.). retrieved from https://www.dwavesys.com/d-wave-two-system computer.” (1985). proceedings of the royal society a: mathematical, physical and engineering sciences, vol. 400, no. 1818, pp. 97–117., doi:10.1098/rspa.1985.0070. flannery, s., & flannery, d. (2002). in code: a mathematical journey. chapel hill, nc: algonquin books of chapel hill. gómez-coca, s., & ruiz, e. (2013). a density functional theory approach to the magnetic properties of a coupled single-molecule magnet (mn7)2 complex an entangled qubit pair candidate. canadian journal of chemistry, 91(9), 866-871. grover, l. k. (1997). quantum mechanics helps in searching for a needle in a haystack. physical review letters, 79(2), 325-328. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.79.325 ibm q is an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computers for business and science. (n.d.). retrieved from https://www.research. ibm.com/ibm-q/ kassal, i., whitfield, j. d., perdomo-ortiz, a., yung, m., & aspuru-guzik, a. (2011). simulating chemistry using quantum computers. annual review of physical chemistry,62, 185-207. doi:10.1146/annurev-physchem-032210-103512 kitaev, a. y., shen, a., & vyalyi, m. n. (2002). classical and quantum computation. american mathematical society. mulhollan, j., mosca, m., & braun, j. “the day the cryptography dies,” in ieee security & privacy, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 14-21, 2017. doi: 10.1109/msp.2017.3151325 investigating quantum computation middle tennessee state university 69 nielsen, m. a. (2002). quantum computation and quantum information (10th ed.). “quantum computing prizes introduced for users of the ibm q experience.” ibm cognitive advantage reports, ibm corporation, 29 jan. 2018, www.ibm.com/blogs/ research/2018/01/quantum-prizes/. ritter, s. k. (2004). single-molecule magnets evolve. chemical & engineering news,82(50), 29-32. doi:10.1021/cen-v082n050.p029 shor, p. w. (1997). polynomial-time algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms on a quantum computer. siam journal on computing,26(5), 14841509. doi:10.1137/s0097539795293172 wittek, p. (2014). quantum machine learning what quantum computing means to data mining. amsterdam: elsevier. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2020 analysis of the airline pilot shortage victoria crouch abstract the pilot shortage in the united states currently affects airlines and pilots drastically. the airlines have been forced to implement new solutions to recruit and retain pilots. these solutions include dramatic pay raises and cadet programs. one of the most significant causes of the pilot shortage is the aviation industry’s rapid growth. other factors include the aging pilot population and high flight training costs. in addition, regional airlines, a major source of pilots for major airlines, have a historically low pay rate, which deters pilots from wanting to work for them. this situation is compounded by a lack of hiring in the 2000s for various reasons. the effects of the pilot shortage include decreased flights, loss of revenue, and closing of some regional airlines. airlines have implemented various solutions aimed at increasing the number of pilots. these include an increased pay rate, job pathway programs through universities, and guaranteed interviews or jobs. the solutions proposed will likely prove their effectiveness in minimizing the pilot shortage over the next decade.   note: this research was correct prior to the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the airline industry.   scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 93 spring 2020 a global pilot shortage currently affects not only pilots but also their employers. as a result, commercial airlines are forced to ground aircrafts because there are not enough pilots to fly them. analysts project that the airlines will be short 8,000 pilots by 2023 and 14,139 pilots by 2026 (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).   a shortage of 8,000 pilots translates to 835 grounded aircraft, and over 61 million passengers lost since 2016 (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). as a result of these substantial numbers, the airlines have implemented several new incentives and programs, including dramatic pay raises and cadet programs designed to fast-track new pilots into commercial airline pilot positions.    the purpose of this report is to analyze the pilot shortage in the airline industry. report topics include:  • causes of the pilot shortage • effects of the shortage on the airlines and pilots • proposed solutions the report concludes that airlines must find ways to hire new pilots if they are to keep up with the projected industry growth. the significant need for new pilots in the airlines will result in better opportunities for airline pilots to begin their professional pilot careers sooner and to make more money. causes of the pilot shortage several factors contribute to the pilot shortage, including the aviation industry’s rapid growth. aviation industry growth among the most significant causes of the pilot shortage is the aviation industry’s rapid growth. the federal aviation administration (faa) reports that over 16 million flights are handled yearly in the united states alone, and this number is expected to grow (faa, 2019).   from 2017 to 2018, the number of yearly passengers grew to over 1 billion, an increase of over 4.8% (faa, 2019). the growth of the number of seats occupied in flight directly reflects the growth of the industry. in 2000, aircraft capacity reached an average of 66% per flight. in 2015, aircraft capacity rose to an average of 83% per flight (nikle and bjerke, 2018).   in 2016, 42% of domestic flights in the united states were flown by a regional airline, indicating a significant number of pilots are continuously needed for the regional airlines (nikle and bjerke, 2018). if this growth continues throughout the airlines, more aircraft and pilots will be needed. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2020 lower fuel prices contributions to the growth of the aviation industry include low oil prices (nikle and bjerke, 2018). from 2014 to 2015, average jet fuel prices dropped from $2.92 per gallon to $1.53 per gallon. this decrease in fuel prices increased net profits by $18.1 billion in only one year (schipper, 2017). figure 1 shows the relationship between greater operating revenue to lower fuel costs. figure 1: graph of u.s. service passenger airlines operating revenue and expenses 20112015 source: u.s. energy information administration, based on bureau of transportation statistics. note. graph 1 above shows the decrease of jet fuel costs over time, as well as the increase in labor costs and operating revenue at u.s. airlines. source: adapted from “lower airline fuel costs reduce u.s. airlines’ operating expenses, increase net profits,” by mark schipper, february 17, 2017, p. 1. retrieved from https://www. eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30012 economic and population growth  economic and population growth in the united states over the past several years have also contributed to industry growth in terms of increasing demand for commercial airline travel (nikle and bjerke, 2018). in the united states, the real gross domestic product (gdp), or the market value of goods and services, increased by 2.9% in 2018 (duffin, 2019). during the economic recession in 2009, the real gdp decreased by -2.5% (duffin, 2019). since 2009, the real gdp has an overall increasing trend. this increasing gdp indicates more money is available for air travel (duffin, 2019). aging pilot population  another factor contributing to the pilot shortage is the aging pilot population. this situation is because of several factors. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 95 spring 2020 retirement age limit for one thing, commercial airlines in the united states mandate the pilot retirement age at sixty-five (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). thus, a pilot’s flying life in the airlines is limited. between 2017 and 2028, an average of 500 pilots per year is expected to retire because of the mandatory retirement age (thompson, 2018). retirement and medical losses other factors contributing to the loss of pilots include retirement and medical grounding as pilots retire within the next fifteen years or are grounded due to losing medical certification, the need for pilots increases (lutte and mills, 2019). the average age of us airline pilots is 50.6 years old, and almost half of airline pilots are over 50 (lutte and mills, 2019).  there is no estimated number of pilots losing medical certifications. however, the mandatory retirement age and the current average age of pilots translates to half of the current airline pilots retiring in the next fifteen years. high training requirements an additional problem contributing to the pilot shortage involves the costs in time and money to train new pilots. in 2014, the faa issued 7400 airline transport pilot (atp) certificates versus only 5300 atp certificates in 2018, a decrease associated in part with the time and money required to obtain certification (lutte and mills, 2019).   flight training and college degree costs many certificates and ratings are required by the airlines, including private pilot, instrument, commercial, multi-engine, flight instructor, flight instructor-instrument, and airline transport pilot (atp) (thompson, 2018). the flight training cost for all these ratings can be $50,000 to $100,000, in addition to the possible costs of a higher education degree (lutte and mills, 2019). this historically high flight training cost is exacerbated by federal caps on undergraduate student loans of $58,000, requiring student pilots to find private sources of funding for the remainder (lutte and mills, 2019).   in addition to the required ratings, a college degree is preferred, although not required. furthermore, a college degree increases the already high cost to become an airline pilot. a four-year degree at embry-riddle aeronautical university costs $256,000. this cost can be offset by pilots instructing other pilots for money; however, the overall high cost incurs a large amount of debt for student pilots (thompson, 2018). these high training and college costs can discourage people from pursuing a pilot career.  required flight hours along with spending large amounts of money on training, pilots must build flight hours before they can legally fly for the airlines. in 2013, the federal aviation adscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2020 ministration cited a new flight hour regulation. the united states requires a minimum of 1500 flight hours for an airline transport pilot certificate (atp), although there is an hour reduction for a restricted atp (r-atp) (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).   the r-atp is awarded through military flight time or higher education.  in 2013, 17% of regional airline pilots had an r-atp. this translates to 83% of regional airline pilots required to gain a full 1500 hours before being certified to fly for the airlines (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).  these extra required hours take more time to gain, and sometimes more money, directly delaying pilots’ careers in the airlines and the airlines’ ability to hire new pilots when they are needed. decreasing number of military pilots transitioning to commercial airlines the commercial airlines have traditionally relied on military pilots to fill their numbers since they typically have earned required certificates and flight hours through military service. however, the number of military pilots transitioning into the airlines is dropping because of a pilot shortage in the military. this decrease of military pilots suggests the airlines need to hire more pilots with a degree and r-atp to sooner meet the desired number of pilots (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).  the department of defense expects the pilot shortage to get worse over the next ten years as fewer pilots join the military. as of 2018, the marine corps was short 238 fixed-wing pilots (thompson, 2018), and the army was short 731 helicopter pilots. as of 2016, the air force was short 1,544 total pilots (thompson, 2018). these military pilot shortages are caused by several reasons, including low quality of life for military men and women, high military flight operations, and uncertain military budgets (thompson, 2018). historically low pay  another cause of the shortage includes historically low regional airline pay rates (lutte and mills, 2019). pilots are given a guaranteed minimum number of flight hours per month, which is used to estimate a yearly salary (bjerke and nikle, 2018). according to bjerke and nikle (2018), in 2012, a first-year first officer at a regional airline received about $22.00 per flight hour or $19,800 a year, with 75 flight hours guaranteed. in 2007, the lowest pay rate for a first-year first officer was only $16 per flight hour (bjerke and nikle, 2018), or only $14,400 per year (bjerke and nikle, 2018). in comparison to the pay rate at major airlines, a first-year first officer at a major airline in 2012 received an average of $59 per hour or $49,560 a year, with 70 flight hours guaranteed. the large pay gap between the regional airlines and major airlines grew when comparing contracts and pilot seniority (bjerke and nikle, 2018). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 97 spring 2020 lack of hiring during the 2000s other causes of the pilot shortage include the 9/11 attack in 2001 and the economic recession in 2008. the terrorist attack on 9/11 created a general fear of flying, despite new federal safety regulations. increased oil prices caused a rise in flight costs for passengers and operating costs for the airlines. therefore, people were not flying enough for airlines to earn the revenue needed to hire more pilots.   as a result of the lack of revenue, regional airline pilots’ careers stagnated because the major carriers were not hiring. this career stagnation proved its long-term effects when the major airlines finally hired the regional pilots, leaving the regionals short of pilots (bjerke and nikle, 2018). effects of the pilot shortage the effects of the shortage are widespread, affecting the regional airlines the most since their revenues and operating margins are smaller than those of large commercial airlines (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). regional airlines are smaller airlines that fly to smaller airports that large air carriers do not service (bjerke and nikle, 2018). loss of pilots at regional airlines regional airlines traditionally hire new pilots who need to earn more commercial flight hours before they are eligible to apply for large commercial airlines. thus, the regional airlines supply a large number of pilots to major airlines.   as the major air carriers such as delta airlines or american airlines take pilots away from the regional airlines, the pilot shortage can drastically affect the regional airlines. a study was done in 2019, analyzing how different pilot deficit numbers impact aircraft parked and passengers lost. the study, involving three different scenarios using various pilot deficit numbers, revealed that regional airline passenger and revenue losses increased when fewer pilots were flying, due to more flights being grounded (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). loss of revenue at regional airlines the loss of pilots at the regional airlines contributes to the loss of revenue at the regional airlines. the regional airlines earn revenue by agreements and contracts with major airlines, so the regional airlines are legally required to meet a certain number of flights under a major carrier (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).  in more extreme circumstances, this loss of revenue can lead to bankruptcy. in 2016, for example, republic airways filed bankruptcy because it was unable to meet the required flights because of a lack of pilots. thus, the lack of pilots required republic airways to ground more aircraft. this was a difficult situation, but it was a situation that directly resulted from the pilot shortage. furthermore, regional airlines that are unable scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2020 to make their required flights impact the major airlines, who received revenue from the regionals based on flight numbers (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).  to recruit more pilots for the shortage, airlines have to spend more money.  airlines offering incentives like higher pay and sign-on bonuses can create a loss of revenue compared to the investments they are making. these large investments toward pilot hiring and retaining were a contributor to republic airways’ bankruptcy in 2016 (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). proposed solutions for the pilot shortage in response to the pilot shortage, commercial airlines adopted several approaches, including increased pay rates and pathway programs.   table 1: us regional airline pay scale changes. note. table 1 above demonstrates that the average effective wage for a first-year first officer at multiple regional airlines grew 161% from 2007 to 2017. source: adapted from us regional airline pay scale changes, by elizabeth bjerke and alex nikle, 2018, p. 9. retrieved from https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=ijaaa increased pay rate increasing pilot salaries has been recognized as an essential solution to the pilot shortage. for one thing, regional airlines increased pay rates and bonuses starting in 2016. in december of 2017, a first-year first officer at a regional earned an average of $38.33 per hour, with the highest pay rate of $50.16 per hour at endeavor airlines (bjerke and nikle, 2018). other pay incentives include sign-on bonuses and the company paying for hotels when pilots have a layover overnight. if pilots are already certified to fly a specific regional jet aircraft, then they can receive a bonus (bjerke and nikle, 2018).  the average effective wage, which includes bonuses and incentives for the first scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 99 spring 2020 year at a regional airline in 2017, was $52,812, in contrast to 2007, when the average effective wage was $20,212. because of the pilot shortage, the effective wage increased by 161% in only ten years. table 1 shows the different wages among various regional airlines over the last ten years (bjerke and nikle, 2018). since first-year officer pay at major airlines is around twice that of regional airlines (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019), these pay increases encourage people to spend the money to train and become pilots to fly for the airlines, as well as help pilots decide which airline they want to fly for.   new pathway and recruiting programs another solution involves new recruiting programs that promote hiring through regional pathway programs as well as direct flow hiring by major carriers (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019).   regional airline pathway programs  some major commercial airlines have partnered with regional airlines to make it easier to transition directly to the major airlines. for example, after a specified time at psa (not to be confused with pacific southwest airlines) and envoy regional airlines, pilots can move directly to american airlines mainline as a first officer.   other regional airlines offer guaranteed interviews to a mainline air carrier (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). many regional airline pathway programs offer financial bonuses like tuition reimbursements for flight instructor training and retention bonuses for staying past their promotion time.   major airline pathway programs another innovative program pairs major airlines with universities and colleges that provide aerospace programs. the major airlines work with universities or higher education institutions through their pathway programs, such as delta propel, through delta airlines, and southwest airlines destination 225 (lutte and mills, 2019). these programs at the regional airlines and major airlines, referred to as “cadet pathway programs” (lutte and mills, 2019), provide mentor pilots who guide new pilots through their training and give exposure to the airline experience.   student pilots at these higher education institutions enroll in cadet programs in specific airlines, and these cadet programs are a large contributing factor to which airlines graduating pilots will pick for a job. in fact, some pilots pick schools based on the availability of partner programs at the university (lutte and mills, 2019).   many student pilots can participate in more than one cadet pathway program, allowing them to interact with more airlines. these interactions can help pilots ultimately decide which airline they want to fly for (lutte and mills, 2019). the airline owners and pilots association (aopa) looked at some of the most scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2020 recent pathway programs implemented in colleges and universities across the united states. united airlines partnered with the metropolitan state university of denver, which allows students to interview at united airlines prior to meeting the minimum flight hour requirement. students who are participating in this program will fly at one of united’s regional airlines, and, within five to seven years after their initial employment, the pilots will flow into united without an intermediate interview (tullis, 2019). jetblue partnered with embry-riddle aeronautical university to invest students in an air charter company to build time. after four years, embry-riddle graduates will fly a320s, a large aircraft that major air carriers fly. this program allows students to gain experience and the required time without going through the regional airlines. this program could exclude any hesitancy towards flying for a regional airline (tullis, 2019). major airlines are not the only major air carriers that are implementing pathway programs. both ups and fedex started programs within the last few years. ups airlines started an internship program with a small cargo carrier called ameriflight, where pilots can build time at ameriflight and advance sooner to ups. fed ex partnered with delta state university, just one of many universities, for their program purple runway. student pilots will fly for feeder cargo carriers to fedex to build time (tullis, 2019). american airlines partnered with several flight schools with their cadet program to accelerate students’ flight training. students at these flight schools interview at piedmont, psa, or envoy, who all have direct-flow into american airlines. this program does not guarantee a job, but it does provide resources to progress faster (tullis, 2019). the only difference between this program and only the direct-flow program is the timeline.  one of the most significant cadet programs is the delta propel program through delta airlines. delta is currently partnered with eight universities, including middle tennessee state university. in this program, students follow one of three pathways: • flying for a regional connection airline • job-share as a flight instructor for the student’s university and delta private jets • flying for the air national guard after forty-two months at one of these three pathways, the student is given a qualified job offer to fly for delta mainline, provided they meet federal hour minimums (delta, 2019). this program accelerates the timeline between graduation at a higher education institution and the major air carriers at a rate no other pathway program advertises.  delta propel even offers private student loans at the lowest rates available through wells fargo, another feature other pathway programs do not offer (delta, 2019).  bypassing regional airlines to major airlines a question currently up for discussion in the airline industry is whether or not scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 101 spring 2020 the regional airlines are an adequate investment to make and if the major airlines should have their own aircraft to fly the smaller routes.  instead of contracting a regional airline, delta airlines bought older, smaller aircraft with low operating costs to make those regional flights. with this solution, the initial investment is larger than that of a regional airline, but major airlines would not worry about regional airline reliability. this method of regional flying would likely increase the major airlines’ ability to recruit more pilots (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). conclusion the pilot shortage has forced airlines to find solutions for recruiting and retaining pilots (lutte and mills, 2019). the causes of the shortage include the mandatory retirement age, the high flight-hour requirement, flight training costs, and the lack of pilot hiring in the 2000s. furthermore, pilots moving from the regional airlines to the major airlines leave the regional airlines short of pilots. thus, the shortage affects both the regional airlines and major airlines by causing grounded aircraft and passengers and revenue losses. as a response to the pilot shortages, the airlines have created solutions that include higher pay-rates and innovative recruitment and training programs.     overall, these solutions, especially the cadet pathway and direct-flow hiring programs, are likely to prove their effectiveness in minimizing the pilot shortage over the next decade (klapper and ruff-stahl, 2019). over 95,000 pilots are expected to be hired within the next 20 years (nikle and bjerke, 2018), and, with these new incentives and programs, all airlines should have a fairly easy job recruiting qualified pilots.  pilots aspiring to fly for the airlines will not have to worry about finding a job over the next several years. the airlines will find them.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2020 references delta airlines. (2019). delta propel: pilot career pathway program. retrieved from https:// propel.delta.com/content/propel/en_us/collegepath.html. duffin, e. (2018, september 26). u.s. – real gdp growth by year 1990-2018. statista. retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/188165/annual-gdpgrowth-of-the-united-states-since-1990/. federal aviation administration. (2019, june). air traffic by the numbers. retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/media/air_traffic_by_ the_numbers_2019.pdf. klapper, e. s., and ruff-stahl, h. j. (2019). effects of the pilot shortage on the regional airline industry: a 2023 forecast. international journal of aviation, aeronautics, and aerospace, 6(3). retrieved from https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1321&context=ijaaa. lutte, r. k., and mills, r.w. (2019). collaborating to train the next generation of pilots: exploring partnerships between higher education and the airline industry. industry and higher education, 33(6), 448-458. doi: 10.1177/0950422219876472. nikle, a., and bjerke, e. (2018, may 12). us regional airline pay scale changes. international journal of aviation, aeronautics, and aerospace, 5(2). retrieved from https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=ijaaa. schipper, m. (2017, february 17). lower airline fuel costs reduce u.s. airlines’ operating expenses, increase net profits. u.s. energy information administration. retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30012. thompson, n. (2018). avoiding a pilot retention death spiral: the pressures of pilot shortage and department of defense retention efforts to maintain an effective fighting force [unpublished master’s thesis]. joint advanced warfighting school, virginia. retrieved from https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1051136.pdf. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 103 spring 2020 tullis, d. (2019, january 7). pilot pathways for career aviators: commercial airlines driving demand. aircraft owners and pilots association. retrieved from https://www. aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/january/07/pilot-pathways-promoted-for-future-aviators. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2020 the soldierly code: war trauma and coping in tim o’brien’s the things they carried jenna campbell field abstract tim o’brien’s the things they carried is sometimes portrayed as a work about soldiers that shows the brotherhood created in war and the ways soldiers struggle once they heroically return from a warzone; however, through a postmodernist narrative framework, the episodic novel becomes not a glorification of war but a denigration of it. o’brien’s work is steeped in the negatives that come from war and shows how those negatives impact the lives of soldiers both during and following their time in combat. further, o’brien’s novel takes the romanticized notions of war and gives them an upside-down quality to illustrate how patriotism can create isolation, the concept of duty can create murder, and following orders can make it impossible to cope with the things soldiers do in the name of survival. because the novel is fundamentally grounded in the soldier’s experience, reading o’brien’s work as a glorification of the soldier is easy, but by reading it as a denigration of the soldierly code, which privileges silence and duty over personal health and well-being, the novel expands into a search for methods of coping with trauma and perpetrator’s guilt. the postmodernist view then cements each of “the things they carried ” as a thing that has removed o’brien’s soldiers from their humanity and community. through this understanding, this paper seeks to describe the impact of the soldierly code of silence, isolation, and duty and the way each act to dehumanize o’brien’s soldiers.  * winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 17 spring 2020 “the conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” judith lewis herman introduction the effects of war on the psyche present several obstacles for the mental and emotional health of soldiers, and these are the very areas in which tim o’brien1 takes his audience in his fact-based fictive work, the things they carried. as each character is reduced to something like a shadow self, o’brien forces the narrative’s perspective on the ways his characters are dealing with the war by stripping away any romantic notion the soldier “hero” once carried. instead, o’brien focuses on the soldier not as a hero or idol but as a human who, because of war, is damaged irreparably, and his focus lies not in one aspect of war but in the entirety of it—deployment and return. by focusing his work on the entirety of the individual—body and mind—and the whole of war, o’brien can delve deeper into the traumas of war and uncover the tangled knot that renders those traumas inseparable. for o’brien’s soldiers, the effects of war are present in the ways they attempt to communicate both in the midst of and after returning from the warzone in their inability to communicate meaningfully during verbal exchanges. the inability of so many characters to communicate, however, highlights an important aspect of postmodern literature: how to communicate when there is no objective truth. what o’brien shows is that through a certain amount of psychological resilience2 and a dependency on the aspect of silence as a part of speech as well as living with perpetrator’s trauma3, a true soldier does not celebrate the war from which he or she has returned—war is not beautiful—nor does a true soldier live freely once he or she has reemerged from earthly hell only to live in isolation as a means of coping—survival is just another thing they carry.  illusory living and survival o’brien’s work offers a great deal to the field of trauma and the soldier because he refuses to color the experiences of war in anything but honesty, regardless of 1 both author and character are named tim o’brien; however, because they seem inextricably linked even if the novel is coined as a fictive work, i will refer to both by the same name without quotation marks of differentiation between the two. if attention needs to be drawn to one or the other, it will be marked within the essay.  2 psychological resilience for the purposes of this paper refers only to the bounce back mechanism which is inherent within an individuals to cope in a social environment for which they are disadvantaged. 3 according to research conducted by the whitney humanities center at yale, perpetrator trauma is “the pain associated with damage to one’s moral identity as the result of having committed an act of violence” which is the working definition used for this paper. although perpetrator’s trauma can be attributed to any act of violence, here it will be attributed only to soldiers. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2020 his fictional medium. despite alex vernon’s4 argument that o’brien’s episodic novel is allegorical to the resurrection of christ and exemplifies salvation through storytelling, this argument narrows the reading and ignores exactly what both author and characters are telling the audience—war does not bring salvation, nor can a person rise from the ashes of what was. despite the seemingly hopeful ending, according to o’brien, in storytelling, “there is the illusion of aliveness” (o’brien 230). the word “illusion” here is important as it shows that storytelling is only an escape from a reality that cannot be in the same way as ted lavender’s tranquilizers created a reality that did not exist. the stories show the mental, emotional, and psychological struggle of soldiers who had to forget living for the sake of surviving, and despite the men’s best efforts, they are only surviving in the world. for the soldiers, truth remains only in the form of memory. for o’brien’s soldiers, the dope and booze represent the men’s preference “to bury their own memories in silence or conceal what, in psychiatric terms, would be called their post-traumatic stress disorder,” because memories hold only more pain and existing but not living (eyerman et al. 32-33). in the lie, however, there is something of a brief reprieve that allows the characters to move outside of the pain of the war. hope, therefore, is overshadowed by the overwhelming sense of loss that the surviving soldiers must carry with them and that constantly reminds them of the “twenty-seven bodies altogether, and parts of several others. the dead were everywhere. some lay in piles. some lay alone” (o’brien 242).  when the soldiers return home, they do not then return to a world which is made better, as christ’s death and resurrection did, but to a world of which they are no longer a part. furthermore, the men must return to a world that is ignorant of the realities of war and to a world that does not and cannot understand their newly learned reality of death and survival, which follows them back from vietnam. unlike the soldier heroes of earlier literature, like odysseus or achilles, o’brien’s modern soldiers in the things they carried are purposefully and poignantly average. the men are not trekking over rolling scenic landscapes as they fight for love and country, because war does not necessitate love. instead, jimmy cross and alpha company dig into “the darkness” and look onto “the sullen paddies” that surrounded them (o’brien 11-12). despite the dangers that surround the men, none of them at first are disillusioned to war. instead, they are preoccupied with the lives they left behind when they left to fight in vietnam and are exemplified in the items each man carries with him in his rucksack. the tokens of home are meant to act as an anchor for the soldiers; however, the items act only 4 in his article, “storytelling, salvations, and pilgrimage in tim o’brien’s ‘the things they carried,’” alex vernon asserts that o’brien’s story is about finding salvation through storytelling and that the novel suggests a christlike allegory which begins with the trek to the cross, the death, and the resurrection.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 19 spring 2020 to isolate the soldiers further.  each of the soldiers uses their personal effects to temporarily escape the vietnam jungle; however, this escapist mentality contributes to the inability of each member to communicate or connect with another member of the unit, which is detrimental to the individual psyche. each member attempts to grasp the world that he left behind. despite the military’s insistence that “families and friends should be encouraged to write letters to loved ones, even if they do not receive replies” in an effort to maintain troop morale, there is no such insistence for soldiers to write home (ursano et al. 10). soldiers are expected to shoulder “a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility” but to maintain momentum by thinking of those things that they protect (o’brien 15). for jimmy cross, martha is the only thing present. although o’brien makes the preoccupation of love important to the story for jimmy cross in the titular episode, this preoccupation is seen both as a weakness and a failure in his character, ultimately leading to the death of one of his soldiers, ted lavender. in his mind, before lavender’s death, jimmy’s imaginary world of love is founded on a mixture of silence and a psychological resilience that has sheltered him from the realities of war. with the loss of the security and safety of that fantasy world following the death of his soldier, jimmy cross is transformed from a friend of the soldiers into the man leading the soldiers who “would accept the blame for what happened” (25).  the love between mark fossie and mary anne is shown similarly—as a destructive rather than a positive force. as mary anne joins her fiancée in the jungle, she transforms from a “pretty young girl” into something “utterly flat and indifferent” (o’brien 110). unlike the relationship of jimmy cross and the invisible martha, mary anne is real and only fades into nothingness when she unsuccessfully attempts to transition into a world in which she does not belong. further, as mary anne struggles to connect to the soldiers of alpha company and to the greenies, her psychological resilience takes over as social constructs fall away, and results in a survival tactic that creates further isolation for both the soldiers of alpha company and herself. o’brien shows this isolation and silence as “dangerous […] ready for the kill” (116). like mary anne, the soldiers are forced further into isolation and further from the social constructs which initiate a survival mechanism within the mind and the necessity to use non-verbal communication in an attempt to connect and communicate.  by stripping away the social constructs that surround a soldier during and after returning from the war, the things they carried suggests something of the way those constructs are part of that which reduces meaningful connection and communication to a rigid, militaristic standard. as o’brien shows, the soldiers are unable to process the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 20 spring 2020 world that surrounds them. the two primary examples of what should be true relationships are devolved into memory and myth rather than something that is substantial and active. these moments are the very same in which o’brien highlights the necessity of psychological resilience to cope with the changes of their reality as well as the silence and isolation imposed on the men during wartime. in an interview o’brien gave to larry mccaffrey, o’brien admits that “most people fighting there—the ordinary grunts like me—didn’t think much about issues of good and evil. these things simply didn’t cross their minds most of the time. instead, inevitably, their attention was on the mosquitoes and bugs and horrors and pains and fears” (134). ironically, the same social constructs that were altered for survival during wartime are the ones that tell the men to be silent and bear the pain and trauma of war. men especially are expected to behave like men, strong and sure, and soldiers are expected to defend their country and its identity. in this way, “the period of silence, exclusion, and oblivion, is not only a period of being ‘on hold’; such prevention of more public narrations may become part of a more social trauma itself ” (eyerman et al. xix).  despite the negative connotations associated with the words silence and isolation, silence must be understood not as something in opposition to speech but as part of speech (gere 206). the novel presents the reader with seemingly stock dialogue—a trait that is taught to members of the military in order to main classification and confidentiality for a mission objective. isolation becomes a way of life, and silence, or non-verbal communication, becomes the only language in which a soldier is fluent. the nods and gestures the men use throughout the text in order to communicate connect them to a community despite the fact they are entirely alone in their individual pain. similarly, the isolation and silence act as a means for the men to protect themselves from the “allegiance to obscenity and evil” (o’brien 69). by adhering to the code of silence and isolation and by understanding silence as a part of speech, the members of alpha company are thus able “to eliminate the ‘truth’ of speech and the ‘lie’ of silence” (gere 207). similarly, the lack of necessity tied to speech and the importance placed on isolation allows the men the opportunity to maintain their identity throughout the experience. the psychology of the soldier            the novel also does not shy away from the psychological resilience of his characters once they return from battle; however, rather than saving this important aspect of soldier survival for the end of the novel, o’brien gives his audience the first true encounter with that resilience in the second episode of the novel, “love,” ensuring that its power strikes with absolute potency and urgency. as jimmy cross and tim o’brien, the character, sit staring at “a hundred old photographs” and “neither of [them] could think of much to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 21 spring 2020 say,” both characters uncomfortably display their uncertainty of how to proceed in social situations. both men similarly portray the disconnectedness from the world where their shared military experience has excluded them. although the men try to forget the days of their time in vietnam, “atrocities […] refuse to be buried” (herman 1). despite both men’s desire to move beyond what happened, it sits at the forefront of their silence and in all the things which neither of them says. their agreement, “not to mention anything about—” war and the deaths of the men, shows their psychological resilience to acknowledge the horrors of war while being disadvantaged on how to discuss those horrors.            this idea of psychological resilience, though present in each of the stories within the novel, is similarly powerful in a later episode, “field trip,” in which tim o’brien, the character, returns to the field where kiowa was killed. although o’brien is with his daughter at the time, his mental and emotional isolation within the story suggests a kind of dissociative moment in which internally rather than external fragmentations of his time as a soldier come back. while his daughter begs to leave, o’brien loses himself in the past as he tells her to “stay put” while he swims in a marsh searching for the areas where kiowa had been (o’brien 186). in o’brien’s traumatized memory from his time in vietnam, he searches not just for what was but a way to unmake the present in which he lives. by revisiting the site of kiowa’s death, he shows a wavering psychological resilience that allows him at once to function—a strong resilience—within his present reality but lose himself in his past—a faltering resilience.             through the protagonist, o’brien shows that the effects of war trauma on an individual can vary; however, one of the markers that the individual is coping and progressing toward strong mental health is the very resilience mechanic is one in which the novel seems deeply interested. although the two stories mentioned above show much stronger markers of this resilience, the novel itself acts as a testament to the psychological state of the characters. just as there is an illusion of aliveness, the fragmented and disordered presentation of the episodes presents an illusion of mental stability. what o’brien gives the audience is an incomplete photo because it “is difficult for an observer to remain clearheaded and calm, to see more than a few fragments of the picture at one time, to retain all the pieces, and to fit them together. it is even more difficult to find a language that conveys fully and personally what one has seen” (herman 2). these are the very struggles with which o’brien appears to fight; however, the mark of the work’s overall psychological resilience to the effects of war is that he “had something to say: [he] had witnessed things, smelled things, imagined things which struck [him] as startling and terrifying and intriguing in all sorts of ways,” and he shared them (mccaffrey 131). rather than shrink into hopelessness and despair and rather than remain a silent soldier, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 22 spring 2020 o’brien’s work tackles those very traumas, real or imagined, which continue to plague soldiers following a war. wartime guilt and perpetrator’s trauma            although perhaps most prominent, psychological resilience and silence are not the only major traumatic elements that the novel examines. one of the more difficult traumas comes in the form of perpetrator’s guilt. most research into war trauma or violent, traumatic experiences seeks to understand the victim’s trauma and experience; however, in “the man i killed,” o’brien tries to understand the trauma felt by the perpetrator of the violence. despite the conversation between the men, the voice of o’brien is not heard physically. instead, o’brien’s feelings come through in the account of the details of the dead man. o’brien imagines an entire life for the man and holds those ideas close to him (o’brien 128). because a soldier should compartmentalize the deaths of casualties of war and of “tangos,”5 the introspection of o’brien’s character is moving as it shows that no amount of military training can prepare a person for the outcome of skirmish. further, o’brien’s internalized feelings demonstrate his guilt in taking the life of another human.             o’brien also portrays perpetrator’s guilt in the character of mary anne as a bastardized reflection of his own experience. returning to the episode “sweetheart of the song tra bong,” mary anne’s perpetrator trauma synthesizes in what can only be described as a mental break in which hung “at the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues” (o’brien 110). rather than attempt to humanize her victims, mary anne equates them to objects that can be bought and sold. she retreats farther into isolation and farther from her own humanity as a means of escaping the trauma that comes with taking a life. rather than feel remorse, mary anne’s reveling in the atrocities she commits should not be seen as a true enjoyment of the acts she has committed but as a phsycohological reactionary response to those acts she has committed. the primary difference that separates mary anne from tim o’brien and the other men is a lack of military training and preparation for the atrocities of war on her part. this key difference enables mary anne’s trauma to break through her limited psychological resilience in war to distort and dehumanize her and her actions.             the perpetrator’s trauma o’brien highlights is not simply for the actions that the men have committed but also embodies the inactions of the men. jimmy cross, whose failures as a leader culminate in the death of ted lavender, exemplifies perpetrator’s trauma, and the trauma acts as a transformative catalyst which propels him and the men to return to the military norm (o’brien 24-26). although o’brien uses the idea of perpetrator trauma sparingly, its effects are no less evident in the impact it has on the 5 a general term for targets used by the united states armed forces.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 23 spring 2020 different characters throughout the text. perpetrator trauma, like silence and isolation, should not be viewed as a negative reaction to one’s actions but instead as a transformative reaction to one’s own actions. o’brien’s displays of varied reactions show a lack of objectively true results for dealing with the atrocities a person commits and suggests that each individual experience will ultimately reflect the level of psychological resilience a person has and the level of isolation to which a person has been subjected, voluntarily or otherwise. through the reactions, a person—in this case, a soldier—will either reconnect to humanity or reconnect to one’s animal nature. neither, however, is wrong.             the final piece of o’brien’s coping puzzle comes in the form of isolation. although the idea of isolation is tied to each of the other ideas, silence, psychological resilience, and perpetrator’s trauma, it should be explored as an entity of its own. isolation in o’brien’s episodic novel is evident throughout. through isolation, the men are viewed not as a whole, nor as a a unit, but as individuals. the description of the items the men physically carry with them into the jungles of vietnam suggests something of the individuality that the military struggles to banish (o’brien 14). as o’brien shifts the frame of his narrative from an organized military unit to that of an individual with only the purpose of survival, the isolation of the men becomes the central focus of the work and the basis of his search for truth within his own experience.            the episode “how to tell a true war story,” which details o’brien’s attempt at connecting with another through the understanding of an experience, describes the necessity of isolation both in the guise of objective truth and in the reality of subjective truth. through a search of “what happened from what seemed to happen,” o’brien seems to describe himself not as a narrator but as an observer of his own life (71). because of influences of the mind, o’brien is ultimately isolated even from his own experiences and must rely on his understanding of those experiences in an attempt to form meaningful connections with his present reality. further, o’brien is unable to translate his understanding of his experience to those who have not been trained in a militaristic sense, because “[they weren’t] listening” (85). there is an impossibility for soldiers, which is created through training, to describe in concrete terms the events and effects of life in a wartime situation. what o’brien shows is that it is not only a lack of understanding in interpreting those events but also in communicating the experiencer’s truth. in isolation, there is no “final and definitive truth” (76). isolation is an “inescapable experience,” which separates all people (chen 80). despite the author and the character’s best intentions, truth is lost in both telling and understanding, and isolation is all that can remain from such an exchange.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 24 spring 2020 conclusion            the power of o’brien’s narrative to move the reader is undeniably rich, but to read the things they carried outside of the context of the postmodernist framework is to miss the arguments o’brien brings about speech, isolation, trauma, resilience, and truth. o’brien’s text is rich with trauma theory, but it is the ways in which the different aspects of trauma and coping combine to reduce the ability to form an objective truth on these abstracts that move the text outside of the space of allegorical representations and into a space of searching and understanding. the novel’s preoccupation with the intersection of these elements, which alter the ways in which the soldiers communicate and connect to the world, highlights one aspect which the postmodernist movement strives to illuminate—redefining reality in the absence of objective truth. although o’brien shows the soldiers as a part of a community, the military and the unit, they are separated by individual experiences and reactions to those experiences. because of the postmodern framework and his search for truth, o’brien is able to draw conclusions about his time in vietnam. those conclusions serve not only as an attempt to communicate with the rest of the world his truth but also as a means of understanding and coping with his personal reality. o’brien’s understanding appears to suggest that coping is inextricably tied to finding meaning in isolation, silence, psychological resilience, the trauma one experiences from his or her own actions, and individual truth. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 25 spring 2020 works cited chen, tina. “’unraveling the deeper meaning’: exile and the embodied poetics of displacement in tim o’briens the things they carried.” contemporary literature, vol. 39, no. 1, u of wisconsin p, 1998, pp. 77-98. jstor, www.jstor.org/ stable/1208922. eyerman, ronald, et al. “the trauma of the perpetrators? politics, ethics and representation.” 2014, http://whc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/traumaoftheperpetratorworkshop2015.pdf. eyerman, ronald, et al. narrating trauma: on the impact of collective suffering. paradigm, 2011.  gere, anne ruggles. “revealing silence: rethinking personal writing.” college composition and communication, vol. 53, no. 2, national council of teacher of english, 2001, pp. 203-223, jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/359076. herman, judith l. trauma and recovery: the aftermath of violence from domestic abuse to political terror. perseus books, 1997.  mccaffrey, larry. “interview with tim o’brien.” chicago review, vol. 33, no. 2, 1982, pp. 129-149. 10.2307/25305144. o’brien, tim. the things they carried. houghton/mifflin. 1990. ursano, robert j., et al. stress and coping with war: support provider and casualties of operations desert shield/storm. department of military psychiatry, 1992. vernon, alex. “salvation, storytelling, and pilgrimage in tim o’brien’s the things they carried.” mosaic: an interdisciplinary critical journal, vol. 36, no. 4, u of manitoba p, pp. 171-188, jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/44030002. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 26 spring 2020 nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality middle tennessee state university 71 nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality jess bennett abstract from a theoretical standpoint, queer sexual categories remain in the wake of michel foucault’s the history of sexuality. however, foucault’s work in the three volumes of the history of sexuality primarily focus on a gender binary of male and female. one may find this logical under the false assumption that gender-fluid categories are a recent advent, but such an assumption excludes figures such as the native american berdache, a third gender category. to complicate matters further, this gender identity is not set to a fixed sexual preference. native american literature that explores both the gender and sexual fluidity of the berdache includes texts such as the navajo creation myth as told by irvin morris in from the glittering world and a selection from “the winnebago trickster cycle” recorded in paul radin’s the trickster: a study in american indian mythology. through a comparative reading of these texts as well as foucault’s the history of sexuality, we see how foucault’s work could be expanded by incorporating a discussion of non-binary genders. ultimately, this project explores the gap of gender difference in foucault’s work by examining the role of the berdache in native american society and literature. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2019 introduction from a theoretical standpoint, queer sexual categories remain at the foreground of michel foucault’s work. his influential history of sexuality provides both queer scholars and queer individuals who are not associated with the academy an analytical arsenal by which to measure the systems that has defined their sexuality and designated their desires as “sinful” or “inappropriate.” more recently, though, queer discourse has favored a shift from sexual liberty to gender identity. in a “talks with google” lecture, transgender author thomas page mcbee asks, “how do we become more than what’s ‘sold’ to us? meaning, we have an understanding of what masculinity means, but where do we get that understanding?” devoted readers of foucault may recognize the institutional implications in mcbee’s use of the expression “sold to us.” in particular, his phrase suggests that powerful institutions govern the dissemination of gender identity, a foucauldian principle. mcbee goes on to say that gender is innate and that “we, in a lot of ways, are born with some understanding of who we are in the world, but the way we embody that gender is something we have a lot of choice around.” once again, foucault’s readers can mark the connections between mcbee’s suggested formation of gender identity and foucault’s notion of agency in the utilization of sexual identity. and yet, foucault makes little to no mention of alternative, “non-binary,” genders or the construction of gender in the three volumes of the history of sexuality. of course, foucault’s theories could not be expected to employ gender discourse that gained prominence several decades after his death, let alone the publication of history of sexuality. however, non-binary gender categories are by no means exclusive to current formations of gender identity that allow the individual greater agency in recognizing and challenging a strict gender binary. for example, the berdache, a figure who represents non-binary native american individuals, predates the victorians foucault describes as disseminating the restrictive discourse on sexuality still mirrored today. furthermore, native american literature chronicles the presence of the berdache and resonates well with foucault’s theories. this literature includes texts such as the navajo creation myth as told by irvin morris in from the glittering world and a selection from “the winnebago trickster cycle” recorded in paul radin’s the trickster: a study in american indian mythology. morris’s telling of the navajo creation story uniquely complicates some of the notions on power and control in the first volume of foucault’s history of sexuality, while radin’s trickster tale adds to the conversations presented in the latter two volumes, the use of pleasure and the care of the self. this project does not aim to discredit any of foucault’s critical notions involving the construction of sexual identity as a means of power and control. rather, i mean to explore the gap of gender difference in foucault’s work by nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality middle tennessee state university 73 examining the role of the berdache in native american society and literature. clarifications before delving into the specific literature mentioned above, our knowledge of the berdache in relationship to foucault’s eras of interest bears exploration. one could make the convenient argument that the berdache as a historical figure precedes foucault’s chronological focus. after all, foucault stresses that his research, at least for the first volume, stems mainly from the “modern epoch” (12), which ran from 1500 c.e. to 1800 c.e. to be fair, the mythology of the berdache comes well before the modern era, but the introduction of the berdache to western thought falls within the appropriate time span. when europeans of the 1500s began exploring the americas for colonization, they encountered native culture firsthand, including native sexual cultures and gender roles. in particular, cabeza de vaca recorded his thoughts on native american same-sex couples: “i saw a wicked behavior, and it is that i saw one man married to another, and these are effeminate, impotent men” (132). de vaca’s description readily uses marriage and reproduction, which nicely corresponds with the binal institutions to which foucault draws attention: “the legitimate and procreative couple laid down the law” (3). also, the word “berdache” itself bears european influence. according to native american scholar midnight sun, the term “berdache” is “derived from a persian word meaning ‘kept boy’ or ‘male prostitute’ and [was] first applied by french explorers to designate ‘passive’ partners in homosexual relationships between native american males” (34). evidently, the same european powers that govern the categorization of sexuality in foucault’s first volume also lent their hand to the western categorization of native american non-binary genders, revealing that an analysis of berdache literature can clearly coexist in the realm of foucault. there is also an important distinction between western and native american categorization that needs clarification if one is to analyze berdache literature respectfully. where a western person sees a sexual category, a traditional native american may see a gender category. in different native american cultures, the berdache is seen as a separate gender category altogether, even though sexual inclinations may indicate this gender identity. midnight sun clarifies that the sexual identification of the berdache “is complicated, however, by the fact that many individuals labeled berdaches also engaged in cross-dressing and cross-gender behavior. most ethnographers have interpreted this behavior as indicating the assumption of another gender role” (34). in this case, “cross-gender behavior” includes taking up obligations that would normally be performed by the opposite gender of one’s birth; a native american man born with a disposition for “women’s work,” such as agriculture or the creation of tools and baskets. may be considscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2019 ered a berdache. furthermore, as native american scholar maurice kenny points out, same-sex attraction did not necessarily mark one as a berdache: “it is known that the indian berdache sometimes married their own sex and lived together, and the ‘husband’ was not always a fellow invert” (17). finally, european colonization narratives also bear this distinction, albeit subtly. even though de vaca initiated his description by emphasizing sexuality and partnership, he also states that the berdache “go about covered like women, and they perform the tasks of women, and they do not use a bow, and they carry very great loads. and among these we saw many of them, thus unmanly as i say, and they are more muscular than other men and taller; they suffer very large loads” (132). de vaca’s word choice clearly indicates his awareness that the berdaches he saw were participating in work that was usually performed by female members of the community. though homosexuality does not always a berdache make, the berdaches mentioned in this literature, specifically by radin, participate in sexual activity that complicates foucault’s work, as will be seen. volume 1: the history of sexuality foucault opens the first volume by singling out the institutions that kept european sexuality in check: “if sex is so rigorously repressed, this is because it is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative. at a time when labor capacity was being systematically exploited, how could this capacity be allowed to dissipate itself in pleasurable pursuits, except in those—reduced to a minimum—that enabled it to reproduce itself ?” (6). foucault’s reasoning relies on a society acutely aware of and bound by reproduction. prior to colonization, native american tribes grew to such an extent that their cultures managed to mold enclaves for the berdache that bypassed foucault’s theoretical interest in reproduction. according to maurice kenny, the sioux and cheyenne tribes held notable third-gender cultures for “no particularly good reason . . . other than the possibility that these were large and powerful tribes . . . within such large groups a social-religious use could be found for the berdache. as there were enough warriors and hunters to both protect and feed the community, some males were allowed to pursue more gentle endeavors” (17). though not mentioned by kenny, the navajo, another large tribe, successfully integrated the berdache into its religion and literature, as evidenced by the navajo creation story. regarding the role religion can play in forming sexual identities, foucault draws attention to the introduction of confession to european christianity. foucault states, “an imperative was established: not only will you confess to acts contravening the law, but you will seek to transform your desire, your every desire, into discourse” (21). whereas european christian configurations of desire rely on confessional discourse, the navajo nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality middle tennessee state university 75 religion uses the religious discourse inherent in creation myths, here rendered by irvin morris, to incorporate queer identity into the fabric of their culture. towards the beginning, first man and first woman give birth to more humans, the berdache among them: “in four days a pair of twins were born to them, and these first children were nádleeh, those who have the spirit of both male and female. only the first pair were like that. in four days, another pair of twins were born, and so on” (38). by incorporating the berdache, here called the nádleeh, the navajo utilize their religious discourse to suggest that non-binary genders have existed since creation, thus codifying and introducing the idea of a third gender. in addition to this codification, the navajo creation myth also includes an alternative to foucault’s interest in reproduction. according to morris, “[first man and first woman] planted great fields of corn and other crops. they also built an earthen dam, and the nádleeh were appointed to be its guardians; while they watched over the dam they created beautiful and useful things, pottery and basketry, and the people praised these inventions. for eight years they lived in comfort and peace” (39). it bears mentioning that mortality has not been introduced to humanity at this point in the myth, so reproduction is not as major a concern. even so, utility through craftsmanship, the promise that an individual can benefit the tribe through some form of work, validates a person’s presence within the tribe. whereas foucault’s configuration of european culture empowers reproduction as the deciding factor of a union’s validity, the navajo culture expresses more concern with craftsmanship. morris further demonstrates the utility of the berdache when early navajo men set out to discover more land: “the men agreed and gathered up their tools and all the things they had made. first man, recalling the industriousness of the nádleeh, invited them to come along, and they brought their grinding stones, baskets, cooking utensils, and other useful implements” (39). evidently the berdache’s inability to reproduce does not exclude it from the powers that disseminate validity among the tribe’s identities. as the creation story continues, the berdache’s utility is illustrated as not only useful, but essential to the tribe’s ability to function. for example, unrest occurs at the passing of one of the nádleehs: one morning not long [after the promise of mortality was introduced by the animal spirit coyote], they noticed that one of the nádleeh had stopped breathing. this was the first death. with instructions from the holy people, they prepared the body and placed it in a rocky crevice. at about the same time, there was a dispute with the kiis’áanii [the pueblo peoples] over the seed corn that had been brought from the lower world, and the groups separated because of it. (41) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2019 though in theory there should be at least one remaining nádleeh, it seems that no industrious nádleeh was at hand to circumvent the issue with the pueblo peoples. morris’s juxtaposition of these events hearkens to anthropological studies previously conducted on the navajo. in addition to navajo literature, anthropologists also describe the nádleeh’s importance. for example, anthropologist willard w. hill states “i think when all the nadle are gone, that it will be the end of the navajo . . . if there were no nadle, the country would change” (274). evidently, the navajo creation myth utilizes religious discourse to illustrate the importance of a non-binary gender as not only useful, but also a spiritual necessity for safety and well-being. in contrast to foucault’s work, which historicizes the power of religious discourse in identifying sexual desire, the navajo creation myth relies on both religious and gendered discourse as the means of establishing the nádleeh as a role within the tribe. volume 2: the use of pleasure the second volume of foucault’s trilogy, the use of pleasure, shifts the focus from the modern era to ancient greece. whereas the first volume focuses on how modern europeans devised the institutions through which the dissemination of sexual discourse empowered certain sexual identities, the last two volumes examine a period that pre-dates the modern epoch to illustrate how foucault’s theories can be applied to different historical periods. as its title suggests, the second volume explores how pleasure and ethics also act as institutions that figure into sexual discourse. while morris generally excludes the sexual activity of the nádleeh, paul radin demonstrates in “the winnebago trickster cycle” that the berdache participates in and complicates the construction of sexuality. before delving into the intimate connections between the use of pleasure and “the winnebago trickster cycle,” the premises purported by foucault and radin require further elaboration. in order to characterize the joint role that pleasure and ethics play in sexual identity, foucault states that “what distinguished a moderate, self-possessed man from one given to pleasures was, from the viewpoint of ethics, much more important than what differentiated, among themselves, the categories of pleasures that invited the greatest devotion” (187). foucault’s analysis of greek sexuality finds that the object of one’s desire did not hold the same weight as one’s ethical pursuit of that desire. moderation and context worked in tandem to draw the ethical borders of appropriate sexual activity. foucault applies these borders to illustrate how a man of ancient greece could have intercourse with both women and men (particularly younger men) without being assigned a separate, “unethical” sexual category. radin complicates this configuration by presenting a berdache figure that operates as both male and female. in contrast to the human nádleeh, the winnebago trickster is nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality middle tennessee state university 77 a supernatural being who can physically transition between sexes. for example, “trickster now took an elk’s liver and made a vulva from it. then he took some elk’s kidneys and made breasts from them . . . then he let the fox have intercourse with him and make him pregnant” (79). the winnebago construction of the berdache, according to radin, possesses even greater fluidity than foucault’s ancient greeks because trickster evades both a firm sexual categorization as well as a singular gender identity. therefore, trickster and the berdache in general can enjoy greater fluidity within the tribe’s categorization of sexuality and gender. now the question remains as to what pleasure trickster and his befriended animal spirits get out of gender-swapping, and whether this pleasure is considered ethical by the winnebago. in the context of radin’s telling, trickster, with the aid of his animal spirits, becomes a woman to seduce a wealthy chief ’s son, ensuring they would have food and shelter to last the winter. from this summary, one may draw the conclusion that their motives lack pleasurable intent. however, when trickster presents his scheme to the animal spirits, they respond by shouting “‘good!’ . . . all were willing and delighted to participate” (78). radin’s use of “delight” calls for some ambiguity: one could argue that their delight stems from the assurance that they will be fed, but radin also draws attention to their delight in participation, suggesting some degree of pleasure in the physical, sexual processes by which they plan on deceiving the chief ’s son. however, this pleasure, particularly the deceitful means by which it is achieved, is not ethical to the winnebago. trickster blows his cover while preparing a meal: “the chief ’s son’s wife (trickster) jumped over the [cooking] pit and she dropped something very rotten [ostensibly the vulva crafted from the elk’s liver]. the people shouted at her, ‘it is trickster!’ the men were all ashamed, especially the chief ’s son. the animals who had been with trickster, the fox, the jaybird, and the nit, all of them now ran away” (80). a western reader may intuit this shame as indication that the men of the tribe had been sexual with trickster and are now shocked at their own intercourse. however, this claim does not match the culture of the winnebago. according to cultural historian will roscoe, the winnebago tribe has a berdache figure capable of receiving visions and dealing wisdom (13). therefore, the winnebago are familiar with non-binary genders, distinguishing the shame felt by the men of the tribe as that of confusion or hurt at being deceived by a more spiritually powerful being. furthermore, the fact that trickster and his friends ran away after being discovered demonstrates a mutual understanding that their deceitful behavior was unethical. ultimately, radin’s work expands foucault’s theories by demonstrating how pre-modern individuals who possessed gender fluidity had an ethical responsibility not to use their fluidity in pleasure-seeking to manipulate and deceive other individuals. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2019 volume 3: the care of the self the final volume in foucault’s trilogy returns to ancient greece as a means of observing the formation of the individual. foucault finds that in responding to concerns of sexual identity, individuality answers to the following three factors: (1) the individualistic attitude, characterized by the absolute value attributed to the individual in his singularity and by the degree of independence conceded to him . . . [by] the institutions to which he is answerable; (2) the positive valuation of private life . . . the importance granted to family relationships, to the forms of domestic activity, and to the domain of patrimonial interests; (3) the intensity of the relations to self, that is, of the forms in which one is called upon to take oneself as an object of knowledge and a field of action, so as to transform, correct, and purify oneself, and find salvation. (42) trickster’s decisions after being found out mirror these three factors with some important differences to the third. after running away from the tribe he deceives, trickster asks himself, “‘well, why am i doing all this? it is about time that i went back to the woman to whom i am really married. kunu must be a pretty big boy by this time.’ . . . trickster hunted game for his child and killed very many animals. there he stayed a long time until his child had become a grown-up man” (80). regarding foucault’s first factor, trickster understands that he is answerable to his family, and while he has enough agency to wander from them, he recognizes that he must return from time to time. the consideration shown by trickster exhibits tenderness not present in his previous, deceitful actions; therefore, his decision to return to his family evokes a sense of well-being and personal development. the second factor expresses the valuation of private life and “patrimonial interests,” which are evident in trickster’s decision to provide for his family by hunting. both factors expressed by foucault resonate cleanly with radin’s work. in the third factor, however, foucault explains that individual care provides a salvation or purification of oneself, but trickster’s decision does not aim for personal purification. as previously stated, the berdache within winnebago culture is a mystic figure useful for instruction, which is more apparent in trickster’s decision to stay until his son is grown: “then, when he saw that his child was able to take care of himself, he said, ‘well, it is about time for me to start travelling again for my boy is quite grown up now’” (80). the first volume distinguishes reproduction as the necessary means for perpetuating society, yet radin’s piece shows that instructional attention to younger generations plays a role in this perpetuation and that this perpetuation replaces the purification called for in nádleeh and trickster: accounting for the absence of non-binary genders in foucault’s history of sexuality middle tennessee state university 79 foucault’s configuration of the self. furthermore, foucault connects this need for purification with the realization that one is an object of knowledge and a field of action. the only need tantamount to this in trickster’s story is when he and his companions decide that they need food and shelter for the winter. when trickster accepts that the world will soon become difficult to live in, he says “‘i will disguise myself as a woman and marry [the chief ’s son]. thus we can live in peace until spring comes’” (78). as opposed to purification, trickster seeks fortification by assuming the field of action that a winnebago woman would take. overall, both his need to educate his son and his decision to transition into a woman stem from awareness of his own gender fluidity. conclusion foucault’s history of sexuality establishes a foundational framework for examining the power inherent in controlling sexual discourse. however, in establishing this framework, foucault does not account for the discourse by which individuals determine gender identity and the roles of that gender within a society. berdache literature, such as the navajo creation myth and “the winnebago trickster cycle,” exemplifies how the inclusion of non-binary gender categories complicates foucault’s work. as a concluding note, one could argue that the berdache lacks validity in this conversation due to its supernatural abilities, but this claim ignores both how this literature codified a place for non-binary genders in native american culture and that this literature precedes contemporary discourse on alternative genders. when reflecting on his memoir of physical transitioning, thomas mcbee says, “i wasn’t interested in specifically writing the ‘trans experience,’ but i was interested in writing about the male experience and the human experience, and i think gender is just one powerful dimension of identity, and just a way for me personally to examine that.” today gender plays a pivotal role in distinguishing one’s sexual identity, so when considering theoretical texts such as foucault’s that examine the construction of sexual identity, literature that observes gender identity belongs within the same conversation. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2019 works cited de vaca, álvar núñez cabeza. the narrative of cabeza de vaca. u of nebraska p, 1999. foucault, michel. the history of sexuality, volume 1: an introduction. vintage, 1990. —. the use of pleasure. vintage, 1990. —. the care of the self. vintage, 1988. hill, willard w. “the status of the hermaphrodite and transvestite in navaho culture.” american anthropologist, 37, pp. 273-79. kenny, maurice. “tinseled bucks: a historical study in indian homosexuality.” living the spirit: a gay american indian anthology, edited by will roscoe, st. martin’s press, pp. 15-31. morris, irvin. “hajíínéí (the emergence).” the norton anthology of american literature: beginnings to 1820 9th ed., edited by robert s. levine, norton, 2017, pp. 36-43. radin, paul. “the winnebago trickster cycle.” the norton anthology of american literature: beginnings to 1820 7th ed., edited by nina baym, norton, 2007, pp. 78-83. roscoe, will. changing ones: third and fourth genders in native north america. st. martin’s press, 1998. sun, midnight. “sex/gender systems in native north america.” living the spirit: a gay american indian anthology, edited by will roscoe, st. martin’s p, pp. 32-47. “thomas page mcbee: ‘man alive’talks at google” youtube, uploaded by talks at google, 12 december 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw0xvyqhlwu&t=635s. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 106 spring 2020 the relationship between religion and politics in a globalizing world elizabeth katelynn baggett abstract  religion plays a powerful role in modern politics, and the relationship between the two is everchanging. the governing of a state cannot be separated from the religious views of its people that affect the leaders and lawmakers of a country. law mirrors society. this paper explores the ways that religious beliefs, practices, and communities shape and are shaped by the political expectations and necessities of a nation by using examples from major world religions. readers will be presented information regarding each religion’s perception of the relationship between religion and politics and how religious adherents have upheld or opposed the relationship. because religion and politics are always changing and adapting, the foundational ideologies of the relationship between these two entities are continually challenged, reimagined, modified. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 107 spring 2020 introduction according to robert swierenga, “people act politically, economically, and socially in keeping with their ultimate beliefs. their values, mores, and actions, whether in the polling booth, on the job, or at home, are an outgrowth of the god or gods they hold at the center of their being” (wald 2018: 39). swierenga presents an overarching theme of how religion holds significant influence over every aspect of life. religion has the power to affect individuals’ everyday decisions, which in turn affects how they act politically, economically, and socially. the focus of this paper will be on the relationship between religion and politics. both religion and politics are “living” entities, which means they function as independent beings that adapt and change to their environment just as a human being does. together the two have an overwhelming effect on individuals, communities, countries, and even the globe. religion and politics function as a symbiotic relationship that both have the potential to benefit or harm one another mutually. this paper will use seven world religions to show the history and infusion of politics into modern religion.  application of terms before one can understand the relationship between religion and politics, one must have an understanding of the concepts themselves. the words “religion” and “politics” can mean something uniquely different to each and every individual. understanding the relationship between religion and politics is challenging, considering that both have dynamic definitions. according to the cambridge dictionary, religion is the belief in and the worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship. while it is common to define religion simply as a system of belief, religion is infinitely more than that. religion is a way of life that has the power to its every aspect. religion is an identifier that connects individuals to the community around them, individuals across borders, their ancestors, and an imagined world existential to earth. with that, one can see how religion can have such an instrumental hand in politics. the cambridge dictionary defines politics as the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed. this definition is much broader than common definitions of politics. the definition includes branches of politics that are not specifically involved in the government. for example, the definition allows readers to place non-governmental organizations and military regimes into every day political action. political globalization over time, religion and politics have changed and adapted in order to accommodate the needs of society better. modernization and globalization have been the main facilitators of changing societal needs. globalization is yet another word that is difficult to define. a broad definition of globalization is a complex web of social processes that scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2020 intensify and expand worldwide economic, cultural, political, and technological exchanges and connections (campbell 2010: 4). in relation to religion, globalization can be better defined as the process in which people, ideas, and goods spread throughout the world, spurring more interaction and integration among the world’s cultures, governments, and economies. as globalization and religion have intertwined, religions have increased their influence on political systems, both global and local. religions have extended their influence by spreading globally, constructing a variety of religious sacred places and institutions across the globe, and becoming global actors in the efforts to facilitate social change. the term political globalization can describe the expanding reach of political systems. political globalization can be described as the advancement of a borderless political system. the system is constructed with influence from national governments, their governing organizations, igos, ngos, and other social movement organizations. political globalization has promoted the importance of global actors in politics rather than leaving the governing to individual nation-states. in addition to political systems that identify as global, individuals themselves are now identifying as “global citizens.” global citizens are individuals who think of themselves as having citizenship of the world rather than a specific nation. in global citizen challenges and responsibility in an interconnected world, seyla benhabib is referenced as stating that global citizens are flexible citizens. they are national and transnational at the same time (sterri). political globalization and global citizens have further facilitated the interaction of global religions in world politics.  human diagnosis of religion expressed in politics now that a foundation has been laid for the different interpretations of the terms religion, politics, and globalization, let’s shift the focus to the relationship between religion and politics in a globalizing world. the discussion will be approached by using seven major world religions as a framework to explain the dynamic relationship. the eight world religions as identified by stephen prothero in god ’s not one: the eight rival religions that run the world in order of influence are islam, christianity, confucianism, hinduism, buddhism, yoruba religion, judaism, and taoism. with the exception of yoruba religion, all religions will be referenced in this paper. according to prothero, each religion offers its own diagnosis of the human problem and its own prescription for a cure (prothero 2010: 333). in islam, the problem is pride, and the solution is submission (prothero 2010: 27); in christianity, the problem is sin, and the solution is salvation (prothero 2010: 68); in confucianism, the problem is chaos, and the solution is propriety (prothero 2010: 113); in hinduism, the problem is wandering, and the solution is devotion (prothero 2010: 136); in buddhism, the problem is suffering, and the solution is awakening (prothero 2010: 177); in judaism, the problem is exile, and the solution is scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 109 spring 2020 to return (prothero 2010: 253); in daoism, the problem is lifelessness, and the solution is flourishing (prothero 2010: 313). humans use these solutions as answers to their earthly problems. furthermore, humans apply the solution to the human diagnosis offered by their religion to the problems in politics. religion is used as a tool in politics in a variety of ways. these ways range from social change to political advancement. more specifically, four of these ways go as follows: political movements in the name of religion, religion as a platform for political advancement, religious reaction to political injustice, and religious suppression in the name of politics. by examining specific examples in seven major religions, one will clearly see how religion and politics have become incredibly intertwined in this globalizing world. islam and islamophobia according to prothero, islam is the most influential of all world religions. islam is a religion that has faced a magnitude of controversy. to its adherents, the religion is a way of life. others view the religion as dangerous. more specifically, it is viewed as dangerous by the american people. islam has played an influential role in modern american politics, largely due to the terrorist attack in new york in 2001, commonly referred to as 9/11. the attack came from islamic terrorists from arab nations. it was funded by the al-qaeda terrorist organization of osama bin laden (“9/11 attacks”). the motivation for the attacks is allegedly the retaliation for america’s support of israel, its involvement in the persian gulf war, and its continued military presence in the middle east (“9/11 attacks”). the actions of 9/11 instilled a sense of fear about the religion of islam in the american people and other individuals around the world. these islamic extremists used religion as a platform to express their dissatisfaction with american political decisions. since the attack, american muslims struggle to practice their religion without persecution. persecution was further promoted by media stereotypes and the reaction of the american government. americans’ response to the attacks further ingrained the presence of religion into american politics.  christianity in american courts after islam, christianity is considered the next most influential religion. throughout history, christianity has had a pattern of political indifference. political indifference stems from religious differences among christian followers. varying human interpretations of christianity and its beliefs have led to numerous splits in how christianity is practiced. examples include the disputes between roman catholics and orthodoxy in the middle ages and protestants and catholics in the sixteenth century (prothero 2010: 75-76). the united states was founded out of religious disputes among christians. critics of the church of england decided to separate themselves from “an unregenerate scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 110 spring 2020 government which persisted in maintaining a corrupt church” by leaving england and sailing across the atlantic ocean to establish a new state that would honor god in the right way (wald 2018: 40). since this event, christianity has played a fundamental role in american politics.  religious images, symbols, and statements are constantly used in american political culture. this provides evidence of what is referred to as a civil religion (wald 2018: 51). previously the term civil religion was referred to as a public theology or political religion (wald 2018: 51). the goal of civil religion is to align the states’ views with particular religious views that are seen as fit by the state. by projecting a sacred meaning to the nation, civil religion enables people of diverse faiths to integrate their religious and political beliefs (wald 2018: 51). the idea of civil religion is both appealing and unappealing at the same time. to a majority of the individuals who believe in christianity, aligning the states’ agenda with christian views allow christians to better support state action. however, for non-christians, this idea creates an imbalance in their political and religious views. critics argue that americans view international politics as a clash of moral opposites (wald 2018: 56). by loosening legal constraints on issues such as abortion, school discipline, sexual behavior, drug use, and sex roles, a multitude of americans think the government has abandoned its christian foundations (wald 2018: 59). while the state is taking steps towards more secular laws, christian roots still remain in modern politics. the presence of religion in politics is seen most through how the american courts and presidents promote their political agendas. civil religion is especially evident in america through the speeches and writings of political leaders (wald 2018: 51). forty-four presidents have referred to god in their inaugural address (newcombe). presidents use god as a platform to relate to over a third of the american people. even presidential candidates use language about america’s tie to god to “activate a sense of group-based attachment” between themselves and the electorate (wald 2018: 57). the goal of using this language is to get the christian vote, which is typically considered a majority voting group. the recent election with candidates hillary clinton and donald trump proves to be an example of practicing civil religion. shortly before the 2016 election, capitol ministries expressed the belief that the christian vote should go to presidential candidate donald trump. the site offers political advice to christians who were torn between the two candidates. capitol ministries’ ralph drollinger and frank sontag discuss why trump should get the christian vote. drollinger identifies trump as the correct individual because he “believe[s] that god might be answering our prayers and raising up a great leader in donald trump” (why trump should get the christian vote). in addition, drollinger has been sending trump weekly bible studies that he teaches scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 111 spring 2020 in washington, d.c., and says that trump had responded favorably with written notes. this further promotes the view of trump as a christian leader. drollinger concluded by encouraging christians to vote for trump and asks for prayers on election day.  confucianism and chinese “civil religion” following islam and christianity, confucianism is considered the third most influential religion. confucianism promotes a social order that values respect for elders, love, and harmony. confucianism is built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional chinese society. confucianism has always played a role in chinese society, although in today’s times, confucianism has a unique relationship with the state of china. recent events in china have portrayed conflicting views on the relationship between china and confucianism, for example, the placement and disappearance of a confucius statue and the qufu church controversy. over time, china disassociated from confucianism to create a more established state. however, now china has reassimilated confucianism in chinese society to present confucianism as a religion that aligns with the political and cultural agendas of the state (sun 2013: 177). it has the potential to serve as a cultural symbol and political tool but is free from any actual religious organizations that the state would have to handle (sun 2013: 177). the closest thing to a confucius religious organization that could potentially oppose the state is confucius nationalists. confucius nationalists have voiced their stance on both events stated above: the placement and disappearance of a confucius statue and the qufu church controversy. furthermore, confucianism in another religion that has been addressed as a civil religion. confucianism, as a civil religion, seems to hold great promise for a “moral reconstruction” of china (sun 2013: 178). the chinese government approaches confucianism as a philosophy allowing for the government to discuss confucianism in a non-religious context. by focusing on philosophical confucianism, religion is emphasized as a moral, cultural, and political force (sun 2013: 178). disputes will continue as china explores the idea of molding confucianism into a form of “state confucianism” (sun 2013: 178). future chinese politics will not appease individuals who wish for confucianism to remain out of the government. hinduism and indian nationalism hinduism has been a platform for politics in india for quite some time. the actions of current prime minister narendra modi have created the concern of growing hinduism nationalism. the claims stem from the prime minister’s campaigning efforts for the 2019 election. modi, who is a part of the bharatiya janata party, was recently seen campaigning in india’s holiest place for hindus, varanasi, which contains more than 20,000 temples (ray 2019). the prime minister’s decision to campaign from varanasi scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 112 spring 2020 highlights the issue of the rising hinduism nationalism. in addition, modi has done little to stop the violent acts by hindu nationalism. two examples are the “cow protection” gangs and discrimination against women in temples. the “cow protection” gangs are a part of a violent campaign against the trade and consumption of cattle (ray 2019). because cows are viewed as sacred in hinduism, these gangs have killed individuals who participate in the trade and consumption of cows. under modi’s watch, the gangs have become more active and tolerated (ray 2019). another example is the riots at a major hindu pilgrimage site, sabarimala temple. in 2018 the supreme court lifted the seven-hundred-year ban of women entering the temple (ray 2019). bjp representatives were seen protesting their own government’s decision. hinduism nationalism is present and alive in indian politics of today. modi has also used his presence at temples as propaganda for the campaign. modi is indirectly projecting hinduism in the state of india. buddhism and socially engaged buddhist buddhism is the next world religion that has had a substantial impact on the world of today. typically, buddhism is perceived as a religion that maintains its distance from politics. this notion is confirmed by ian harris in buddhism in the modern world, buddhism promotes the opposition to the spirit of politics (mcmahan 2012: 178). however, in modern times buddhist followers are taking a stand in politics, largely in southeast asia and tibet. despite the doctrinal rejection of politics, buddhism and its founder have had a considerable impact on modern political thought (ichikawa: 247). modern states in southeast asia have sought to infuse political ideologies with buddhist meanings to locate the power of the secular state within a buddhist framework (mcmahan 2012: 21). except for socialist vietnam, the constitutions of all buddhist-majority states in south and southeast asia have given buddhism a special statue of recognition (ichikawa 1979: 149). buddhist practices continue to empower the imagination of political futures in southeast asia (mcmahan 2012: 24). socially engaged buddhists have promoted buddhist involvement in local problems. when the local problems stem from political injustice, religion and politics merge for socially engaged buddhists. aung san suu kyi, who promotes buddhist nationalism, has stated, “to be burmese is to be buddhist” (mcmahan 2012: 183). san suu kyi’s alliance with buddhism is seen in her political party: national league for democracy (mcmahan 2012: 203). for a religion against violence, the presence of buddhism’s role in war and reform movements is controversial. in addition, buddhist political organizations have even formed (mcmahan 2012: 190). it does not appear that buddhism will fade from the political sphere anytime soon as many southeast asian citizens remain suppressed by the government. buddhism truly provides a platform for social and political reform. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 113 spring 2020 judaism and the nation-state of israel the next most influential world religion is judaism. judaism is considered one of the world’s oldest religions and the root of the two largest religions in the world today: christianity and islam (prothero 2010: 247). while judaism has been instrumental in the religious development of the modern world, its followers continue to be persecuted. the most prevalent persecution of judaism in modern times is present in the state of israel. the state of israel has become the home for over half of the world’s jewish population. recently the state of israel officially declared itself the nation-state of the jewish people in a constitutional law titled “basic law: israel: the nation-state of the jewish people.” the jewish nation-state law begins by declaring that “israel is the historic homeland of the jewish people in which the state of israel was established...in which the jewish people fulfill its natural, religious, and historic right to self-determination” (harkov 2018: 32). the law continues by declaring jewish holidays as official days off and stating israel’s continuous commitment to supporting jews around the world (harkov 2018: 32). in addition, israel’s openness to jewish immigration and the gathering of the exiled is another key aspect of the new bill (harkov 2018: 32). as a nation, israel is directly aligning itself with judaism in the form of a legal document.  while the law strengthened jewish nationalism, minority groups in israel expressed their concern with the new bill. within the bill, hebrew is named the official language of the state, and arabic has a “special status” (harkov 2018: 32). making hebrew the official language even further elevates the role of the jewish people in israel. however, arguments have been made that the state is not infringing on the rights of israel’s minority groups. officially the law does not add any individual privileges for jewish israelis or take away minority returns, but it absolutely places the jewish people as the focus of the state’s agendas. the largest concern comes from arabic israelis. to some, the conflict is so vast that it calls for a two-solution. the two-state solution involves creating an independent state for palestinians and an independent state for jews. the strongest argument for two independent states is the idea that if the jews and palestinians do not separate, the arab majority will take over, which would mean israel would not be jewish or democratic (harkov 2018: 35). the conflict is still prevalent in today’s time. taoism and global security last, taoism and global security are discussed. global security refers to the promotion and protection of state sovereignty by military and diplomatic means. this aspect plays a role in politics, especially when the military controls the state. in addition, global security refers to the wellbeing of individuals, firms, social movements, social classes, non-whites, wageworkers, women, indigenous peoples, the poor, post-colonials, and scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2020 planetary ecosystems (pettman 2005: 61). while global security cannot be read in a sacral context, taoism offers instructions on how to implement global security. scholars like stephen lukashevich and chad hansen define taoism as “a highly structured system of pain-avoidance” and “individuals reaching inward to tap some fundamental insight about the universe” (pettmann 2005: 66) taoism is seen to promote a particular aptitude for living life. that aptitude is one for living in such a way that self-conscious responses get replaced by ones that feel at least like the “natural structure of things” (pettmann 2005: 67). taoism provides an alternative view to rationalism. by following taoism beliefs, leaders can naturally make decisions to better the political world. conclusion after examining specific examples in seven major religions, the relationship between religion and politics in today’s globalizing world is made clear. religion has the power to affect how people act politically, economically, and socially. the focus of this paper is to display just how powerful religion can be in modern politics. religion is an identifier that connects people to other individuals in the community around them, to individuals across borders, to their ancestors, and to an imagined world existential to earth. politics are the activities of the government, including national governments, global political organizations as well as military regimes and non-government actors. lastly, globalization is the process in which people, ideas, and goods spread throughout the world, spurring more interaction and integration between the world’s cultures, governments, and economies. as globalization and religion have intertwined, religions have increased their influence on political systems, both global and local. the eight world religions as identified by stephen prothero in god ’s not one: the eight rival religions that run the world in order of influence are islam, christianity, confucianism, hinduism, buddhism, yoruba religion, judaism, and taoism. all of these religions, except for yoruba religion, were used to display the interaction between political and global religions. according to prothero, each religion offers its own diagnosis of the human problem and its own prescription for a cure. these cures are extracted from their religious meaning and implemented in politics to better govern a changing world. political globalization and global citizens have further facilitated the interaction of global religions in world politics. religion is used as a tool rather than a belief system. the tool is used in a variety of ways ranging from social change to political advancement. in today’s time, it will be difficult to separate religion from politics and globalization from religion. the relationship between religion and politics will continue to change as the world comes to globalize. overall, globalization is good for religion and politics because it allows for growth and more freedom. examples throughout seven different world religions have scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 115 spring 2020 affirmed swierenga’s statement that “[p]eople act politically, economically, and socially in keeping with their ultimate beliefs” (wald 2018: 39). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2020 references aderibigbe, i. s., & medine, c. m. j. (2015). contemporary perspectives on religions in africa and the african diaspora. palgrave macmillan. campbell, p. j., et al. (2010). an introduction to global studies. united kingdom: wiley blackwell. harkov, l. (2018). the jewish state declares itself a jewish state: ...and everybody goes crazy. commentary. retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.mtsu. edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&an= dsgcl.554042948&site=eds-live&scope=site. “9/11 attacks.” (2010). history.com. retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/21st century/9-11-attacks. ichikawa, a. (1979). compassionate politics: buddhist concepts as political guide. journal of church and state, 21(2), 247-263.  marranci, g. (ed.). (2014). studying islam in practice. routledge. mcmahan, d. l. (ed.). (2012). buddhism in the modern world. routledge. pettman, r. (2005). taoism and the concept of global security. international relations of the asia-pacific, 5(1), 59-83.  prothero, s. r. (2010). god is not one: the eight rival religions that run the world. harpercollins.   ray, s. (2019, april 30). hindu nationalism is reshaping indian politics. can it propel modi to another victory? world politics review. retrieved from https://www. worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/27802/hindu-nationalism-is-reshaping indian-politics-can-it-propel-modi-to-another-victory. sanneh, l. o. (2008). disciples of all nations: pillars of world christianity. oxford university press. schonthal, b. (2016). legal battles for buddhism. in buddhism, politics and the limits of law: the pyrrhic constitutionalism of sri lanka (pp. 149-187). cambridge university press. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 117 spring 2020 sterri, a. b. (2014). global citizen—challenges and responsibility in an interconnected world. sun, a. x. d. (2013). confucianism as a world religion. [electronic resource]: contested histories and contemporary realities. princeton university press. wald, k. d., & calhoun-brown, a. (2018). religion and politics in the united states. rowman & littlefield.  why trump should get the christian vote. (2016, november 5). capitol ministries. retrieved from https://capmin.org/resources/ministry-updates/trump-get-christian-vote/. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 120 spring 2020 pinning down the historical significance of button collecting jackson gibson abstract political buttons were once a must-have item for any political hopeful running a campaign. for more than a hundred years, buttons have been used by many people and organizations to spread messages and gain support for a cause. this article aims to discuss not only the history of buttons but also the history they help to preserve. as a mass-produced item, buttons are an easy way to delve into the many movements and events that have become significant moments in the history of our nation and lives. however, since the turn of the century and with the technological boom that followed, the use of buttons has begun to fade. the purpose of buttons is evolving from large movements to smaller organizations and personal use, but their ability to encapsulate a small piece of history remains. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 121 spring 2020 political buttons have been around from the earliest days of american politics when some of george washington’s supporters sewed specially crafted buttons onto their clothing to celebrate his inauguration and help identify themselves as belonging to a larger group. although buttons and other pendants continued to be used throughout the 1800s, they remained small run items due to the high costs required to manufacture them. it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that technological advancements led to a revolution in button making and made it possible not only to use buttons to reach the masses but for buttons to be used for a variety of other causes and reasons. the main technology that would lay the groundwork for modern buttons came in 1868, when two brothers, john and isaiah hyatt, who was attempting to find a substitute for ivory in billiard ball manufacturing, created celluloid: the first commercially successful plastic. the next advancement did not come until 1893 when a boston woman named amanda m. lougee filed a patent for covering a textile button with a thin layer of celluloid.1 although this button did not look like the modern campaign button, the idea being used was very important, and the patent was bought by the whitehead and hoag company of newark, new jersey. the head of the company, benjamin s. whitehead, had worked on different forms of campaign memorabilia for years. whitehead and hoag not only acquired patents but also created their own, including one filed in 1896, which included the addition of a pin anchored to the back of the button in order to allow it to be easily attached and removed from clothing. combining both their own patents and the ones they had acquired, the whitehead and hoag company created what can clearly be seen as the forerunner of the modern political button, and the company saw great success as they were the main producer of buttons until their patents expired.2 with these innovations, a cheaper and more quickly produced item was available. candidates seized upon the opportunity that very same year, and both presidential hopefuls, william mckinley and william jennings bryan, made a variety of buttons for their campaigns.3 since then, buttons have become a mainstay of political campaigns as millions of buttons have been produced for thousands of different candidates. buttons, however, have also grown out of this large initial primary use to become a cheap tool used by many groups and organizations trying to create identities, movements, and history. 1 roger a. fischer, tippecanoe and trinkets too: the material culture of american presidential campaigns 1828-1984 (chicago: university of illinois press, 1988), 144. 2 patricia scarmuzzi, “mckinley first to use campaign pins to spread message,” tribtoday, accessed april 25, 2019, http://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2017/04/mckinley-first-to-use-campaign-pins-to-spread-message/). 3 elizebeth king, “the long story behind presidential campaign buttons and pins,” time, accessed april 10, 2019, http://time.com/4336931/campaign-buttons-history/.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 122 spring 2020 most people run into buttons throughout their everyday lives. whether it is from crossing paths with people giving out buttons for an event or finding buttons from our past buried in the back of a drawer or attached to a backpack, most of us can think of a button we own or have seen, and some of us can recall the pain of being pricked by the pin on the back. despite the fact that pin back buttons are a ubiquitous item in life, most people never think about their place in the world or what significance buttons might hold. even from a scholarly standpoint, there is a great void in the discussion about what place buttons have in history and how they help us interact with it. the largest body of literature about buttons comes from collectors, and this is the first important accomplishment of collecting.4 were it not for the collecting world, there would be no robust documentation of the large variety of political buttons made each year. my goal in this essay is to discuss what i see as the three broad types of buttons and explore the historical significance of buttons and what they can teach us about history. by addressing the historical significance of buttons, we can also address the important role collecting has played in preserving these pieces of history. for the purpose of understanding the ways in which buttons interact with history, i divide them into three different groups based on how they interact with history. the first group includes buttons from the past that interacts with the present. these are buttons that can be used by people in the present to study past events. i use political buttons to represent this group. the second group includes buttons from the present that interact with the past. these buttons are ones specifically created so that they make the observer think about the past by referencing it whenever they are seen. i use the middle tennessee state university’s (mtsu) women’s history month buttons to depict this group. the final group includes buttons that attempt to create their own history by instilling a sense of identity for a group or commemorating an event. for this group, i use the mtsu mini buttons. past interacting with the present since their creation, pin back buttons have become an important part of politics and campaigning. buttons are a great tool for displaying pictures of candidates, campaign slogans, and hot button issues.5 because of this, they are an excellent tool for understanding past campaigns: how the campaigns were run, what issues were important, 4 ted hake, encyclopedia of political buttons, united states, 1896-1972 (new york: dafran house, 1974); theodore l. hake, political buttons, book ii 1920-1976 (york, pa: hake’s americana & collectibles, 1985); jordan m. wright, campaigning for president: memorabilia from the nation’s finest private collection (new york: smithsonian books/collins, 2008); marc sigoloff, collecting political buttons (chicago: chicago review press, 1988). 5 a term that developed independently of pin back buttons during the 1960s and was used by advertisers to describe a desire that helps motivate consumers to choose among goods. defined by the oxford english dictionary. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 123 spring 2020 and as, dr. john vile, a professor of political science, pointed out, “buttons can help in remembering the simple facts of a campaign like vice presidential candidates and the year a campaign took place.”6 for many private collectors, this is one of the key reasons for starting and maintaining a collection—the ability to hold a piece of history. although buttons cannot contain a multitude of information about a campaign, they can, as mark byrnes, the middle tennessee state university provost, and kent syler, a professor of political science, put it, “be a great conversation starter”7 and “spark an interest in campaigns.”8  buttons also have multiple advantages over other forms of memorabilia that make them better suited for collecting and, therefore, a better source of the preservation of history. buttons are durable, which means they are more likely to last, and they are made in large quantities, which means they are more attainable than things like posters or pieces of clothing. this abundance also means that most buttons are easily obtained for only a small fee. buttons from campaigns that took place over a century ago, for example, can be purchased for as little as twenty dollars. perhaps, the greatest benefit of campaign buttons is their size. even a large collection of buttons can be displayed in a small amount of space, especially when compared to an item like campaign dolls—a campaign item utilized far more than you might think.9 private collectors are not the only ones interested in political buttons. as i did the research for this paper, i was, on multiple occasions, steered towards the albert gore research center, a unit of the college of liberal arts at mtsu, which contains an archive of political papers and artifacts.10 upon entering the archives, i was surrounded by rows of large cabinets, and in each cabinet was drawer after drawer of political memorabilia. some of these drawers contained only one or two buttons lying by themselves amidst other pieces of political memorabilia. other drawers contained whole groups of buttons, some pinned to pieces of paper and others resting in tiny compartments of larger boxes filled entirely with buttons. as i looked through the drawers, the archivist, donna baker, and i discussed why the archive would want to dedicate so much space to buttons.11 although she agreed with the points raised by the other 6 john vile (professor of political science and button collector) in discussion with author, april 2019. 7 kent syler (professor of political science and former campaign manager) in discussion with author, april 2019. 8 mark byrnes (mtsu provost and professor of political science and button collector) in discussion with author, april 2019. 9 wright, campaigning. 10 “albert gore research center,” accessed april 25, 2019, https://www.mtsu.edu/gorecenter/index. php. 11 donna j. baker (archivist) in discussion with author, april 2019. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 124 spring 2020 people i interviewed, she also added that buttons allow us to study art history and the way in which imagery has been used in campaigns over time. she mentioned an exhibit, which was created in 2016 by the al gore center and titled “politics, persuasion and propaganda: influence by design,” that used buttons along with a variety of other pieces of political memorabilia to discuss this very point. the artistic aspect of campaign buttons is an important part of the collecting world because collectors are typically drawn to more colorful and interesting buttons. as noted by ted hake in his encyclopedia of political buttons, there was a downturn for buttons in the 1930s and 40s. although many buttons were still being produced, the color scheme became almost entirely red, white, and blue, and the ability to acquire “attractive buttons” for collections was made difficult.12 buttons from this time period typically only contained the names or portraits of candidates; however, a small portion of buttons used humor or more complex imagery. hake claims that the button revival of the 1960s changed these trends as the artistic and political revolution impacted the design and variety of buttons. although i agree that the 60s and 70s made a clear contribution to the evolution of buttons, i think hake is overlooking one of the root causes of the shift in how buttons looked.   during the 60s and 70s, button trends shifted with more and more buttons containing humor and a variety of images, although many buttons still used names and portraits. an artistic and political revolution is not the only cause of this change. in fact, the main event that started the evolution of buttons seems to be the runaway success of dwight d. eisenhower’s 1952 campaign slogan “i like ike.” in the lead up to the 1952 election, hundreds of different buttons were made for the eisenhower campaign, many of which simply contained this easy and short slogan. the most famous of these buttons was a red, white, and blue striped button with “i like ike” printed in the middle. this button was so popular that the same style was used on dozens of different buttons, and each button used a different language ranging from arabic to yugoslavian. slogan buttons were not a new idea; they had simply always been in the minority of buttons used by campaigns. but, upon seeing the popularity of a slogan button outshining the traditional portrait and name buttons, subsequent campaigns attempted to recreate this campaign’s success by pushing their own slogan buttons.  the 1960 election between john f. kennedy and richard nixon saw both candidates attempting to create popular slogans. kennedy had slogans like “let’s back jack” and “kennedy is the remedy,”13 while many of nixon’s slogans attempted to use the nickname dick in order to make him seem more approachable; this led to great slogans 12 hake, encyclopedia, 6. 13 white, campaigning, 223. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 125 spring 2020 including “they can’t lick our dick.”14 neither candidate’s slogans found the same success as eisenhower’s. both candidates appear to copy another button trend used by eisenhower, making buttons that celebrated the first lady. only one or two candidates had ever done this before eisenhower—the 1940 republican candidate, wendell willkie, who made one button that had a portrait of his wife and stating, “for first lady edith willkie.” the eisenhower campaign, on the other hand, made multiple buttons for first lady mamie eisenhower. these buttons were reminiscent of the president’s buttons but had a photo of the first lady. the campaign even made buttons with both the first lady and second lady, pat nixon, on them like the buttons that had both the president’s and vice president’s portraits. nixon continued this trend during his campaign by having buttons depicting both he and his wife on them. the kennedy campaign also had a button for jackie kennedy. as we have seen, buttons have given us an opportunity to observe how successful campaigns can impact future campaigns, and we can start to see how beneficial buttons can be to studying history. the buttons discussed also show another opportunity to study history given to us by button collecting—studying women’s history. although there are many buttons from the women’s suffrage movement, it is interesting to note that candidates in the 1916 election did not address the movement with their campaign buttons. this seems to be because both candidates intended to give women the right to vote.15 additionally, the candidates felt that there was a far more pressing subject to discuss, world war one. although buttons for the election before the passing of the nineteenth amendment did not address women›s rights to vote, the 1920 election took some advantage of the fact that this was the first election in which women would be voting. although the candidates attempted to woo women by giving out some memorabilia to them, most often small purses, only warren g. harding made a button for women. it was a simple yellow button with black lettering declaring “under the 19th amendment i cast my first vote nov. 2nd, 1920.”16 this lack of buttons oriented towards female voters, both leading up to and immediately after they gained the right to vote, would set a precedent for the following decades. between 1920 and 1952, there is a lack of any type of button aimed towards female voters, or if there were, they are so scarce that they have not survived in great quantity. eisenhower’s 1952 opponent, adlai stevenson, did not seem to make a button depicting his wife as the first lady, but he does seem to have made one of the first buttons directly aimed at female voters: a small white button depicting a high heel shoe and stating “walk to victory with stevenson.”17 even 14 white, campaigning, 225. 15 wright, campaigning, 134. 16 hake, encyclopedia, 106. 17 hake, encyclopedia, 202. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 126 spring 2020 after this button, it would not be until the button revolution of the 1960s and a heavy influence from the women’s rights movement that we start seeing buttons for female voters. we can see a good example of this in the 1964 presidential race between lyndon b. johnson and barry goldwater when buttons were made that had slogans including “ladies for lyndon” and “young women’s republican club of goldwater.” some later buttons, like the 1972 mcgovern button, even incorporated the female gender sign. mcgovern’s button simply had his name on the button, and the o was replaced by the female gender sign and an equal sign in the middle.18 after the 70s, campaign buttons aimed exclusively at female voters became part of the norm and has continued to the present day.  women’s history is just one example of a subject that can be examined from the viewpoint of buttons. views on minority representation, war, and even views on budgetary issues can all be looked at and studied through buttons. buttons can also show, as noted by mark warda in 100 years of political campaign collectibles, that issues of past campaigns share many similarities with modern issues and concerns.19 in the very first campaign to use buttons, people used them to call for “sound money.” those same people would likely be terrified by today’s national debt. franklin roosevelt’s campaigns all revolved around social programs, issues like free healthcare and college are debated, something to which modern americans can relate. buttons can even be used to study the way that campaign operations change over time. the 1930s and 40s were not the only button slump to occur. multiple articles have come out over the past couple of decades, lamenting the decline of the campaign buttons.20 although buttons have always had an advantage on other forms of memorabilia, they cannot compete with the continued growth of t.v. advertisement, because many politicians feel that their campaign money is better spent towards media advertisement. although buttons are a physical form of advertisement, they cannot reach as large an audience as television.  some politicians have started using lapel stickers instead of buttons in order to be more cost-effective. although stickers use similar methods as buttons to convey their message, they lack the durability of a button and, therefore, are less likely to be easily collected and saved as artifacts of history. some have even pointed out that the continued production of buttons may only be occurring because of the collecting world; politicians 18 hake, book ii, 195. 19 mark warda, 100 years of political campaign collectibles (clearwater, fl: galt press, 1996), 9. 20 the associated press, “are campaign buttons a thing of the past?: what politician wants to pull funds from t.v. for buttons?,” charleston daily mail, december 7, 1998; brian hicks, “ideas that stick; an endangered artifact, the campaign button says it all,” the post and courier, january 17, 2009. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 127 spring 2020 want to appease this small group of people while at the same time creating a “legacy” item to cement their place in history.21 this may very well be one of the biggest contributions made by collectors; their collecting has not only saved buttons from the past but has likely contributed to the continued use of buttons as a campaign tool. buttons being made to appease collectors may have helped keep buttons alive long enough to see their purpose transformed into something new. as advertising becomes a bigger and bigger aspect of campaigning, buttons seem to be finding a new role to play. while buttons were once given away for free, many modern campaigns are starting to charge small fees for buttons or asking for donations when they hand them out. buttons have become one of the best fundraising tools for the masses in order to pay the ever-ballooning cost of advertisements.22  another thing to note is that the popularity of buttons varies with the popularity of the candidate. although the past few decades have seen an evolution in the way buttons are used and a decline in their production, there have also been spikes in their popularity because of popular candidates and historical moments. the 2008 presidential election of barack obama is an excellent example of the boost that can occur because of the popularity of a candidate and people wanting to have a little piece of history.23 political buttons are no longer the ubiquitous item that they once were, and although a popular candidate or slogan may boost the use of buttons for a particular year, the popularity of this piece of memorabilia has become far more unpredictable as time has gone on. although the golden era of campaign buttons has passed, button collecting and its ability to interact with and preserve history is far from over. as the role of buttons changes, it makes it all the more important to look at the other two types of buttons and the role they have to play in interacting with history. present interacting with the past the benefits that make buttons a great tool for political campaigning can also make them a great tool for making a call directly to the history and historical figures. the buttons in my first example interact with history by becoming a part of it; the buttons in this second example interact with history by referencing it—buttons created for the present in order to connect to events or people from the past. the mtsu women’s history month buttons are a prime example of this. the oldest women’s history month button to be archived in the albert gore research center on campus is from 1989. it is 21 kent syler. 22 megan kathleen, “pushing their buttons: presidential campaigns want money for something they used to give away,” tribune business news, february 15, 2008. 23 paul higgins, “hot political buttons: obama campaign prompts collector enthusiasm,” tribune business news, november 17, 2008; audrey parente, “the obama boost historic presidency aids local shops,” daytona beach news, january 20, 2009. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 128 spring 2020 a colorful green and teal button but seems to have simply been used to mark the occasion. however, two years later, someone realized the opportunity the buttons presented, and in 1991, the women’s history month button marked the celebration by printing the portrait of a woman from history on it. the 91 buttons highlighted prudence crandall and, in addition to the image of mrs. crandall, her importance to history as the “champion of antebellum black education.” here, we start to see the call back to history being made as this button asked present observers to think about a woman from the past. the buttons were no longer simply an advertisement or conversation piece around an event but were now a conversation piece oriented around the women from history listed on the button. this style of focusing on one woman from history for each button has been used in every subsequent year, with the exceptions of 1993 and 1996 when three women’s names appeared on the button instead: mourning dove, zora neale hurston, and kate chopin for 1993, and anne dallas dudley, marry church terrell, and sue shelton white for 1996. the 1999 button was also used to mark the 151st anniversary of the women’s rights movement and depicted an image of lady justice rather than a real woman from history. even here, we can see the conversation being oriented around the women’s rights movement. the use of the buttons, as a tool for a conversation about women in history, has continued to evolve.  one great improvement over time has been the artistic style of the buttons. the first buttons were typically two-toned, and although some contained one or two bright colors, many of them had simple white backgrounds. this has changed over the past two decades as more colorful backgrounds and bold patterns are being used. the image of aretha franklin on this year’s button was surrounded by a colorful purple and green paisley, making the button even more eye-catching and effective.  the conversation starter has been taken even farther as the buttons now come attached to a small piece of paper, giving a brief history of the woman and the contributions she made to the world. we can see the same techniques being used here that we saw with campaign buttons. portraits and bright imagery are used in the hope of getting someone to pick up the button and use it. whether they collect only that year’s button or try and collect one for each year, the buttons are on campus with the goal of creating a conversation about the past and how history has been achieved. creating a history creating a conversation about history is not the only thing buttons can be used to create. they can be used to create a social identity, to create a trigger for memories, and by doing all of this, buttons can be used to create a history. on the mtsu campus, there are small 7/8-inch buttons whose sole purpose is to be collected. these buttons are scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 129 spring 2020 typically given out at events. although these buttons are simply used to mark the event, in doing so, they help to establish that event in an individual’s personal history with the button now becoming a tool for remembering that event and what took place in that individual’s life. these buttons are attempting to commemorate the event, so it is better established and more easily recalled later. there are buttons like this for sporting events and on-campus activities, and the button creates a direct tangible connection for that person to the event in their past.  there are other collectible buttons given out by the different departments to their students. many departments require that a student talk to a professor or declare their major in that department in order to obtain the button. these buttons are being used to form a small sense of identity. in the same ways that political buttons help to create a social identity around a political figure or party, these buttons help to create a social identity around a department or campus organization. identity is an important aspect of both an individual person’s history and an organization’s broader history. the way in which the button is acquired and what the button depicts are components in creating this identity and history. ultimately, the goal is to create a group in which the individual identifies with, and later in life will be able to recall. this is the simplest form of history. the button, again, also helps with this ability to recall because there is now a physical piece of evidence to trigger the memory or if the individual no longer has the button at the very least adds one more piece from the past for the person to remember and by doing so hopefully makes it easier. conclusion buttons may be a small item to which many of us give little thought, but when one analyzes them and looks deeper into the ways in which they are used, it starts to become clear what role they have to play in helping create our history. collecting buttons is an inextricably linked aspect of both creating this history and helping preserve it. we can use buttons from our past as evidence to help study our history and gain a better understanding of past events and people; we can use buttons to start conversations about people and events from history, and we can use buttons to help create our own history. whether a person is actively collecting buttons from the past or simply savind a few from events in their life, every button has a story to tell and memories attached. at the end of the day, stories and memories are the foundation of history.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 130 spring 2020 bibliography fischer, roger a. tippecanoe and trinkets too: the material culture of american presidential campaigns 1828-1984. chicago: university of illinois press, 1988. hake, ted. encyclopedia of political buttons; united states, 1896-1972. new york: dafran house, 1974. hake, theodore l. political buttons book ii 1920-1976. york, pa: hake’s americana & collectibles, 1985. hicks, brian. “ideas that stick; an endangered artifact, the campaign button says it all.” the post and courier, january 17, 2009. higgins, paul. “hot political buttons: obama campaign prompts collector enthusiasm.” tribune business news, november 17, 2008. kathleen, megan. “pushing their buttons: presidential campaigns want money for something they used to give away.” tribune business news, february 15, 2008. king, elizebeth. “the long story behind presidential campaign buttons and pins” time, may 17, 2016. http://time.com/4336931/campaign-buttons-history/. parente, audrey. “the obama boost historic presidency aids local shops.” daytona beach news, january 20, 2009. scarmuzzi, patricia. “mckinley first to use campaign pins to spread message.” tribtoday, april 10, 2017. http://www.tribtoday.com/news/local-news/2017/04/mckinleyfirst-to-use-campaign-pins-to-spread-message/. sigoloff, marc. collecting political buttons. chicago: chicago review press, 1988. the associated press. “are campaign buttons a thing of the past?: what politician wants to pull funds from tv for buttons?” charleston daily mail, december 7, 1998. warda, mark. 100 years of political campaign collectibles. clearwater, fl: galt press, 1996. wright, jordan m. campaigning for president: memorabilia from the nation’s finest private collection. new york: smithsonian books/collins, 2008. surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 7 surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade hanan beyene abstract in 2016, beyoncé’s lemonade premiered during a time of high political, social, and radical tension. knowles creates an album that is not just about her, but also exhibits pride in blackness while revealing her vulnerability. beyoncé exposed issues surrounding not only her relationship to her husband but also the african american community. viewing lemonade through the lens of delores s. williams’s definition of womanist testimony regarding the struggles of identity and survival, it is possible to trace this message retroactively through biblical times. religious tools like the curse of ham caused a generational trauma within the african american community that created a brokenness that continues to resonate. beyoncé exhibits religious allegories and themes through womanist theology by confronting the brokenness of her relationship in lemonade. this includes the process of forgiving her husband ’s infidelity and preserving her family unit. * winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2019 introduction racial division became an increasingly incendiary debate during 2016. a major focus in the cultural landscape was police brutality; in the previous year, black men faced the highest rate of u.s. police killings,1 which brought attention to the history of racism and discrimination within governmental institutions. the ongoing presidential race illustrated that “the political divide is much more about culture, identity, and race.”2 numerous people decried the rhetoric of donald trump, the republican candidate, who they claimed spouted hate and bigotry. he incited passionate responses in large crowds regarding issues like immigration, women’s rights, lgbtq rights, and other controversial topics. at the launch of his campaign, trump justified a wall along the mexico-united states border stating that, “[mexico’s] sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. they’re bringing drugs. they’re bringing crime. they’re rapists. and some, i assume, are good people.”3 the presidential race created an environment of polarization where the preexisting beliefs and opinions of the american populace were brought to the forefront; it became of great importance to identify people’s personal and political persuasions. the divisiveness of trump’s rhetoric triggered intense reactions on both sides of the political spectrum. amid these tensions, beyoncé knowles released music after a three-year hiatus. i postulate that beyoncé composed and performed her music as an expression of womanist theology intended as representation for the african american community in response to a tense political era while also reflecting on the trials occurring in her personal life. on february 6, 2016, beyoncé dropped the song and music video for “formation” from the album lemonade; it openly celebrated black history, black beauty, and illustrated a clear political and personal opposition to police brutality. she would go on to perform the song at the super bowl 50 halftime show with black panther party-themed outfits, celebrating “black power.”4 beyoncé released the full album on april 23, 2016, and it immediately sparked controversy. the collection of twelve spoken word poems followed by lyrical songs revealed that beyoncé’s long-time husband shawn carter, better known as jay-z, had cheated on her with another woman. this revelation was one of the most personal pieces of information that the superstar had ever given to the public. before the release of her album, tensions between the couple had been evident: for example, the infamous 2014 elevator fight between shawn and solange (beyoncé’s sister) brought much speculation about the couple’s relationship. beyoncé, an infamously private individual, explains in detail the emotional cycle she went through in dealing with carter’s infidelity in the duration of her album through 12 poems: intuition, denial, anger, apathy, emptiness, loss, accountability, reformation, forgiveness, resurrection, hope, and redemption. each surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 9 poem is accompanied by a song detailing the emotional experience. the seeming conclusion of lemonade is that forgiveness is the most significant outcome; it is perhaps the ultimate message being conveyed throughout the album. beyoncé employs the concept of a generational curse and used the music and poetry of lemonade to exemplify the pain men have historically caused their spouses within her family. she also created various cultural connectivity for her audience that revealed the frequency of male infidelity within the african american community. in religion and popular culture in america, bruce forbes describes the four ways in which religion and popular culture relate to each other: religion in pop culture, pop culture in religion, pop culture as religion, and religion and pop culture in dialogue. he argues that religious pop culture artifacts “might appear on different levels: through explicit representations, allegorical parallels, and implicit theological themes.”5 beyoncé shows allegorical parallels and implicit theological themes in relation to the story of hagar, which serves as a narrative to many struggling african american women. however, the biggest theological theme within lemonade is womanist theology. womanism is a framework that prioritizes the intersectionality of gender, race, and class. this theological framework “draws on sources that range from traditional church doctrines, african american fiction and poetry, nineteenth-century black women leaders, poor and working-class black women in holiness churches and african american women under slavery.”6 in 1979, author and poet alice walker was the first to use the term “womanist.” in the 19th and 20th century, womanist scholars (like katie geneva cannon, dolores s. williams, jacquelyn grant, and cheryl townsend gilkes) “explore ordinary black women’s activities for survival and community progress as practices that coincide primarily with the generalized racial uplift steam in black religion.”7 although womanist theology applies to slavery, i use this theology in a primarily social context, focusing the relationships black women encounter and experience with men within their community and private lives. at its core, womanist theology is survival. williams defines womanist theology as “a prophetic voice concerned about the well-being of the entire african american community, male and female, adults and children” and “challenges all oppressive forces impeding black women’s struggle for survival and for the development of a positive, productive quality of life conducive to women’s and the family’s freedom and well-being.”8 in beyoncé’s lemonade album, the song “sandcastles” signifies the pain of the generational curse put upon the african american community and the outcome of forgiveness being the pinnacle to womanist theology. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2019 the curse of ham if there is one story most associated with the history of slavery justification, it is the biblical story of noah’s son, ham. the sons of noah who went forth from the ark were shem, ham, and japheth. ham was the father of canaan. these three were the sons of noah; and from these the whole earth was people. noah was the first tiller of the soil. he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. and ham, the father of canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. then shem and japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. when noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said “curse be canaan; a slave of slaves he be to his brothers.”9 there is debate regarding the translation of genesis 9:25 pertaining to whether ham himself or canaan was cursed; however, as christianity became widespread, many associated ham as the sole carrier of the biblical curse for several reasons. ham is described as: …the father of four sons: three…who became the ancestors of various darkskinned african people and…only canaan, the nonblack ancestor of the canaanites, was cursed with slavery.…there are two ways that once could, by manipulation of text, link blackness and slavery: either push the curse of slavery onto a genealogically and etymologically black ham, or make the biblically enslaved canaan the ancestors of black africans.10 in his book the curse of ham, david goldenberg explains how “when bible readers began to see ham, in place of canaan in noah’s curse, we have an implicit link between blackness and slavery…serving to maintain—by divine mandate—the social order.”11 j.j. flournoy, a proslavery author, wrote in 1838, “the blacks were originally designed to vassalage by the patriarch noah.”12 the belief that ham was black (or at least the darkest of the brothers) is evident in the use of christianity to justify the institutional racism against african americans. this biblical view of black africans carried true impact when brought over to the west. goldenberg mentions a 1969 study conducted on educational materials from the american lutheran church and found that “the church interpreted surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 11 gen 9:25-27 in a way that justified black slavery and/or segregation, and it had done so both intentionally and inadvertently.”13 james baldwin, a prominent african american writer, said “i knew that, according to many christians, i was a descendant of ham, had been cursed, and that i was therefore pre-destined to be a slave.”14 the strong racist ideals that became integrated into various institutions of america causes black people to be systematically oppressed. in his book, democracy matters, cornel west sees that “the ways in which the vicious legacy of white supremacy contributes to the arrested development of american democracy.”15 due to how intertwined racism and religion became, the line between the two were blurred. jim crow laws created more trauma on the black community with second-class citizenship, segregation, and violations of human rights. due to the continuous disadvantages faced by the black community, the black community faced many different obstacles. the trauma experienced by the black community creates a different psychology compared to other races. with the curse of ham having such an effect on modern society, the generational trauma passed down creates a stressful and disadvantaged life for african americans. this creates distrust and psychological distress within the black family. in a study conducted by the institute for family studies, cheating rate among men is highest in black males at 28% while white men are at 16% and hispanic men at 13%.16 the noticeable difference of black men’s rate of infidelity exhibits a sign of brokenness specifically with the african american couple. at the beginning of lemonade, beyoncé is suspicious of her husband’s behavior in “pray you catch me.” in “denial,” beyoncé, seemingly to shawn, speaks of how jay-z reminds her of her father. the song “daddy lessons” gives insight to beyoncé’s relationship with her father, matthew knowles. beyoncé sings of the nostalgic memories of spending time with her father and the advice of strength he gave to her. her father warns her to stay away from men like him. this, of course, relates to her relationship with shawn. the knowles family experienced their own struggles with infidelity; matthew knowles cheated on wife tina (beyoncé’s mother) and fathered another child during their marriage, ultimately resulting in divorce. the generational curse within her family gave beyoncé a lens through which to view the distrust between romantic partners in her bloodline; she felt that she was inevitably cursed to fall in love with a man who would share tendencies with her father. from this juncture, beyoncé shifts into a contemplation, recounting shawn’s feelings of inadequacy that caused him to believe himself undeserving of love. ultimately, beyoncé sees shawn carter as the love of her life, and in coming to this realization, beyoncé declares to listeners that “if [we] are going to heal, let it be glorious.”17 she opens herself scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2019 to the possibility and determination of forgiving her unfaithful partner, and in doing so beyoncé declares that “[this] is a curse that will be broken.”18 the song that signifies this transition is soulful, employing a simple piano ballad accompanying beyoncé voice. the song contains three verses which can be summarized as movements of resolution. “sandcastles” lyric analysis the eighth track of lemonade serves as an example of how the entire album deals with the issue of infidelity and how it impacts the family unit. in the first verse of her song “sandcastles,” beyoncé employs a metaphor of an ephemeral structure to represent the foundational underpinnings of her marriage that she previously considered secure. we built sandcastles that washed away i made you cry when i walked away, oh and although i promised that i couldn’t stay, baby every promise don’t work out that way every promise don’t work out that way.19 beyoncé admits that their promises to each other, along with various aspects of the relationship, are on a weak foundation. she leaves because the issues that arise between the two are overwhelming. beyoncé admits that though her decision to separate from carter seemed final, she was ultimately able to return because of their bond. the second verse goes on to display how tension between the two turned violent and hostile; there are depictions of dishes being smashed and pictures torn “when every promise don’t work out that way”20 demonstrating how she cannot “[scratch] out” the name, face, and memory of her romantically infidelitous partner although she is seemingly frustrated with the question of why she still holds tightly to his memory and ultimately, their relationship. in the third verse of the song, beyoncé sees her husband and wants him to emotionally reveal his vulnerability; her hope is that he will trust her. she is emphasizing the renewal of her commitment towards what she has originally promised: to be there for better or for worse. the song brings raw emotions and vulnerability into beyoncé’s album and shows how she is letting forgiveness enter her relationship and life. and your heart is broken ‘cause i walked away show me your scars and i won’t walk away and i know i promised that i couldn’t stay, baby every promise don’t work out that way, no no no no no every promise don’t work out that way.21 surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 13 this song, so intently focused on the healing process, reflects the need for healing in the african american community. this extends to the communal relationship between people of color as well as family bonds impacted by the systemic results of discrimination. significance of representation & forgiveness redefining the representation of black women of the bible in womanist theology brings empowerment and motivation to black women who experience trials from sexism and racism. a prime example is hagar, a slave in the book of genesis. williams argues that hagar is a true representation of the pain and struggle of black women, especially for black mothers. hagar was a slave of abraham and worked as a servant to sarai (abraham’s wife). when sarai could not conceive, she forced hagar to be her surrogate. to sarai, being a mother is a privilege that she cannot have and does not see the issue with “offering” her servant to have abraham’s child. in her status, hagar had no choice but to obey sarai’s order and soon finds herself pregnant. due to conflict in the family, hagar flees into the wilderness and liberates herself. her absence “means that sarai cannot become a mother as she had planned. there will be no son to carry on abram’s posterity and inherit the family fortune.”22 hagar goes into the wilderness pregnant and with no support when god appears to her. god promises to hagar hope for “the survival of her generation [and also] hope for the possibility of future freedom for her see”23 if she returns to abraham and sarai. hagar’s wilderness experience “holds in solution a woman’s self-initiated liberation event, woman’s alienation and isolation, economic deprivation, pregnancy and a radical encounter with god, which empowers the female slave of african descent to hope and to act.”24 although she could not have freedom in her life, hagar’s descendants can have the privilege of living a life better than hers. williams argues that hagar connects so strongly to the african american community due to the relatability of her story. hagar has ‘spoken’ to generation after generation of black women because her story has been validated as true by suffering black people. she and ishmael together, as family, model many black american families in which a lone woman/mother struggles to hold the family together in spite of the poverty to which ruling class economics consign it. hagar, like many black women, goes into the wide world to make a living for herself and her child, with only god by her side.25 beyoncé also uses her lifetime experience to broaden the scope of black representation. in “the new cultural politics of difference,” cornel west explains the notions of scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2019 “the real black community” and how black women have been at the forefront of critiquing and criticizing the colonized world in which the black community lives. he says, “the decisive push of postmodern black intellectuals toward new cultural politics of difference has been made by powerful critiques and constructive explorations of black diaspora women.”26 using her platform, beyoncé contributes to the effort that womanist theologians are working towards to create a broader understanding of what it means to be black, to be woman, and to be a black woman. the power of forgiveness is what truly allowed beyoncé and her family to not only to survive but also to thrive. forgiving shawn brings beyoncé into a space where they can both grow and supersede the expectations of her own familial traditions as well as the stereotypes of a prejudiced society. instead of adversaries, they find that they have become equals and are stronger as a unified force. in womanist theology, the importance of survival is key to the black woman. beyoncé was by herself in the first half lemonade and wandering in the wilderness. she was confronted with the past generations before her who failed in relationships and with the potential future of her daughter where she will be prone to fall in love with the same man and continue the cycle of infidelity just as her foremothers did. however, she decides that it is necessary to stop the cycle of distrust and separation; she ultimately chooses to forgive her husband. it is not an easy process, but it is necessary to avoid repeating a destructive pattern. conclusion beyoncé becomes extremely political with messages about police brutality targeting black americans in lemonade. she shows “stereotypical” black behavior and takes pride in who she is and where she comes from, saying “my daddy alabama, momma louisiana. you mix that negro with that creole, make a texas ‘bama. i like my baby heir with baby hair and afros. i like my negro nose with jackson five nostrils.”27 beyoncé’s experience and her representation of being unapologetically black resulted in her album becoming a defining musical achievement of 2016. it is not unlikely that the impact of lemonade will be felt for generations to come. the publication rolling stone named lemonade the #1 album of 2016, calling it “a sign of hope amid all the emotional and political wreckage.”28 lemonade’s success is significant due to the political climate of 2016, with the presidential election and social strife, and the album was widely hailed as brilliant because of its overt confrontation of controversial issues such as race, gender, and class. it brought attention to the issues african americans face in a systematically racist society and does not shrink away from difficult conversations. in sharing her experience, beyoncé tells the story that too many black women relate to and opens a conversation within the african american community. addressing the surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 15 pain between black man and woman encourages both to be viewed as equals and, much like beyoncé’s relationship, allows them to heal together against a deeply racist society. beyoncé shows in her lemonade film the origin of the album’s title. in the spoken word piece “redemption,” beyoncé gives voice to a piece written by poet warsan shire that evokes a near religious mysticism to the generations of women who have come before her. “grandmother,” she says, “the alchemist. you spun gold out of this hard life. conjured beauty from the things left behind. found healing where it did not live. discovered the antidote in your own kitchen. broke the curse with your own two hands. you passed them down to her daughter, who then passed them down to her daughter.”29 this moment in lemonade reflects the strength that black women have shown; despite hardships, they continue their lives and prosper. in “all night,” beyoncé sings a ballad of sacrifice and true love, promising her husband that they will heal and make it through this. like a true womanist, beyoncé was served lemons, but she made lemonade. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2019 endnotes 1. jon swaine, oliver laughland, jamiles lartey, and ciara mccarthy. “young black men killed by us police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths.” the guardian. december 31, 2015. 2. perry bacon jr., “the 2016 election exposed america’s deep racial and cultural divides.” nbc news online. last modified november 11, 2016. 3. amber phillips, “‘they’re rapists.’ president trump’s campaign launch speech two years later, annotated.” the washington post. june 16, 2017. 4. jessica elgot, “beyoncé unleashes black panthers homage at super bowl 50.” the guardian. february 08, 2016. 5. bruce d. forbes, religion and popular culture in america, third edition. (oakland, ca: university of california press, 2017), 14. 6. linda e. thomas, “womanist theology, epistemology, and a new anthropological paradigm.” crosscurrents 48, no. 4 (1998): 490. 7. rosetta e. ross, witnessing and testifying black women, religion, and civil rights. (minneapolis, mn: fortress press, 2003), 6. 8. dolores s. williams, sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. (maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013), 67. 9. gen 9:18-25 rsv 10. d. m. goldenberg, the curse of ham: race and slavery in early judaism, christianity, and islam. (nj: princeton press, 2003), 169. 11. goldenberg, 170. 12. j.j. flournoy, a reply to a pamphlet. (athens, ga: 1838), 16. 13. goldenberg, 143. 14. james baldwin, “letter from a region in my mind,” the new yorker, 1962. 15. cornel west, democracy matters. (new york: penguin books, 2004), 1-2. 16. wendy wang, “who cheats more? the demographics of infidelity in america.” institute for family studies, january 10, 2018. 17. warsan shire, “forgiveness.” lemonade, parkwood entertainment, 2016, tidal streaming. spoken word voiceover by beyoncé knowels. 18. ibid. 19. beyoncé knowels, “sandcastles.” lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. 20. ibid. 21. ibid. 22. dolores s. williams, sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. (maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013), 19. surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 17 23. williams, 22. 24. williams, 26. 25. williams, 33. 26. cornel west, “the new cultural politics of difference.” october 53 (1990): 93-109. 27. beyoncé knowels. “formation.” lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. 28. christopher r. weingarten, et al. “50 best albums of 2016.” rolling stone. june 25,2018. 29. warsan shire. “redemption.” lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. spoken word voiceover by beyoncé knowels. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2019 bibliography bacon jr., perry. “the 2016 election exposed america’s deep racial and cultural divides.” nbcnews.com. november 11, 2016. baldwin, james. “letter from a region in my mind.” the new yorker, 1962. elgot, jessica. “beyoncé unleashes black panthers homage at super bowl 50.” the guardian. february 08, 2016. forbes, bruce d. religion and popular culture in america, third edition. oakland, ca: university of california press, 2017, 14. genesis 9:18-25 (revised standard version) goldenberg, d. m. the curse of ham: race and slavery in early judaism, christianity, and islam ( jews, christians, and muslims from the ancient to the modern). nj: princeton press, 2003, 143. goldenberg, d. m. the curse of ham: race and slavery in early judaism, christianity, and islam ( jews, christians, and muslims from the ancient to the modern). nj: princeton press, 2003, 169 & 170. j.j. flournoy. a reply to a pamphlet… (athens, ga: 1838), 16. knowles, beyonce. “daddy lessons.” on lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. knowles, beyoncé. “forgiveness.” on lemonade, parkwood entertainment, 2016, tidal streaming. knowles, beyoncé. “formastion.” on lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. knowles, beyoncé. “redemption.” on lemonade, parkwood entertainment, 2016, tidal streaming. knowles, beyoncé. “sandcastles.” on lemonade, columbia records, 2016, tidal streaming. phillips, amber. “‘they’re rapists.’ president trump’s campaign launch speech two years later, annotated.” the washington post. june 16, 2017. ross, rosetta e. witnessing and testifying black women, religion, and civil rights. minneapolis, mn: fortress press, 2003. swaine, jon, oliver laughland, jamiles lartey, and ciara mccarthy. “young black men killed by us police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths.” the guardian. december 31, 2015.. surviving hardship through religion: womanist theology in beyoncé’s lemonade middle tennessee state university 19 thomas, linda e. “womanist theology, epistemology, and a new anthropological paradigm.” crosscurrents 48, no. 4 (1998): 488-99. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/24461012. wang, wendy. “who cheats more? the demographics of infidelity in america.” institute for family studies, 2018. weingarten, christopher r., jon dolan, jon freeman, brittany spanos, joseph hudak, mosi reeves, kory grow, keith harris, richard gehr, maura johnston, patrick doyle, joe levy, andy greene, and rob sheffield. “50 best albums of 2016.” rolling stone. june 25, 2018. west, cornel, democracy matters. new york: penguin books, 2004, 1-2. williams, dolores s. sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013, 19. williams, dolores s. sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013, 22. williams, dolores s. sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013, 26. williams, dolores s. sisters in the wilderness: the challenge of womanist god-talk. maryknoll, new york: orbis, 2013, 67. middle tennessee state university 20 “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity andrew black abstract ralph waldo emerson’s often anthologized essay “self-reliance” has been presented as a clear example of emerson’s endorsement of the wider nineteenth-century’s laissez faire ideology. this is, however, an ultimately inaccurate characterization and a consequence of various kinds of misreading. this paper examines these misreadings and attempts to place “self-reliance” in its intellectual, chronological, and textual context. it is one essay in a carefully ordered presentation that is published as an embedded and local work. the essay’s tangential critique of “miscellaneous charities” is a communitarian and local critique of the burgeoning institutionalization and especially internationalization of american benevolence. when read in context, “self-reliance” demonstrates that emerson’s poor are immediate, proximate, and fraternal, those to whom the whim of the moment can mandate a local response. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ralph waldo emerson’s son edward published emerson in concord in 1889, presenting the book as the kind of intimate portrait of emerson only a son could write—edward purports to show the private emerson in the context of his social circle. emerson had decided not to make edward the executor of his literary estate, and had instead chosen james elliot cabot to write his official biography, one that presented emerson the national figure and focused on his public life and work. edward’s biography, published two years after cabot’s, poses as a humbler compliment to cabot’s longer work and depicts emerson “the citizen and villager and householder, the friend and neighbor” (emerson 1). the pose is significantly embedded in the functions and scenes of a particular place, and edward sees himself as “writing for the chronicle of his village club the story of my father” (1). edward’s book depicts a localized context outside of which emerson’s work is easily and, it seems, consistently misread. perhaps appropriately, the village of concord plays, in edward’s book, the pivotal role in emerson’s life. in robert habich’s recent reading, “not until his father settled in concord did he experience the therapeutic joys of ‘householding,’ the love of gardening, and the sustaining interest in his town’s affairs that stabilized his life and set him on his true path” (114). an emerson undistinguished in work, frail in health, and mourning the death of his first wife finds, in concord, solace and a community in which he can participate. habich’s examination of the tenuous nature of biography in general looks especially at the six biographies of emerson published in the late nineteenth-century. while these tensions, motivations, and misrepresentations need to be kept in clear view, edward’s localized depiction provides a necessary counterpoint to the disembodied and ideological tenor that has overrun both the popular and the scholarly imagination and is, i think, nowhere more visible than in the misreading of emerson’s infamous “are they my poor?” tangent in his most anthologized essay “self-reliance.” while often read as a rhetorically abrasive denial of any obligation toward the poor, a contextualized reading allows for a more sympathetic, more generous, and ultimately more accurate assessment. there is a surprising and seemingly ubiquitous naïveté when it comes to the particular reception and interpretation of themes in emerson’s individual works. habich’s discussion of the earliest biographies suggests this has always been the 21 spring 2018 case. no biography presents a complete picture: cabot’s “official” biography highlights the public life, while edward’s navigates the private. in the same way, emersonian scholarship in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first has focused on particular themes and works to the occlusion of others. concomitantly, interest in an additional or novel concern—abolitionism, race, political action, radical individualism, jacksonian democracy—creates an additional emerson. what feels an irreconcilable and inevitable confusion is attributable to two identifiable tendencies. the first tendency attempts to identify the sum of emerson’s thought on a particular issue, and so jettisons issues of chronology and textuality. the second reads emerson as an exemplary representative of his wider milieu. laurence buell’s more recent (2003) biography of emerson presents him as a public intellectual and is perhaps the most notable example of the tendency to exclude issues of textuality. while buell helpfully corrects oversimplifications of both emerson’s ideology and emerson’s biography, and draws together the seemingly illimitable strands of emersonian scholarship to date, he consistently occludes significant contextual details. to take one example, buell presents emerson’s lecture “the american scholar,” as “emerson’s first concerted attempt to express this ambivalence [toward the relationship between belief and action] publicly” (243-4). buell’s presentation privileges the presently canonical essay “the american scholar,” over the contextually significant essays that chronologically preceded it. emerson’s 1837 phi beta kappa address, “the american scholar,” draws extensively on the various public lectures and sermons that serve as its basis. after discussing “the american scholar,” buell continues by suggesting that the ambivalent sentiments expressed in the later essay “self-reliance” are equally indicative of emerson’s initial thoughts regarding public action (245). buell uses these two well-known essays to illustrate the public development of emerson’s thought. but this kind of discussion unhelpfully elides the local and private trends of emerson’s intellectual development. the pattern, moreover, remains a typical consequence of topically arranged or ideology-centered representations. the second and most common tendency is to read emerson as definitively representative of the era’s wider thought. such representations appear in the work of robert milder, william charvat, clemens spahr, and susan ryan, who each “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity middle tennessee state university 22 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in their own way present an emerson participating noticeably in the stereotypical trends of his time. charvat, in an often-overlooked essay interrogating the relationship between the new england romanticism of the 1830s and 40s and the 1837 financial crisis, sees emerson’s thought as participating in the financially insulated elitism of new england. charvat describes the essay “self-reliance” as “a protest against the tyranny of public opinion in a society in which numbers were beginning to be more powerful than the prestige which emerson’s class had always enjoyed” (66). taking an opposite position, milder investigates what he calls “emerson’s radical period,” between the financial crisis so pivotal in charvat’s reading and emerson’s 1842 “endorsement of what can only be called free enterprise ideology” (51). the discrepancies between charvat’s indictment and milder’s defense further illustrate the prevalent elision: emerson’s private and emerson’s public self. in a recent article on orestes brownson, clemens spahr builds on milder’s portrayal. spahr attempts to demonstrate a causal progression from transcendentalism to social action, and uses, among others, emerson’s essays on “art” (1841) and “nature” (1844). spahr shows how what is often seen as brownson’s break with transcendentalist thought arises instead inevitably out of transcendentalism’s implicit but substantive ethical thrust. spahr argues that scholars, since matthiessen (32), have ignored the “social thought” of emerson. spahr’s argument is a helpful corrective, but seems also to rely on broader generalizations of emerson as primarily representative of wider movements of his day. using emerson instrumentally as a representative—whether indicative of the elitism or the radicalism of new england romantics—usually results from a larger necessity, a wider argument helped along if emerson can perform the role of representative foil. susan ryan’s work and its influence most clearly illustrates the consequence of such instrumental inaccuracies. ryan examines the discourse of charity in the antebellum period, and her argument builds on the dissertation of cassandra cleghorn. cleghorn contends that there is a lively, operative discourse surrounding charitable giving in the periodical literature of antebellum america. this literature revolves around the issues of duplicity—whether of the philanthropist or the recipient (140)—and spectacle (157). any invocation or discussion of philanthropy, according to cleghorn, draws from, alludes to, and participates in this larger discourse. cleghorn mentions em23 spring 2018 erson in her discussion of the duplicitous recipient, stating “nothing could serve a proponent of self-reliance more efficiently than an imagined charity gone bad” (152). in cleghorn’s argument, the demonstrable duplicity of the unknown beggar encourages emerson’s refusal to be charitable. ryan, taking up cleghorn’s argument, makes this suggestion more explicit. she attribute’s emerson’s opposition as part of “the era’s pervasive suspicion of direct charitable aid” (79) and connects the period’s “ethos of suspicion” (58) directly to emerson’s infamous tangent. “emersonian self-reliance,” writes ryan, “. . . is one of many antebellum attempts to represent and evaluate dependence and its opposites” (78). ryan attempts to ameliorate emerson’s explicit rejection of direct charitable aid by commenting, “though his phrasing is extreme, emerson is expressing widely held views” (79). these views involve the refusal to give charitably on account of the potential giver’s assumption of the beggar’s duplicity. ryan and cleghorn are right to contextualize emerson’s seeming ambivalence, and they lay the groundwork to read emerson accurately, but ultimately fail to do so. instead, ryan uses emerson’s “self-reliance” to create an adequate context for what she sees as melville and douglass’s critiques of emersonian “selfishness.” while ryan’s use of emerson as a foil for the more subversive figures of melville and douglass is understandable and effective, her book’s reception illustrates the way that such use perpetuates misreadings of emersonian thought. lawrence goodheart, in a sizable review of ryan’s work, notes emerson’s infamous rejection of benevolence and builds on ryan’s suggestions: “such laissez faire ideology was a clear apology for the reigning class system and skewed distribution of wealth and power” (363). emerson’s “are they my poor?” rejection recurs and illustrates the period’s unfeeling response to the lazy and deceptive poor. emerson is read as a proponent or at least defender of a kind of social darwinism. more recent scholarship has largely attempted to correct these two tendencies— the tendency to assess the totality of emerson’s thought on a particular subject, and the other tendency to read emerson’s anti-benevolence as representative of wider trends. john ronan argues, building explicitly on the scholarship of david robinson, that there is a congruity between the homiletic work of emerson and the emerson of the essays (1841), and, further, that the essays are homiletic in “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity middle tennessee state university 24 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research structure and style. prentiss clark, in what is foundationally related to this present work, reads the sermons, essays, and journals to de-center and re-present the locus of emerson criticism from the self alone to the self in a web of relations to the whole. in clark’s reading, emerson evokes and rejects a cartesian alienation of the self and instead posits interaction, not thought, as the foundation of being: “a man engaged by and engaging the world, wondering at the very fact of this live relation and what it requires of him” (323). for clark, this is “the singular position of humankind emerson will investigate in all his writing” (324). most recently, robinson woodward-burns has argued that emersonian solitude necessarily leads to action. woodward-burns investigates the whole of emerson’s thought, but is chronologically particular. he avoids conflating individually developed essays (a tendency illustrated above). these three scholars, their work taken together, suggest the path forward, but, in the vastness of their scope, continue to overestimate the ability of scholarship to accurately elucidate complex totalities—such as emerson’s various ideological progressions—by means of synchronically selected and unsystematically related particulars. the path forward begins with a re-estimation and careful consideration of particulars—the diachronic context of “self-reliance” in the life, work, and place of ralph waldo emerson. laurence buell has written that “we must focus less on adjudicating what [emerson] did when and more on what he thought and said about what he was doing or not doing” (280). as my critique of buell demonstrates, we must go further. we must, additionally, not lose sight of where and when emerson thinks about what he’s thinking and saying. this begins with a more nuanced consideration of emerson’s compositional process. many scholars have taken up the ideological content of “self-reliance” without considering its diachronic position. emerson first includes “self-reliance” in his second published work, essays (1841). the significance of this position, so rarely acknowledged, is first suggested by joseph slater in his historical and textual introductions to the essays. for slater, emerson’s operative contexts are the journals, the lectures, and the publication of the works of thomas carlyle (cw, ii. xv-xvi). slater further draws attention to the careful arrangement of the essays, where he asserts that “[emerson’s] conscious concern about shape and symmetry is evident in the alternative arrangements of ‘chapters’ in his journal entry 25 spring 2018 of june 1840” and “his worry that the essay ‘nature’ might not be completed in time to function as a proper balance to its adjacent essays” (cw, ii. xxx). emerson carefully arranges these essays, and slater highlights the intricate significance of this ordering: “twelve essays arranged in three quatrains, in an a-b-a order, general-particular-general: the table alone looks like a rhyme scheme” (xxx-xxxi). given the notable care emerson puts into the artful, point-counterpoint arrangement of this published work, there is tremendous irony in the fact that essays like “self-reliance,” which, it seems, were not intended to function as a solitary unit, often function as singularly representative of emerson’s thought. in addition, the conflation of later work as a compliment to or elucidation of the concepts in essays (1841) betrays an ungrounded or ill-considered representation. the published essays (1841) is a mined apotheosis of the preceding eleven years of journals, sermons, and lectures, and it stands as a curated whole, helpfully elucidated by both the preceding work on which emerson drew and the essays in the published volume. slater, albert von frank, and david richardson all read “self-reliance” in its published context, preceded by an essay entitled “history” and followed by another titled “compensation.” this context allows them to interpret the essay’s primary theme in three important ways. slater reads it as communicating “that what is true for you is true for all men and that to worship the past is to conspire against the sanity of the soul” (cw, ii. xxxi). von frank sees it as an attempt to make the reader “more personally authentic by teaching him to inhabit himself ” (von frank 108). richardson argues emerson is recommending “self-reliance as a starting point—indeed the starting point—not the goal” (richardson 322). acknowledging the thematic interrelation of the carefully arranged series of essays allows these three scholars to identify the essay’s instrumental theme, and provides the appropriate initial context for investigating emerson’s intent in describing his benevolent dollar as “a wicked dollar” (cw, ii. 31). yet, largely because the popular and scholarly mischaracterization of emerson remains an entrenched and well-established counterpoint, it is beneficial to return first to edward emerson’s localized characterization of his father in the neighborhood of concord and from there to move to the various sermons and lectures emerson gave as a member of these two in-placed communities: boston and “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity middle tennessee state university 26 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research concord. first, edward draws attention to the often-overlooked possessive pronoun adjective “my poor.” writes edward, “the property that came to [emerson] . . . was impaired by various claims that he willingly recognized and responsibilities which he assumed to his kin by blood and marriage, and also by sympathy of idea,—he always had ‘his poor,’ of whom few or none else took heed” (emerson 198). edward’s conscious echo of “self-reliance” contextualizes the passage’s concern. edward continues by emphasizing the shrewd frugality of his father, a frugality that allowed him “to give freely for what public or private end seemed desirable or commanding” (198). a little later, edward finds it necessary to defend his father from the charge of giving too generously to the philanthropic societies of concord (201). these passages, problematic as their source might be, helpfully complicate the oversimplified depictions of emerson explored above: emerson as stably laissez faire and exclusively ungenerous. on the one hand, edward feels it somehow necessary to defend his father from the charge of selfishness, while on the other against the charge of credulous generosity. if, as is sometimes suggested, “self-reliance” communicated a fiscal principle of strategic neglect, these passages object to that suggestion. emerson was also a unitarian minister. one of emerson’s sermons, entitled “benevolence and selfishness” and delivered many times, is demonstrably composed and delivered within the period susan roberson highlights as when “emerson had been steadily working out issues of self-reliance, self-authority, and self-empowerment in his sermons” (3-4). it is imperative, as david robinson has shown and ronan has reasserted, to understand that emerson continues to preach after his 1833 departure from the second unitarian church of boston. this “benevolence” sermon, though composed during emerson’s pastoral tenure, is last delivered in the immediate wake of the financial panic of 1837, the same panic charvat examines. the sermon’s introduction highlights the existence and characteristics of true selfishness, the highest form of which is ungenerosity toward friends (cs, ii. 135). a second section argues for the need to educate children in benevolence: “the aim of education… should be the rule of christian benevolence… that it is base to forget the comforts of others in seeking his own” (135). interestingly, emerson emphasizes the work of the sympathetic imagination, contrasting the self-centered and profiteering gaze of the trader with “the man of benevolence,” who sees in 27 spring 2018 each member of a needy crowd an infinite soul existing in a web of mutuality: “each … is a son, brother, husband, friend” (137). this emphasis on commonality, on the individual self recognizing, in the moment, her responsibility toward others, compliments clark’s suggestion that emerson considers the self to exist in mutuality (323). these two sections culminate with a concluding, ethical imperative worthy of quoting in full: there is not one of us, i suppose, who might not find within a stone’s cast of his own house, some child of pain and want who suffers severely from want of comforts which it is in our power to bestow, or to obtain. let the lord’s maxim carry us to those cheerless rooms as messengers of consolation. as you would that men should do to you do ye unto them likewise. (cs, ii. 137) to suggest, on account of one sermon variously preached in concord and boston, that emerson can no longer be read as a vocal proponent of laissez faire ideology would be irresponsible. nevertheless, this sermon illustrates the increased level of nuance emerson’s position requires. further, the central position of the individual observer and the proximity of local want personally ameliorated by a physically present individual may provide the necessary evidence for a more accurate interpretation, especially when read alongside a few key passages within lectures evidently mined by emerson for his essay “self-reliance.” in composing “self-reliance,” as has been shown, emerson draws from various lectures. these have been catalogued and collated by robert spiller and wallace williams. in four, chronologically ordered early lectures, each given during the latter period of emerson’s homiletic use of “benevolence and selfishness,” emerson further elucidates the principles that inform his infamous tangent. each of the following lectures is noted by spiller and williams as providing material for “self-reliance,” and so can be accurately presented as operative, meaningful context. in “ethics,” first given in boston in 1837, in a discussion of genius’s role in ethical action, emerson bemoans the difficulty of believing one’s own thought in light of the inevitable appearance of “those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it yourself ” (el, ii. 152). in “duty,” first given in boston in 1839, virtuous action is explained as obedience to “the sovereign instinct,” that in each “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity middle tennessee state university 28 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research moment the self has a particular relation to the whole that generates imperatives not by custom or command, but by impulse (el, iii. 144). this same idea recurs in “reforms,” given in boston in 1840, where emerson links whim explicitly to philanthropy, suggesting that one ought to conform each cause to one’s own “character and genius” (el, iii. 260) and so be, in the midst of philanthropic endeavor, an ultimately autonomous self. finally, in “tendencies,” delivered in boston in 1840, emerson again addresses the topic of philanthropy, suggesting that philanthropic societies “are right, inasmuch as they involve a return to simpler modes and a faithful trust of the soul that it has and can show its own royal road” (el, iii. 303-4). in context, “simpler modes” refers to fraternal as opposed to mercenary modes of exchange. emerson’s essay “self-reliance,” is compiled from many of his previous lectures, and it is carefully arranged alongside eleven others in a collection published in and for the communities of boston and concord and, from there, distributed further. when read as embedded in these contexts, emerson’s infamous tangential critique operates as a rhetorically striking reiteration of emerson’s elsewhere evident concerns. in the essay’s relevant passage (cw, ii. 30-31), an initial critique of malicious philanthropy connects ethical imperatives to immediate and local community. the malicious philanthropist “assumes this bountiful cause of abolition,”—for which emerson was himself an initially cautious but vociferous advocate—but in barbados. the philanthropist seeks to varnish his proximate cruelties with an ultimately wasted piety (cw, ii. 30). emerson’s discussion of philanthropic malevolence seems inexplicably followed by the elevation of “whim,” but given the essay’s context this topic naturally follows. for, as we have seen in “duty,” the ethical impulse is, for emerson, always grounded in the impulses of the moment, in proximate vision of immediate need. finally, the language of belonging and possession that follows in response to the suggestion emerson has a responsibility “to put all poor men in good situations. are they my poor?” (cw, ii. 30) signifies the obligation that whim exhibits only in immediate localities wherein the more basic mode of fraternal exchange can exist. so the “wicked dollar” seems to be that dollar which, rather than used for the charitable relief of those individuals in want “within a stone’s cast” of one’s own house, is used for the impersonal and miscellaneous (31). 29 spring 2018 “self-reliance” is often read as something of a straightforward presentation of emerson’s typical laissez faire ideology. this is, however, an ultimately inaccurate characterization. “self-reliance” is instead but one part of a carefully ordered presentation and an embedded and local work. emerson’s tangential critique of “miscellaneous charities” is a communitarian, a local critique of the burgeoning institutionalization and especially internationalization of benevolence. emerson does in fact, as edward notes, have his poor. emerson communicates, in “self-reliance,” that his poor are immediate, proximate, and fraternal, those who the whim of the moment allows, even mandates him to operate benevolently toward—those embedded persons to whom he belongs: “thy infant… thy woodchopper” (30). “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity middle tennessee state university 30 works cited buell, laurence. emerson. harvard up, 2003. charvat, william. the profession of authorship in america, 1800-1870. edited by matthew d. bruccoli, ohio state up, 1968. clark, prentiss. “’pulse for pulse in harmony with the universal whole’: hearing ‘self-reliance’ anew.” nineteenth-century literature, vol. 69, no. 3, 2014, pp. 31941. cleghorn, cassandra jean. bartleby’s benefactors: toward a literary history of charity in antebellum america. yale university, 1995. proquest dissertations and theses, 1995. emerson, edward waldo. emerson in concord. houghton mifflin and company, 1889. emerson, ralph waldo. the early lectures of ralph waldo emerson [el]. edited by robert e. spiller and wallace e. williams, harvard up, 1972, vols. ii and iii. -----. the complete works of ralph waldo emerson [cw]. edited by joseph slater and douglas emory wilson, harvard up, 1979, vol. ii. -----. the complete sermons of ralph waldo emerson [cs]. edited by teresa toulouse and andrew delbanco, universiy of missouri p, 1990, vol. ii. goodheart, lawrence b. “the ambiguity of benevolence.” review in american history, vol. 33, no. 3, sep. 2005, pp. 359-65. habich, robert d. building their own waldos: emerson’s first biographers and the politics of life writing in the gilded age. u of iowa p, 2011. milder, robert. “the radical emerson?” the cambridge companion to ralph waldo emerson, edited by joel porte and saundra morris, cambridge up, 1999, pp. 49-75. richardson, robert d. emerson: the mind on fire. u of california p, 1995. ronan, john. “self-reliance in emerson’s sermons and essays: first series.” nineteenth-century prose, vol. 40, no. 2, fall 2013, pp. 181-88. ryan, susan m. the grammar of good intentions: race and the antebellum culture of benevolence. cornell up, 2005. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 31 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 32 “he had his poor”: emerson’s self-reliance and the question of charity spahr, clemens. “transcendentalist class struggle: orestes brownson’s early writings.” nineteenth-century prose, vol. 36, no. 2, fall 2009, pp. 31-76. von frank, albert j. “essays: first series (1841).” the cambridge companion to ralph waldo emerson, edited by joel porte and saundra morris, cambridge up, 1999, pp. 106-20. woodward-burns, robinson. “solitude before society: emerson on self-reliance, abolitionism, and moral suasion.” polity, vol. 48, no. 1, jan. 2016, pp. 29-54. soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 35 soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame aaron selby abstract popular culture is prevalent in the ability of citizens to conceptualize complex issues and situations within society. several religious scholars, including john lyden, propose that elements of popular culture relate to and interact with sociopolitical anomalies in a way that mirrors and mobilizes patterns of religion. as such, these scholars conclude that certain popular culture phenomena act as a kind of religion in and of themselves. drawing from the work of several such scholars and the concept of soteriology in narrative, i analyze the similarities between two disney animated films, beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame and their overall interaction with the sociopolitical landscape of the 1990s. both beauty and hunchback provide a lens of commentary, criticism, and guidance in light of the now infamous events that took place during president bill clinton’s administration. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2019 disney and theories of salvation among the four canonical gospels of the christian scriptures, the gospel of saint john is unique as it seems oddly numinous regarding content. furthermore, john 3:161 has become one of the most important, influential, and important scriptures in modern day christendom. this text—which tells us that “god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life”—would seem to suggest that the crucifixion of jesus was a freely given act of love to save all people and bring them back to the love of god. while this understanding of salvation is present in certain theological traditions, this idea is incredibly new, emerging only in the past century or two. historically, soteriology—theories of salvation—has been defined and characterized by dogma and dominance of power. it states that rather than the crucifixion as a gracious act of love, jesus submitted to the will and power of god, his father. these two narratives—salvation as a product of love and salvation as dominance of the will of god—can be found in two of the most popular and critically acclaimed films of the walt disney corporation’s “renaissance” of the 1990’s: 1991’s beauty and the beast, and 1996’s the hunchback of notre dame, respectively. in the span of only five years, we can see a very marked shift in the tones and narratives of these films, from love and acceptance to dominance and submission. this is important, because the walt disney corporation occupies a unique position in modern american culture, holding a prominent role in forming culture while simultaneously acting as a massive mirror being held up to the culture itself. furthermore, as evident with the term “cult following,” it is clear in popular imagination that films can often function and act in parareligious capacities. in essence, these films combine aspects of religion with secularized cultural productions. this drastic shift in the salvation narratives of these two films reflects the turbulent socio-political landscape of the 1990’s, coinciding with the rise and fall of president bill clinton and his administration. furthermore, beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame serve religious functions and interact with politics in a way similar to that of well-established religious traditions. drawing from the work of gary kessler, john lyden, elizabeth johnson as well as the findings of independent counsel kenneth starr and catherine lofton, this paper analyses the ways in which beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame convey religious narratives such as soteriology, acting in a way that is analogous to religion. disney and these films excerpt influence, playing a unique, nuanced role in both the creation and reflection of society. relevant scene descriptions: conflict to salvation an analysis of several tableaux from each movie work to elucidate the interplay soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 37 between politics and religion. in beauty and the beast, one significant scene depicts a mob from the village storming the beast’s castle. gaston—the film’s antagonist— finds the beast and fights him. the confrontation takes on ever dramatic overtones as rain starts to pelt both combatants. belle arrives just as the beast is about to deliver a final blow to gaston. when he sees belle, with whom he has fallen deeply in love by this point in the film, he turns to gaston and growls, “get out, and never come back.” he lets gaston go and begins to climb up the castle roof to the balcony where belle is waiting for him. at the last moment, gaston comes from behind and stabs the beast in the back; this, of course, insinuates the cowardice of the film’s villain and his characterization as the narrative’s true “beast.” gaston then loses his balance, and skulls flash across his eyes as he falls to his death in the gorge below the castle. the beast collapses onto the balcony and belle runs to him as the servants watch from the doorway. she tries to coax him from losing consciousness, saying; “please don’t leave me; i love you.”2 the beast stops breathing, and belle starts sobbing into his lifeless chest; the castle servants bow their heads in the first throws of mourning. the shot then pans back to show belle and the beast; colorful sparks of light begin falling from the sky, eventually replacing the rain. the beast then rises into the sky as a smoke-like fog clouds the scene, and he emanates light from his limbs as they transform from paws into hands and feet, eventually suspended in the air, and emanating light. his legs remain extended straight down while his hands and arms fully outstretch at his side. the former beast then floats down to the floor, inspecting his transformed appendages before looking at the astonished belle. likewise, in the hunchback of notre dame3 after quasimodo saves esmeralda from the lit pyre on which she was to be burned alive, he carries her up the walls of notre dame as the orchestra, choir, and organ thunder the strains of the “sanctus.” quasimodo lifts esmeralda high above his head, framing her with the cathedral’s famed rose window, and cries out in a loud voice “sanctuary! sanctuary!” as the wicked judge claude frollo realizes what’s happening, he lays siege on the cathedral, leading quasimodo to throw a series of massive rocks and beams. he also pours molten lead down on the streets of paris to defend the cathedral and the girl he loves, who is one of the only people who purely returns his affections. while the assault is mostly successful, quasimodo’s master still finds his way inside the cathedral, and quasimodo confronts frollo’s misguided attempts of achieving “righteousness.” frollo then pulls a knife on the pair, and quasimodo picks up esmeralda and runs while frollo pursues them across the roof. the two eventually hide on one of the gargoyles on the cathedral’s exterior walls, and frollo attempts to climb down to reach them. he stands up on another gargoyle, lifts his sword high over his head, and says “and he shall smite the wicked, and cast them into the fiery pit.”4 the garscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2019 goyle on which he is standing cracks, causing frollo to lose his balance. in a final miasma of nightmarish symbolism, frollo ends up face to face with the gargoyle, clinging onto the underside of the statue. it comes to life—eyes and mouth glowing orange—and growls, completely breaking off from the cathedral’s walls. this sends the judge plummeting to his death in the lake of molten lead below. by mobilizing these scenes, it becomes possible to apply theoretical frameworks, beginning with the underpinning foundation that these films use to function in ways analogous to religion. in studying religion, gary kessler proposes that the term “religion” is difficult to accurately pin down.5 he draws from the work of catherine albanese6 and proposes a four-tiered definition of how we may engage with this concept: “creed,” consisting of proclaimed beliefs; “code,” which consists of rules and regulations which the followers are expected to adhere to; “cultus,” which consists of the ways by which religion is established as an organized group; and “community,” which are the interactions the adherents have within and without their group. in the analysis of these two films, i have found that both exhibit these four criteria in different ways, respective to the type of soteriology present in their narratives. for beauty and the beast: “creed” consists of the soteriological idea that love leads to salvation; “code” consists of the means by which one is saved, because “if [the beast] could learn to love another, and earn their love in return . . . the spell would be broken”7 “cultus”—which, for the purposes of this analysis, refers to the thing which drives these narratives forward and moves toward the realization of their soteriological functions—is the curse which the beast must break; and “community”—here functioning as the impact on culture as a whole— refers to the immense popularity of the film, often regarded as one of the best films of the disney renaissance of the 1990s, which won an academy award8 and was nominated9 for five more. likewise, the hunchback of notre dame’s “creed” is that salvation is found through dogma and as a product of the dominance of god’s will; “code” takes the form of quasimodo’s submission to frollo’s dominance, as seen in a line from the song “out there,” where frollo says “remember quasimodo, this is your sanctuary” (trousdale and wise, 1996); “cultus” takes the form of frollo and his dominance; and “community” takes the form of the underwhelming reaction of the film, especially when compared to beauty and the beast.10 now, to see the ways in which film can function as religion, we turn to the work of john lyden, as proposed in film as religion. in film as religion, john lyden writes that films labeled as “thrillers” are defined narratives that “seek to create terror through the depiction of frightening situations from which individuals attempt release.”11 furthermore, he highlights their display of male sexuality with inappropriate limits, which leads to soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 39 violence due to an inability to fulfill these desires, which itself is “due to their monstrous natures.”12 (lyden, 228). i suggest that these films meet lyden’s definition of thrillers and function as such, despite being children’s musicals. the urge to escape and be “released” from current situations is displayed by both quasimodo and the beast. lyden’s criteria is also fulfilled by the antagonists in these respective films—frollo and gaston—who exude inappropriate manifestations of their own sexuality. yet, so does the beast, the protagonist in the film that bears his name, due in no small part to his initial motivations for pursuing belle; he does not want her love for its own sake; initially, he wants to use her love so that his humanity might be restored. the beast was originally a handsome young prince that had been turned into a monster by an enchantress due to his selfishness — or “monstrous”—desires. viewers are told that the only cure is “to love another and earn their love in return . . .”13 the beast, gaston, and frollo: characterization from a pragmatic perspective, what separates these three characters is narrative positionality. the beast is the subject of his movie’s soteriological narrative; he shows an active desire to receive salvation. on the other hand, quasimodo urgently seeks freedom from his oppressive situation, but lacks the agency to do so. he requires an act of god—the gargoyle coming to life—to break free of frollo’s oppression and domination. it is essential to establish the differences between the beast, gaston, and frollo in order to proceed with this analysis and outline the ways in which the beast receives salvation while frollo and gaston do not. i return to elizabeth johnson and her work studying renewals in christology in the last century. johnson’s book, consider jesus, adds context to the idea of evolving soteriologies and changes in religion as well as popular culture. she explains that before the second vatican council, soteriology had been defined by dogma since the middle ages. she tells readers that during the middle ages, “persons not baptized [were not seen as] related to jesus christ and [did] not follow his way . . . jews and infidels were thought to be beyond the pale of god’s saving mercy in christ, [and] mercy was not abundantly available even to christians who lived in fear of their own damnation.” 14 after the second vatican council in the 1960’s, however, she explains that the roman catholic church affirmed that salvation is possible for every person. she quotes the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world from the council, saying: “[the work of god and salvation] holds true not only for christians, but for all people of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. for since christ died for all people . . . we ought to believe that the holy spirit, in a manner known only to god, offers to every human being the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.” 15 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2019 according to johnson, this leads to three interpretations of religion in practice: the first is that jesus christ is constitutive for salvation. this is one of the more conservative, traditional, and exclusive interpretations of soteriology, in that salvation is meant only for a select few in particular and exclusionary means, forms, and processes. the second is that christ is constitutive for salvation but is to be interpreted in an inclusive sense. this interpretation holds that it is the will of god to save all, and those who have not heard of christ’s salvation can be saved by holding to the universal truths present in their religion. the third and final interpretation is that christ is not necessary for salvation but is instead “normative.” it is the second of these interpretations that emerged after the second vatican council. it is considered much more liberal leaning regarding theological applications. hans urs von balthasar—a swiss cardinal-elect who passed away days before the ceremony that would have marked his ascent to the college of cardinals—from a good friday sermon, saying; “through the cross, the love of god wins what it has been after all along, namely, the return love of the beloved creatures, even those who had shut themselves off.”16 johnson uses this moment from balthasar’s speech to conclude this chapter of her work, and the impact is compelling. of interest to this analysis are the parallels between von balthasar’s quote and the prologue of beauty and the beast. to illustrate this, we turn to the film’s prologue. the beginning of the film provides audiences with a voice-over narration accompanying a visual of several scenes depicted by figures set within stained-glass windows; the opening exposition tells of a selfish prince transformed into a beast after turning away an old woman seeking shelter from a winter storm. she curses the castle and the prince, giving him an enchanted rose which acts as a magical hourglass; the narrator states that the rose “[will] bloom until his 21st year . . . [and] if he could learn to love another and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. if not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.”17 as the beast follows the soteriology in the narrative of is film—love leads to salvation— he receives redemption. this obviously distinguishes him from gaston who acts purely on selfish desire throughout the duration of this film. likewise, von balthasar’s—and, subsequently johnson’s—summary of love serves as the ultimate soteriology and translates to hunchback albeit through different means. rather than acceptance of love leading to individual salvation, love’s function serves as a simultaneous critique of the original proposed soteriology, submission to dominance. appropriate to the 15th century setting, the hunchback of notre dame proposes a soteriology of fear and submission to the domination of powerful figures misusing their power. however, soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 41 the midpoint of the film depicts frollo—who, up until this point, has been spear-heading his supposedly righteous purge of the parisian romani—asserting his dominance as he begins to search for esmeralda. this backfires as paris, the city that frollo wishes to save, is consumed by flames. frollo himself vows that he will “find [esmerelda]” even if he has to “burn down all of paris.”18 with frollo’s subsequent fall from power, and literal fall into the fiery streets below complete with the demonic gargoyle’s animation, we can surmise that the giver of salvation is rejecting frollo’s attempts at achieving it while simultaneously accepting that quasimodo could not receive salvation without being freed from his oppressor. frollo and the beast display several parallels; they both wish to achieve salvation, and this is apparent when closely comparing each character’s motivations. however, it is the beast who finally experiences a change of heart during his story’s second act. frollo increases his domination and abuse of power, and ultimately suffers the consequences. eras of hope, eras of distrust the theme of powerful figures misusing their authority and falling from grace along with theoretical foundations allows analysis of the socio-political atmosphere in the united states during the period (1991-1996) when these films were released. furthermore, it makes possible an engagement between soteriological narratives commentary and specific sociopolitical events from the era. american politics in the 1980’s is largely defined by the republican administrations of ronald reagan and george h. w. bush. many believed that the american people were hoping for fresh perspective amid the stagnancy they had come to associate with the government. in this quest for political “salvation” the motives for fictional, projected soteriologies, that the longings of some of america’s citizens become clear. the exuberant and charming governor of arkansas, william jefferson clinton seemed an appropriate shift away from certain attitudes and political trends. however, directly after announcing his campaign, clinton was plagued by scandal. the whitewater scandal from the early 1990’s is now hailed as part of the permeant american consciousness. whitewater subsisted on a claim that the clintons were involved in a scam where elderly residents of the whitewater real-estate complex were evicted after missing one payment of their massive mortgage. further evidence of the scandal manifested in a series of documents which were related to the incident and later removed from record after the 1993 suicide of deputy white house counsel vince foster. this further compelled the senate-appointed independent counsel kenneth starr to begin his investigation of wrongdoing by the president. then, in may 1994, an arkansas woman named paula jones filed a civil lawsuit against president clinton, claiming that he sexually harassed her in a hotel room while scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2019 he was then serving as the governor of arkansas. the subsequent midterm elections produced the “republican revolution” of 1994, which overturned the previously considerable democrat majority in the house of representatives and senate. this congress effectively proceeded to block all of clinton’s proposed legislation and reforms, exemplified by the government shutdown between december 16, 1995, and january 6, 1996. the republican revolution shows very clearly that the opinions of the american people—the constituents of these congressmen and women— had changed between the overwhelming democrat majorities in the congressional and presidential elections of 1992 and the 1994 midterm elections. as clinton was making significant headway into liberal reforms and was quite popular up until this point, it stands to reason that the jones lawsuit was the incident that tipped the scales to the favor of the conservative republicans. when news broke in january 1998 that president clinton and a former white house intern named monica lewinsky had lied under oath about their affair, starr’s investigation switched from exploring possible financial wrongdoings to investigating perjury and obstruction of justice by president clinton. eventually, starr’s office would release its 300+ page report, and charge the president on eleven “acts that may constitute grounds for an impeachment.”19 since hunchback of notre dame—which features this narrative of figures falling from power—was released in 1996, and the events which led to clinton’s impeachment were exposed more than a year after the release of this film, most of the report is not useful in this analysis. however, starr’s report provides a detailed timeline of clinton’s presidency, as it relates to the scandals that plagued his administration. overall, the timeline submitted in the starr report accurately fits the proposals this paper presents—the president began campaigning in early october 1991; beauty and the beast was released in late november 1991. paula jones filed her sexual harassment lawsuit in 1994, and the republican revolution blocked clinton’s reforms and shutdown the government in 1995. this occurred right before the hunchback of notre dame was released in 1996. hunchback features prominent narrative devices of powerful figures falling from power, and bill clinton became the third president to become impeached by the house of representatives in 1998 (though this did not pass with the 2/3 majority in the senate) after the starr report revealed that the president and monica lewinsky had committed perjury and lied to a grand jury under oath. it is in the paula jones lawsuit and the republican revolution that we can see this discernable shift in politics and popular culture, as the american people elected a new, completely different congress as social values changed. it is possible to argue that the producers of this media noticed this shift and built narratives that reflected the moment’s cultural zeitgeist. soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 43 conclusion i have established these films as they correlate to functions of religion; they provide a popular mythos, and the events in the sociopolitical sphere of american culture likely impacted the collective understanding and perception of these events and were, in turn, impacted. to definitively conclude the importance of this claim, it is productive to view disney’s impact on certain aspects of life and the mundane. turning to katherine lofton’s work in introduction to consuming religion, she “[offers] a profile of religion and its relationship to consumption in the modern world” and “how religion manifests in efforts to mass-produce relations of value,” where religion can at times be “something controlling and disciplining,” but at other times “something pliable and enfranchising.”20 the more popular culture is consumed by large numbers of people rather than a select few, the more their choices regarding consumption reveal their priorities and values. in nestor garcia canclini’s text consumers and citizens: globalization and multicultural conflicts, the writer claims that “to consume is to participate in an arena of competing claims for what society produces and the ways of using it.” 21 lofton uses this broadly accepted claim by cancilini to ultimately tie consumer culture, “pop” culture, and societal attitudes. the walt disney corporation—one of the most influential corporations on earth— occupies a unique position in culture, simultaneously creating and reflecting culture. it is in lofton’s text that we can see the validity of this idea. consuming religion also provides the crux of my analysis. a display of lofton’s theory regarding consumption can be observed when engaging with beast and notre dame, both with perspectives of film production and the themes that impact narratives chosen by producers. these depictions are ultimately consumed by the masses, and the consumption of these two films by americans may have fed the already prevalent trends in public opinion; in turn, that opinion continued to be reinforced. the american people wanted a political salvation; they believed that they had found it in bill clinton. this is reflected with the hopeful themes of the cultural artifacts from this period, such as beauty and the beast. in contrast, when it became painfully obvious that the president had misused his power and authority, their dreams and salvation were dashed. at this juncture, the salvation elements of cultural artifacts, such as the hunchback of notre dame—while still remaining hopeful—were framed as a fight against a domineering, hierarchical structure of power that disenfranchises vulnerable members of society. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2019 endnotes 1. niv study bible. (grand rapids: zondervan corporation, 1995), 1624 2. gary trousdale and kirk wise walt disney pictures presents beauty and the beast. (milwaukee, wi: h. leonard pub corp., 1991). 3. alan menken and stephen schwartz. walt disney pictures presents the hunchback of notre dame. directed by gary trousdale and kirk wise. (milwaukee, wi: h. leonard pub corp., 1996). 4. menken, hunchback of notre dame. 5. gary e. kessler. studying religion: an introduction through cases. (boston: mcgraw-hill higher education, 2008). 6. albanese, catherine l. america: religions and religion. (santa barbra: wadsworth cengage learning 2005), 153-152. 7. trousedale, beauty and the beast. 8. howard ashman and alan menken won best original song for the title song, “beauty and the beast.” 9. best picture (the first animated film to be nominated in for this award, losing to the silence of the lambs), best sound, best original score, and best original song for the songs “be our guest” and “belle,” respectively. 10. the hunchback of notre dame was nominated for best score at the 1997 academy awards and received significant pushback from religious communities in the united states for its negative portrayal of religion vis-à-vis frollo 11. john c. lyden. film as religion: myths, morals, and rituals (new york: new york university press, 2003), 191-201. 12. lyden, 228 13. trousdale, beauty and the beast. 14. elisabeth a. johnson consider jesus: waves of renewal in christology. (new york: crossroad publishing company, 1999), 130, emphasis added. 15. johnson, 131. 16. h. urs von balthasar, the von balthasar reader, eds. m. kehl, w. löser, (new york: crossroad, 1982), 149. 17. trousedale, beauty and the beast. 18. menken, hunchback of notre dame. 19. kenneth starr. the starr report: the findings of the independent counsel kenneth w. starr on president clinton and the lewinsky affair. (new york: public affairs, 1998). 20. catherine lofton. consuming religion. (chicago: university of chicago press, 2017), 4. 21. néstor garcía canclini. consumers and citizens: globalization and multicultural conflicts. vol. 6. (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2001), 39. soteriology of beauty and the beast and the hunchback of notre dame middle tennessee state university 45 bibliography albanese, catherine l. america: religions and religion. cengage learning, 2012. burdick, donald w. the niv study bible, new international version. edited by kenneth l. barker, and donald w. burdick. zodervan, 1985. menken, alan, and schwartz, stephen. walt disney pictures presents the hunchback of notre dame. directed by gary trousdale and kirk wise. h. leonard pub corp., 1996. canclini, néstor garcía. consumers and citizens: globalization and multicultural conflicts. vol. 6. university of minnesota press, 2001. kessler, gary e. studying religion: an introduction through cases. mcgraw-hill higher education, 2008. johnson, elisabeth a. consider jesus: waves of renewal in christology. crossroad publishing company, 1999, 129-139. lyden, john c. film as religion: myths, morals, and rituals. new york university press, 2003, 191-201, 228. starr, kenneth. “the starr report: the findings of independent counsel kenneth w.” starr on president clinton and the lewinsky affair. washington, dc: the washington post 421 (1998). trousdale, gary, kirk wise, paige o’hara, robby benson, richard white, jerry orbach, david ogden stiers, and angela lansbury. beauty and the beast. walt disney studios home entertainment, 1991. trousdale, gary, kirk wise, don hahn, linda woolverton, paige o’hara, robby benson, richard white, et al. walt disney pictures presents beauty and the beast. walt disney studios home entertainment, 1991. lofton, catherine. consuming religion. university of chicago press, 2017, 1-4. middle tennessee state university 6 the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad’s the secret agent jennifer lynn rideout abstract in the secret agent, joseph conrad introduces anarchist adolf verloc and links his arrival in london to the unseen yet deadly viral arrival of the influenza. i argue that, in so doing, conrad creates the character descriptions of verloc and his family as metaphorically representative of the virus and its symptoms. conrad complicates the story by setting it in 1886, inviting the reader to recall the terrifying events of the 1889 russian pandemic and the 1894 attempted bombing of the greenwich observatory and to envision a britain whose innocence is shattered by destructive forces unseen with the naked eye. by expanding on the connection between the progression of time and the notion of fluid borders, both of which feed the rush of 20th-century modern technology, conrad’s characters represent the emergence into a world over which britons perceived that they had little control. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research when joseph conrad’s the secret agent was released in 1907, negative reviews focused on “the book’s difficulty and inaccessibility to the ‘ordinary reader’” (najder 379), allegedly because of conrad’s “foreign origins.” however, one cannot help but wonder if the real reason for such criticism was fear in the face of reality. studies of turn-of-the-century britain show the nation seeking to define itself in the new modernist period, a time fraught with societal challenges from within and without, many originating far beyond england’s borders (honigsbaum 300). in the secret agent, conrad highlights britain’s sense of vulnerability by setting the novel in 1886 and inverting time to incorporate two major events that, in reality, came later. the first is the highly documented russian flu pandemic of 1889-1890, and the second is the attempted bombing of the greenwich observatory by french anarchist martial bourdin in 1894 (butterworth 329). conrad heightens the sense of terror by taking readers back to 1886, a time when britons feared loss of control in the rush of modern technology. he inverts time to combine that fear with these two later national events that were both media sensations. while in france in 1884, conrad was taken for an anarchist himself, though he was later absolved of suspicion. the incident, combined with bourdin’s attempt on the greenwich observatory, influenced conrad’s thinking in the secret agent (newton 117). in the novel, he characterizes time and the fluidity of borders in terms of pandemic influenza, extending the metaphor of terrorism as a virulent crisis through anarchist adolf verloc and his immediate family, winnie and stevie. michael martin touches on the notion of virulence when he claims that the secret agent is not just an espionage novel but also fits the genre of “the pre-great war invasion narrative . . . depicting myriad ways in which british society is imperiled by continental miscreants” (253). martin goes on to explain these fictional devices depicting “london [as] denationalized by malevolent foreigners, a generalized xenophobia and specifically a visceral germanophobia, a british populace in a state of physical and mental decline, and acts of aggression that paradoxically ‘vaccinate’ britain by stimulating its resistances” (260 emphasis added). martin, however, is not the only writer to hint at metaphorical virulence in the literature of the period. writing about a text within the same general time period, katherine kelly explains that heinrich ibsen’s the doll’s house (1879) deals with pandemic and mod7 spring 2018 ernism. she writes that “ibsen used metaphors of disease and pollution to signal the urgent need to break with the past and prepare for a new future” (24). conrad’s view of the future was not one of clarity but of contamination. while kelly writes that ibsen was “dismantling . . . tradition in preparation for coming change – a great clearing away in advance of a new age” (24), conrad’s metaphorical use of pandemic in the secret agent is not optimistic about the future. i examine his view of the future and contend that, for conrad, modernism means uncertainty, threat, loss of control, and even loss of life. he reflects the sense of vulnerability that plagued turn-of-the-century british society as it emerged from the first flu pandemic in 1890. in this paper, i argue that conrad captures this feeling and plays upon britons’ fears of an invisible killer, extending the metaphor of influenza to anarchists in the secret agent. from the first chapter, conrad sets an ominous tone through a metaphorical connection to pandemic influenza. alluding to the insidious and pervasive nature of terrorism as embodying the symptoms of disease, conrad writes of verloc: “he generally arrived in london (like the influenza) from the continent, only he arrived unheralded by the press; and his visitations set in with great severity” (6). conrad illustrates here and at the end of the novel that, unlike the public health issue manifested by influenza, people could be warned about and take appropriate precautions for safety, terrorists cannot so easily be identified. rather, like influenza, terrorists slip across borders unknown and unseen. mark honigsbaum explains that “the russian influenza was peculiarly ‘modern’—a pandemic that seemed to be intimately linked to modern trade and transportation technologies and the increasing speed of global communications” (300). from post-victorians’ perception, modernist period change moved faster than man and, thus, man was not in control anymore. honigsbaum further elaborates this point: following the trajectory of the russian flu as it swept through europe and north america, his research reveals that the virus “spread rapidly between european capitals via international rail, road and shipping connections in a westward progression that was the subject of widespread commentary in both the daily and periodical press” (300). modern mass transit created a realistic fluidity of borders through which materials and people quickly moved. influenza’s infectious invisibility allowed it to travel as an unseen passenger on mass the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent middle tennessee state university 8 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research transit, changing the public’s perception of the impressive speed that moved goods and people to that of a horrifying invasion of swift and deadly proportions. for these emerging modernists, “the idea that the influenza ‘microbe’ might hitch a ride on these symbols of the machine age was doubly disconcerting” (304-5). conrad’s metaphorical use of the spread of influenza relates to the unseen activity of anarchists, and creates a sense that terrorism is virulent in its ability to sicken society by inciting paranoia and a perceived inability for people to protect themselves from it. most poignant is conrad’s illustration in the secret agent of a turn-of-the-century awareness of the unpredictability of who will live and who will die. most notably, he does this when he creates a microcosm of pandemic in the members of the verloc household. whenever he uses flu-like symptoms as metaphor in the novel, only verloc and his family are described in connection with them. for verloc, the description begins with mr. vladimir’s warning that he must soon take action or face termination from employment with the embassy. vladimir’s pronouncement to verloc that “we don’t want prevention – we want cure” (22) initiates conrad’s allusions to terrorism as illness. vladimir incites fear in verloc that he must act in order to preserve his income from the embassy. just as an influenza epidemic creates vigilance among people to preserve their own health, vladimir’s discussion with verloc reveals that an act of terrorism will incite people’s fears and affect their confidence in their protectors if law enforcement is unable to prevent such acts. conrad emphasizes that verloc is a foreigner on english soil. richard niland calls attention to conrad’s description when he writes that “vladimir’s ‘amazingly guttural intonation’ is ‘not only utterly un-english, but absolutely un-european’ (sa 24), and his orchestration of the bomb outrage—allowing conrad to highlight a malignant russian influence—guarantees that all ‘foreign scoundrels’ are suspected by the establishment of being ‘likely to throw something,’ causing ‘a national calamity’ (sa 112)” (niland 131). carrying these concerns with him, verloc first displays symptoms of impending influenza after meeting with fellow anarchists. he arrives home thinking to himself that “he hoped he was not sickening for anything” (46), and at winnie’s inquiry about his health, he says to her, “‘i don’t feel very well,’. . . passing his hand over his moist brow” (48). the remainder of the characters in the novel remain untouched by such description and are described for their physi9 spring 2018 cal features instead. for example, michaelis is described as “round like a distended balloon, he opened his short thick arms” (42), while “comrade ossipon’s thick lips accentuated the negro-type of his face” (42), and karl yundt, in his departure from the meeting, “rais[es] an uncertain and clawlike hand” (43). the anarchist group is “a sad lot – misshapen, overweight, grotesque, bloodthirsty, lame” (raskin 193). in contrast to the grotesque physical features of the anarchists, conrad distinguishes the members of the verloc household with descriptors of influenza symptomatology. a better understanding of the suspected causes of the russian flu and its symptoms, however, is necessary to establish the connection with influenza to verloc, winnie, and, indirectly, stevie. health practitioners in the 1890s believed that the russian influenza may have spread through “atmospheric electrical phenomena” (smith 62) such as ozone impurity, meteors releasing “a poisonous gas from outer space” (64) or “comets’ tails convey[ing] freeze-dried organisms, including influenza viruses, gathered from interstellar dust” (65). one scientist’s report reassured the public that the ozone level at greenwich was normal (63). suspected influenza connections researched at greenwich and the focus of greenwich observatory for bourdin’s attempted bombing connects the two threats with effects on time and transportation, creating a sense of vulnerability in the post-victorian mind. almost personifying the influenza by the ability to choose its victims, “influenza seemed to single out the urban middle classes and, in particular, male heads of households for attack, as well as by the fact that the earliest recorded casualties were precisely those considered most essential to the smooth functioning of victorian society and economy, such as diplomats, post office workers, lawyers, and employees of banks and insurance firms” (honigsbaum 300). influenza, like the terrorist attempt on the greenwich observatory, was an attack on time. f.b. smith writes that, because of the virus, “the economy was disrupted. postal services were curtailed for weeks, particularly during the 1891 and 1892 epidemics, because letter deliverers, sorters, and overseas parcels officers were especially affected” (58). although influenza cannot consciously and willfully attack like terrorists can, its invisibility and malignant presence likens the virus metaphorically to terrorism’s effects on people in its disruption of schedules and day-to-day living. while terrorists disrupt timetables with destruction and death, the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent middle tennessee state university 10 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research likewise, influenza disrupts timetables with critical illness and death. similarly, reports in newspapers suggested not only a potential for infections through the fluidity of terrestrial borders but also mysterious cosmological borders. additional concerns included earthquakes and the flooding of the hwang ho river in china in 1888-89, which left carcasses of animals rotting along its banks that scientists believed could release airborne pathogens (smith 63). the russo-japanese war was also blamed for the transmission of disease, as infected troops moved about on trains with civilian passengers, systematically spreading influenza westward (66). symptoms of russian flu recorded by health practitioners included “sudden fever which lasted for three to five days to a fortnight, chills, especially in the back, and thumping muscular pains, runny nose and eyes, sneezing or dry coughing, prostration for up to a fortnight, loss of appetite and (occasionally) sense of smell, and photophobia” (smith 56). just as no one seemed to know how terrorists came to be in london, scientists could also only guess at the origin of the contagion. one particular example of how conrad establishes an “influenza-like atmosphere” in the story is when he writes about the bomber’s death at the greenwich observatory as being “a raw, gloomy day of the early spring” (66) and then describes verloc and winnie with numerous influenza symptoms. drawing on the various influenza medical theories as well as first-hand experience, conrad effectively characterizes verloc as a living metaphor for the virus itself. for example, he describes verloc as already feeling unwell as goes walking on a damp, cold evening leading “a cortège of dismal thoughts along dark streets” (146). his very thoughts are like a funeral procession in the night, foreshadowing death in the coming pages of the novel and bringing to readers at the time the recollection of such scenes in the wake of the russian influenza epidemic. upon reaching home, he announces that he will go to the continent, passing across the border of england for a buying trip for his shop (149). upon his return, the tragic action of the novel unfolds with conrad’s metaphorical descriptions of viral symptoms that pave the way for the demise of the verloc household members. in his plan to enlist stevie, winnie’s intellectually disabled brother, to place the bomb at the greenwich observatory, verloc proposes to winnie that stevie go to the country and stay with the anarchist michaelis at his cottage (156). it is likely that winnie 11 spring 2018 would have thought this a good idea, because taking the country air was supposed to be a preventative measure against disease, and a method for city-dwellers to purify their bodies from urban pollution. news reports of the period indicate that people attempted to escape the flu by taking the country air (mussell 12). among influential members of society who fled for the country was queen victoria who “refused ‘personal intercourse with individuals from london,’ and ha[d] all messages from the foreign office disinfected” (12). therefore, stevie is protected from being described with flu-like symptoms and, instead, dies from exposure to verloc’s plan. much like the destructive effect of influenza coming as a shock to britons at that time, the destruction of all three members of the verloc household comes as a shock to readers. martin bock writes that “the verloc family, like a ‘perfect detonator,’ is a tightly restrained and delicate domestic mechanism that is easily disturbed by vladimir’s insistence that verloc earn his “pay as an agent provocateur” (102), likening the family to explosives. the timing and effects of the deaths work both as a metaphor for influenza and as the literal effects of terrorism. first, conrad leads readers to believe that verloc died in the explosion at the greenwich observatory. readers sense this confirmation through the extended discussion among the anarchists who knew him. ossipon says, “i don’t know what came to verloc. there’s some mystery there. however, he’s gone” (65). when conrad writes about stevie setting off fireworks in the stairwell of the milk company (8), he foreshadows stevie’s death, creating for readers the first shock when they are led to believe that it is verloc who died. conrad sets up the second shock when he leads readers to believe that winnie, who has just learned from verloc about her brother’s death, has gone upstairs to dress in order to leave her home. when verloc calls to her to come sit with him on the couch, winnie unexpectedly seizes the moment to exorcize her passion and grief when she noiselessly picks up the carving knife from the sideboard, ending the scene by killing verloc with the knife. this scene comes as a shock to readers because conrad writes that initially winnie obeyed verloc’s call to come sit with him on the couch, illustrating that “she started forward at once, as if she were still a loyal woman bound to that man by an unbroken contract” (215). however, conrad shifts from winnie’s obedience to her acting upon impulse when he writes that “her right hand skimmed slightly the end of the table, and when she had passed the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent middle tennessee state university 12 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research on towards the sofa the carving knife had vanished without the slightest sound from the side of the dish” (215). by the end of the scene, winnie changes from submissive wife to impassioned killer. the third shock for readers comes when the anarchists’ earlier supposition that verloc is gone in the explosion is proven false. after killing verloc, winnie meets comrade ossipon in the street and sends him into the flat to turn off the lights. in the semi-darkness, he makes out the form of verloc in repose on the couch and suddenly realizes that it was not verloc who blew himself up at the greenwich observatory. ossipon first thinks verloc is sleeping, but when he realizes what he is seeing, conrad writes that “a yell coming from the innermost depths of his chest died out unheard and transformed into a sort of greasy, sickly taste on his lips” (234). conrad continues the scene expressing that “comrade ossipon made out the handle of the knife [and] . . . turned away from the glazed door, and retched violently” (235). the fourth and last shock is winnie’s suicide as she attempts to escape for the continent, explained by the press as “‘an impenetrable mystery [which] seems destined to hang forever over this act of madness and despair” (conrad 252). sarah cole writes that the victorian “sensationalist-minded press . . . spread word of anarchist outrages far and wide and help[ed] to stir public fear and interest” (317). conrad replicates media sensation in aligning these four shocks with influenza, extending the metaphor by tying it with the real fears people held about the disease, not knowing who will live and who will die. unfortunately, terrorism does not function in the novel just as a sickness affecting the public but instead as a contagion that impacts the characters themselves. in their efforts to train stevie to be a good worker, winnie and her mother teach him docility and obedience to the point that he is described among the young men of london as “none more affectionate and ready to please, and even useful, as long as people did not upset his poor head” (49). if verloc is influenza, winnie and her mother unwittingly place stevie in the spray of the sneeze that is verloc’s plan to blow up the greenwich observatory. thinking to affirm stevie’s place as a useful member of their household, winnie tells verloc, “you could do anything with that boy, adolf . . . . he would go through fire for you” (151). and go through fire he does, when he stumbles with the explosive varnish can in his grip. at this point in the novel, verloc is described as fully symptomatic of influenza: “his head 13 spring 2018 held between his hands. . . his teeth rattled with an ungovernable violence, causing his whole enormous back to tremble at the same rate” (157). further, “his eyes were bloodshot and his face red. . . . his appearance might have been the effect of a feverish cold. he drank three cups of tea, but abstained from food entirely” (159). note, these are the very symptoms of flu reported at the time, according to smith. conrad goes on to describe that verloc was not himself, either physically or mentally (160): “his features were swollen and [he had] an air of being drugged” (161). winnie was concerned about her husband’s state and saw “something wild and doubtful in his expression [that] made it appear uncertain whether he meant to strangle or to embrace his wife. . . . he had gone in red. he came out a strange papery white. his face, losing its drugged, feverish stupor, had in that short time acquired a bewildered and harassed expression” (162). still puzzled, winnie wonders why verloc “should remain . . . leaning over the table, propped up on his two arms as though he were feeling giddy or sick” (164). all of verloc’s virulent symptoms soon come clear to winnie when she learns that her husband is an anarchist who enlisted her brother, involuntarily, on a mission of death. when winnie learns of stevie’s death, the influenza of terrorism is out of verloc’s previously perceived control and becomes manifest in winnie. conrad then describes winnie’s actions as mimicking viral symptoms: “her lips were blue, her hands cold as ice, and her pale face, in which the two eyes seemed as two black holes, felt to her as if they were enveloped in flames” (172). she “reeled to and fro” and had “crazed eyes” (172). verloc finds that “the prospect of having to break the news [of stevie’s death] to her put him in a fever” (189). both verloc and winnie are overcome with influenza-like symptoms as they wrestle with the tragedy of stevie’s death. winnie’s mind is fevered with passion, and when verloc looked at her “he was startled by the inappropriate character of his wife’s stare” (197). conrad indicates that her “mental condition had the merit of simplicity; but it was not sound” (205). winnie’s condition follows the observations of doctors during the russian influenza pandemic. having exhibited the typical physical signs, winnie then exhibits the “peculiar ‘cerebral disturbances’ and other worrying ‘nervous sequels’ . . . [that doctors said] could also result in psychoses sufficient to trigger suicidal thoughts or the urge to take the life of a close family member” (honigsbaum 311). what was the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent middle tennessee state university 14 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research a seemingly straight-forward plan to infect the city with paranoia of catastrophe comes home to verloc in his inability to account to winnie for his own responsibility in stevie’s death, infecting her with a hatred and passion enough to kill him. at this point in the novel, the reader can anticipate winnie killing verloc. however, when she flees for the continent with ossipon, her suicide comes as a surprise that substantiates paul armstrong’s assertion that “the characters in this novel repeatedly experience astonishment at finding that they can no longer count on what they believed, assumed, and trusted” (86), which echoes the post-victorian movement into modernism, a time of immense change that challenged traditional beliefs and cultural norms. verloc’s attempted act of terrorism spread infection into his family, ending stevie’s life, verloc’s life, and eventually winnie’s as her fevered fear of imprisonment and hanging for his murder drives her mad and results in her suicide. honigsbaum writes that the russian influenza had neurological aftereffects for some people and resulted in increased suicide rates (314). conrad adds winnie to that number as he brings the novel full circle from likening verloc to influenza at the novella’s beginning to the professor’s reflections at the novella’s end. closing the novel on an ominous note, conrad characterizes the professor, who keeps a bomb in his pocket at all times, as “unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men” (255). the pandemic metaphor ends with verloc and winnie’s deaths, but conrad leaves his readers realizing that unlike the coughing and feverishness of influenza revealing its presence, by the end of the novel he sees anarchists as “pest[s] in a street full of men” (255), unknown as a threat with the potential to kill, much like a plague of rats. in the secret agent, conrad demonstrates the pandemic potential for terrorism as verloc arrives from the continent and sets off a series of events that inflict destruction and death within his own close circle of relations, ending any future prospect of violence at his hands. however, conrad makes clear that verloc’s end is not the end of terrorism, just as britons realized that the end of one pandemic did not mean an end to those in the future. closing the novel with the image of the professor, armed with hidden bombs on his person as he walks the crowded streets of london, the reader knows that terrorism, like influenza, will strike again – random, unseen, and deadly. as england’s victorians moved under a cloud of sorrow into the twentieth-century, facing the death of their 15 spring 2018 longest reigning queen, victoria, in 1901, they soon were faced with the first recorded pandemic and also dealt for the first time with the threat of anarchist terror plots. gathering these threads of grief and shock, conrad taps into turn-of-the-century paranoia in the secret agent, illustrating a britain that the sensationalist media took advantage of, striking fear into the hearts of the public and exacerbating feelings of their world as out of control. the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent middle tennessee state university 16 works cited armstrong, paul b. play and the politics of reading: the social uses of modernist form. cornell up, 2005. google books: books.google.com/ books?id=hy5cxi220_yc&pg=pa88&lpg=pa88&dq=verloc+and+flu&source=bl&ots=mdnek8ya8p&sig=jrodbkiejftsq5lx8tcjjktpqtc&hl=en&sa=x&ved=0ahukewih1sh7rappahvgniykhejacrkq6aeikjaa#v=onepage&q=verloc%20and%20flu&f=false. bock, martin. joseph conrad and psychological medicine. texas tech up, 2002. mtsu libraries’ catalog, web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/ztawmhhuyv9fmtq4otu2x19btg2?sid=c650920d-a533-4 d17-ac8c-092e4bb02910@sessionmgr107&vid=0&format=eb&rid=1. butterworth, alex. the world that never was: a true story of dreamers, schemers, anarchists, and secret agents. vintage, 2011. cole, sarah. “dynamite violence and literary culture.” modernism-modernity, vol. 16, no. 2, 2009, pp. 301-328. project muse, doi: 10.1353/mod.0.0074. conrad, joseph. the secret agent. 1907. signet classics, 2015. honigsbaum, mark. “the great dread: cultural and psychological impacts and responses to the ‘russian’ influenza in the united kingdom, 1889–1893.” social history of medicine: the journal of the society for the social history of medicine, vol. 23, no. 2, 2010, pp. 299-319. historical abstracts: doi: 10.1093/shm/ hkq011. kelly, katherine e. “pandemic and performance: ibsen and the outbreak of modernism.” south central review, 2008, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 12-35. project muse: muse.jhu.edu/article/233342. martin, michael a. “‘we aren’t german slaves here, thank god’: conrad’s transposed nationalism and british literature of espionage and invasion.” journal of modern literature, vol. 21, no. 2, 1997, pp. 251-281. gale consolidated db, eds.a.ebscohostcom.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/eds/pdfviewer/ pdfviewer?sid=9399aba0-6dc8-47c2-aadd-f1f2fa20ed2e%40sessionmgr4010&vid=13&hid=4211. mussell, james. “pandemic in print: the spread of influenza in the fin de siècle.” endeavor, vol. 31, no. 1, 2007, pp. 12-17. ebsco host, doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2007.01.008. najder, zdzislaw. conrad under familial eyes. cambridge up, 1983. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 17 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 18 the russian influenza as extended metaphor in joseph conrad ’s the secret agent newton, m.s. “anarchism.” joseph conrad in context. edited by alan h. simmons, cambridge up, 2009. niland, richard. oxford english monographs: conrad and history. oxford up, 2010. proquest ebrary, site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/lib/mtsu/reader.action?docid=10358317. raskin, jonah. the mythology of imperialism: a revolutionary critique of british literature and society in the modern age: rudyard kipling, joseph conrad, e.m. forster, d.h. lawrence, and joyce cary. monthly review p, 2009. smith, f.b. “the russian influenza in the united kingdom, 1889-1894.” social history of medicine, vol. 8 no. 1, 1995, pp. 55-73. oxford journals, doi: 10.1093/ shm/8.1.55. alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 67 an evaluation of the alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters at greenland drive and walnut grove, middle tennessee state university, murfreesboro, tennessee joseph l. keasler and thomas gildemeister abstract this study was conducted as an exercise in garbology, which is the study of society through the analysis of its garbage. the researchers looked at differences and similarities between two tailgating locations, greenland drive and walnut grove, on middle tennessee state university’s campus. the data showed evidence of large amounts of alcohol use at both sites with one being greater than the other. the data also showed evidence of one group of people being more affluent than the other group. overall, the interpretation would suggest the two groups of people were using the sites in a ritualistic manner and not as a permanent settlement. the high amounts of alcohol use and small amounts of food waste would indicate the people were more interested in becoming intoxicated than with the event associated with the site use. while this was less evident at greenland drive, the numbers there were still high. observations at walnut grove indicate that many of the participants were likely under the legal drinking age. the research indicates a need to re-evaluate the wisdom of sponsoring such events on a college campus. scientia et humanitas 68 spring 2011 introduction what is it about competition that brings out our aggressive nature? from the greek olympians to the roman gladiators, as spectators we have always craved the shock and awe that these competitive sports bring. with modern day gladiatorial games, our culture has no problem filling a stadium with thousands of screaming fans who would seem, to an outsider, to be out for blood. since the inception of american football as a sport, people have arrived early to the game to gather with friends and family to show their support for the home team (tailgating 2005). football is also a sport enjoyed by a wide diversity of people from different backgrounds and social standings (falk 2005). it is for these reasons we chose to do our garbology analysis at middle tennessee state university (mtsu), as shown in figure 1 below, during a home football game using two different tailgating locations. figure 1. map of middle tennessee state university (http://www.mtsu.edu/rootpage_files/ mtsucampusmap.pdf, pg. 2) the study will attempt to determine if there is a discernable difference in what one group is throwing away compared to the other. do signs of affluence exist in this environment or do spectator events such as this bring out common human traits with no regard for social ranking? is one group more prone to drunken debauchery over the other? william rathje, director of the university of arizona’s garbage project, states that “if our garbage, in the eyes of the future, is destined to hold a key to the past, then surely it already holds a key to the present” (rathje and murphy 2001: 11). how would future archaeologists view the people from these two sites? these are the questions this study will attempt to answer. the first location we evaluated was the large grassy area on greenland drive, just northwest of floyd stadium, which is shown in figure 2. walnut grove tailgating location greenland drive tailgating location alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 69 figure 2. detail of greenland drive collection site (http://www.mtsu.edu/rootpage_files/ mtsucampusmap.pdf, pg. 2, revised by authors) this area is reserved for members of the blue raider athletic association. to be a member you must make monetary contributions to the mtsu athletic department every year. according to their website, a donation of $125.00 will allow you to park in the greenland lot and a donation of $10,000.00 will give you a “special reserved and personalized” parking space (blue raider athletic association). from this information it would appear that the people using this site are amongst the more affluent members of the community. they would need to have higher than average incomes to afford the yearly donations required to tailgate in this area. this study proposes that the data will support this assertion. the second area of interest on campus is walnut grove, which is a large tree-filled area south of floyd stadium as shown in figure 3. figure 3. detail of walnut grove collection site (http://www.mtsu.edu/rootpage_files/ mtsucampusmap.pdf, pg. 2, revised by authors) greenland tailgating trash cans collected cans walnut grove trash cans collected cans scientia et humanitas 70 spring 2011 the walnut grove area is used as a tailgating location for faculty and fraternities, as well as students and their families. walnut grove is most heavily used during a tailgating event. throughout the year, it is only used a handful of times for other special events. many students use the area to study or have lunch the remainder of the time. since this area is so heavily used by students during a tailgating event, as observed from the many fraternity and student organization functions taking place, this study proposes that there will be higher levels of alcohol use and evidence of a lesser quality of alcohol than at the greenland site. the sites there are two main areas on campus that are used for tailgating during mtsu home football games. one is the greenland drive area and the other is walnut grove. the greenland lot is reserved for donors to the mtsu athletic department. the walnut grove area is used by members of the general public, mtsu fraternities, academic departments, and students. the greenland drive tailgating area is located in the grass field between the parking lot and the tennis courts at the corner of greenland drive and middle tennessee boulevard. the area’s approximate dimensions are 550 feet by 350 feet. there were twenty-four 55-gallon drums lined with trash bags for waste collection at the site. the area appeared to be neat and well-kept and there was no noticeable trash on the ground. it was also noted that along the edge of the parking lot and the grass field, there were electrical hook-ups for rv’s to connect for power. the weather during collection was clear with a temperature in the 60’s and low humidity. there was no sign of recent rainfall as the ground was dry and hard packed. the greenland drive area of mtsu’s campus is rarely used for any other activity throughout the year. there are sidewalks that skirt the perimeter of the area, but none that cross through the field itself. there are no trash cans, benches, or picnic tables in the area for students to use at any other time. the only reason a student might cross this field is to use it as a shortcut onto campus or to the tennis courts. since this area is used by mtsu alumni and donors to the athletic department, we hoped to see a higher quality of waste in the trash collected. we expected to see evidence of alcohol use and large quantities of food related waste, much like a large family reunion. the study hypothesized that the data would show the greenland drive tailgating area to be more affluent than the walnut grove area. the second area we collected data from was walnut grove. this area of campus is located south of floyd stadium between peck hall and the cope administration building. the approximate dimensions of this area are 615 feet by 477 feet. the area contained thirty-five 55-gallon drums lined with trash bags for waste disposal. the area appeared to be more chaos than organization with vehicles parked haphazardly and every trash container overflowing with trash. the weather conditions during collection were identical to the greenland site. the walnut grove site is a moderately used area throughout the rest of the year. during the warmer months, with its location on campus and the shade provided from alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 71 the large trees, it is a relatively calm and quiet place for students to sit and study or have lunch. ordinarily, there are three trash cans, six picnic tables, and three benches spread throughout the area, which were removed for the tailgating event. walnut grove is also used for other special events during the year, such as faculty or student organization picnics and gatherings. with the walnut grove site being a conglomeration of people of different ages and backgrounds, we expected to find evidence of higher alcohol use and less food waste at this site compared with the greenland site. we also believed we would see differences in brands of waste, which would show this site to be less affluent than the greenland site. the amount of orderliness witnessed at the greenland area and the complete lack thereof at walnut grove, appeared to validate our expectations. analysis of the sample once we had narrowed down our two site locations, the next task was to map out the area and determine where the samples of trash would be taken. observations were begun at 4:00 p.m. on october 5, 2010. each site was walked and trash locations were marked on a printed map of the area. after observing the areas, we decided which cans to collect from and how many samples we would need. at both sites a sample was collected from an outer perimeter trash can and one from the middle of the busiest area. the decision to collect only two samples from each site was based on sampling five percent of the total; and since the cans were so large, it was determined that two samples would more than cover the amount needed. collection was not begun until the start of the football game, which was 7:00 p.m., to avoid the large crowds and to ensure full samples. the collections were started at the greenland site at 7:15 p.m. a wheelbarrow was used to carry the samples from the site to a waiting truck. while making the collections it was noted that the area was relatively deserted except for a few people watching the game on flat-screen televisions mounted to the side of their rv’s. we removed the samples, placed them in the wheelbarrow, and put new trash bags into the cans. we then proceeded towards the truck used to haul the samples, which was parked in front of peck hall. after unloading the greenland samples, we began collecting samples from the sites within walnut grove. it was 7:55 p.m. by the time we had finished with the greenland site and made our way to walnut grove. it was evident on arrival that the tailgating event was still going strong at walnut grove. where greenland had been relatively empty, walnut grove was a mass of confusion and drunkenness, with throngs of intoxicated people, loud music, and almost complete darkness. every 55-gallon drum for trash collection was overflowing and surrounded by mounds of trash. collections proceeded without much interruption, except for a young lady having a conversation with our wheelbarrow-offering confirmation of our observations of drunkenness amongst the occupants. scientia et humanitas 72 spring 2011 we began analyzing the contents of our samples on the morning of october 7, 2010, at 10:00 a.m., to allow a full day for sorting the material. a plastic tarp was spread out on the ground and the contents of the bags were poured out for separating. after separating by groups and brands, the numbers of each was counted. notes were taken to record quantities, brands, container style, and in the case of liquids, fluid ounces. an attempt was made to weigh the food waste as well; however, the amount was so miniscule that our scales could not register it. we began our analysis with the greenland site collections and consequently made our first mistake. instead of analyzing each bag independently, the contents of both samples were sorted as one unit. in hindsight, this defeated the purpose of collecting from different areas of the site. while similarities were observed between the two samples, those observations could not be attributed definitively to one area of the site. although this realization came quickly, it was too late to change the method for the greenland site. we separated the sample by brands and types of alcohol as shown in table 1 below. table 1. alcohol contents of greenland drive site sample qty container brand oz type total oz 41 can miller lite 12 beer 492 47 can bud light 12 beer 564 21 can coors light 12 beer 252 9 can michelob ultra 12 beer 108 2 can busch light 12 beer 24 5 can natural light 12 beer 60 1 can keystone light 12 beer 12 1 can yuengling 12 beer 12 10 glass bottle miller lite 12 beer 120 6 glass bottle bud light 12 beer 72 3 glass bottle shiner (holiday cheer) 12 beer 36 3 glass bottle abita (restoration) 12 beer 36 1 glass bottle killian’s (irish red) 12 beer 12 3 glass bottle sol 12 beer 36 1 glass bottle st. pauli girl 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle land shark 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle spaten (oktober fest) 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle paulaner (oktober fest) 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle sweet water (motorboat) 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle victory lager 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle mothership wit 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle blue moon 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle mike’s mango punch 12 beer 12 1 glass bottle mike’s mohito 12 beer 12 alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 73 for example, there was a pile for cans of bud light and a pile for cans of keystone light. the alcohol packaging was also separated by container type such as can or bottle. after separating, a list was made of quantities, the type of container, brands, and liquid ounces. after finishing with the greenland drive site, the walnut grove samples were examined. correcting the previous mistake, the samples were analyzed separately. we used the same methods of recording the contents of each bag as was used for the greenland site. table 2 displays the alcoholic contents from the walnut grove sample. table 2. alcohol contents of walnut grove site samples bag qty container brand oz. type total oz 1 1 can budweiser 12 beer 12 1 1 can steel reserve 12 beer 12 1 4 can yuengling 12 beer 48 1 6 can michelob ultra 12 beer 72 1 6 can coors light 12 beer 72 1 6 can pabst blue ribbon 12 beer 72 1 26 can natural light 12 beer 312 1 45 can keystone light 12 beer 540 1 12 can miller light 12 beer 144 1 8 can miller genuine draft 12 beer 96 1 20 can bud light 12 beer 240 1 8 glass bottle bud light 12 beer 96 1 4 glass bottle coors light 12 beer 48 1 4 glass bottle bud light (lime) 12 beer 48 1 3 glass bottle miller light 12 beer 36 1 2 glass bottle blue moon 12 beer 24 1 1 glass bottle miller high life 12 beer 12 1 1 glass bottle hornsby’s hard cider 12 beer 12 1 1 glass bottle jim beam (bourbon) 25.36 whiskey 25.36 1 1 glass bottle wild turkey (bourbon) 12.68 whiskey 12.68 1 2 glass bottle cookes (brut) 25.36 champagne 50.72 2 9 can natural light 12 beer 108 2 16 can bud light 12 beer 192 2 3 can keystone light 12 beer 36 2 2 can miller light 12 beer 24 2 2 can stroh’s 12 beer 24 2 2 glass bottle michelob ultra 12 beer 24 2 4 glass bottle scrimshaw 12 beer 48 2 1 glass bottle seagram’s escapes 12 wine cooler 12 2 1 plastic bottle evan williams 12.68 whiskey 12.68 2 1 glass bottle burnett’s (fruit punch) 25.36 vodka 25.36 scientia et humanitas 74 spring 2011 as we began inspecting the second bag from the site, a smaller sealed bag of garbage with completely different contents than everything in the remainder of the larger bag was discovered. the contents of the first bag matched the contents of the second bag perfectly except for what was in the small bag. the small bag was almost exclusively food related waste, food packaging, and disposable dinnerware. the only similarities between the small bag and the two larger bags were an abundance of plastic cups, which were possibly used for alcohol consumption. the contents of the small bag indicate it was brought from an area within walnut grove that was hosting an alumni or faculty event. since the study investigated differing amounts of alcohol use and evidence of higher affluence of one site over the other, a decision was made to focus more on the alcohol evidence than the other types of information found within the sample. even if we had not intended to look at alcohol, the sheer amounts of alcohol evidence clearly pointed in this direction. figures 4 and 5 below show the stark contrast between food and alcohol waste from the two sites. figure 4. greenland drive sample figure 5. walnut grove sample alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 75 in each of these photos the small bag in the center represents the total food waste in our samples from each site and the surrounding bags are all alcohol containers. the data showed heavy alcohol use at both sites; however, the walnut grove site far exceeded the amounts found at greenland drive as shown in figure 6. figure 6. total alcohol consumption in each sites samples this graph clearly shows the discrepancy between the two sites. there was no evidence of liquor use at the greenland site, which was not surprising considering the more familial atmosphere of the site; however, the walnut grove site did contain liquor and those numbers are included in the total alcohol consumption. since the total number of waste containers at each site and the number of alcohol related waste products were known, estimates of the total amount of alcohol consumption at each site were made, as shown in figure 7. figure 7. estimated total alcohol consumption at each site figure 7 demonstrates that walnut grove had substantially higher estimated alcohol consumption than greenland drive. the alcohol consumption at walnut grove is estimated to be 43,593 ounces or the equivalent of 3,633 beers, which is nearly twice as much as the scientia et humanitas 76 spring 2011 estimate for greenland drive (23,472 ounces or 1,956 beers). these estimates were created by calculating the mean ounces of alcohol per trash container and multiplying by the total number of containers at each site. if the mean at walnut grove had been calculated without using the skewed sample (bag #2), the total estimated alcohol consumption would have been 69,475 ounces or the equivalent of 5,790 beers. in searching for evidence of differences in the level of affluence between the two sites, the price per ounce of the alcohol consumed and the different brands at each site were analyzed. there were some distinct differences between the brands of alcohol being used at both sites. at walnut grove high quantities of inexpensive beer were recorded, such as keystone light (24 percent), and only a few moderately priced domestic and import brands as seen in table 3 below. table 3. walnut grove alcohol costs bag # qty. cont. brand type total ozs. cost per oz. total cost 1 1 can budweiser beer 12 0.08 0.96 1 1 can steel reserve beer 12 0.05 0.60 1 4 can yuengling beer 48 0.08 3.84 1 6 can michelob ultra beer 72 0.08 5.76 1 6 can coors light beer 72 0.08 5.76 1 6 can pabst blue ribbon beer 72 0.06 4.32 1 26 can natural light beer 312 0.06 18.72 1 45 can keystone light beer 540 0.06 32.40 1 12 can miller light beer 144 0.08 11.52 1 8 can miller genuine draft beer 96 0.07 6.72 1 20 can bud light beer 240 0.08 19.20 1 8 bottle bud light beer 96 0.09 8.64 1 4 bottle coors light beer 48 0.09 4.32 1 4 bottle bud light (lime) beer 48 0.10 4.80 1 3 bottle miller light beer 36 0.09 3.24 1 2 bottle blue moon beer 24 0.12 2.88 1 1 bottle miller high life beer 12 0.07 0.84 1 1 bottle hornsby’s hard cider beer 12 0.12 1.44 1 1 bottle jim beam (bourbon) whiskey 25.36 0.79 20.03 1 1 bottle wild turkey (bourbon) whiskey 12.68 1.10 13.95 1 2 bottle cookes (brut) champagne 50.72 0.28 14.20 2 9 can natural light beer 108 0.06 6.48 2 16 can bud light beer 192 0.08 15.36 continued alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 77 bag # qty. cont. brand type total ozs. cost per oz. total cost 2 3 can keystone light beer 36 0.06 2.16 2 2 can miller light beer 24 0.08 1.92 2 2 can stroh’s beer 24 0.06 1.44 2 2 bottle michelob ultra beer 24 0.09 2.16 2 4 bottle scrimshaw beer 48 0.15 7.20 2 1 bottle seagram’s escapes wine cooler 12 0.10 1.20 2 1 bottle evan williams whiskey 12.68 1.10 13.95 2 1 bottle burnett’s (fruit punch) vodka 25.36 0.39 9.89 total $245.90 in the greenland sample these numbers reversed. there were high quantities of moderately priced domestic brands, such as miller light (31 percent) and bud light (33 percent), as well as a large assortment of imported and domestic specialty beers as seen in table 4 below. table 4. greenland drive alcohol costs qty. container brand type total ozs. cost per oz. total cost 41 can miller lite beer 492 0.08 $39.36 47 can bud light beer 564 0.08 $45.12 21 can coors light beer 252 0.08 $20.16 9 can michelob ultra beer 108 0.08 $8.64 2 can busch light beer 24 0.06 $1.44 5 can natural light beer 60 0.06 $3.60 1 can keystone light beer 12 0.06 $0.72 1 can yuengling beer 12 0.08 $0.96 10 bottle miller lite beer 120 0.09 $10.80 6 bottle bud light beer 72 0.09 $6.48 3 bottle shiner (holiday cheer) beer 36 0.12 $4.32 3 bottle abita (restoration) beer 36 0.12 $4.32 1 bottle killian’s (irish red) beer 12 0.11 $1.32 3 bottle sol beer 36 0.12 $4.32 1 bottle st. pauli girl beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle land shark beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle spaten (oktober fest) beer 12 0.13 $1.56 1 bottle paulaner (oktober fest) beer 12 0.15 $1.80 scientia et humanitas 78 spring 2011 qty. container brand type total ozs. cost per oz. total cost 1 bottle sweet water (motorboat) beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle victory lager beer 12 0.15 $1.80 1 bottle mothership wit beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle blue moon beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle mike’s mango punch beer 12 0.12 $1.44 1 bottle mike’s mohito beer 12 0.16 $1.92 total $167.28 the signs of affluence were beginning to show with the more discerning tastes in beer at the greenland site, but to discover if this was really the case the costs involved were examined. we visited several retail locations and recorded the price of each brand.1 the total cost at walnut grove was higher, but this is a reflection of the larger quantities at the site. to obtain a better sense of how much was being spent on beer at the two sites; we calculated the average cost per ounce and the two sites were compared. at walnut grove there was also evidence of liquor in the samples, but none at greenland drive, therefore liquor was taken away from the average cost since it was considered an outlier in the total sample. at walnut grove the cost per ounce of beer was $0.07 and at greenland drive the cost was $0.09. while this does not appear to be a large discrepancy, it is actually a difference of 22 percent. these numbers confirm the study’s original hypothesis concerning greater affluence at the greenland drive site. interpretation of the sample a number of inferences can be made from our data and observations. from a garbological perspective, the people occupying both the greenland drive site and the walnut grove site must have done so only temporarily; otherwise they could not have been a functional society with the amounts of alcohol use that was observed and recorded. both sites were used as a place of gathering, drinking, eating, and communing. in the case of the walnut grove site, the main focus of the occupants appeared to be the consumption of alcohol. although the consumption of alcohol was a priority of the occupants at the greenland drive site, it was to a lesser extent. at the greenland drive site, the alcohol consumed appeared to be of a more expensive nature than that of the walnut grove site, indicating that the people of the former are of a higher socioeconomic group than the latter. while both of these sites seldom see large gatherings of people, this day was different. the college and its administrators invited people to these sites on this day to celebrate before a football game, and the people came. at the walnut grove site they came in droves 1 prices were obtained at: exxon, 1118 mercury blvd., murfreesboro, tn 37130; university center market, 1156 east main st., murfreesboro, tn 37130; beer depot, 2002 east main st., murfreesboro, tn 37130; premium wine & spirits, 225 n. rutherford blvd. # h, murfreesboro, tn 37130; c n g wine & spirits, 2750 s. rutherford blvd., murfreesboro, tn 37130. alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 79 of similarly aged people, likely college students. many of the people who arrived at the greenland drive site did so with their families, some in large recreation vehicles. after the football game ended, the people packed up their belongings, less their trash, and abandoned the sites. the ritualistic celebration of football is what ties these two sites together. both of these sites were temporary and the occupants were there, at least on some level, to celebrate the football game later in the evening. this pre-game ritual usually includes the drinking of alcohol and the consumption of food. the celebrations at the walnut grove and greenland drive sites do not stray from this typical conception of the ritual; however, there are a number of key differences in the people inhabiting the respective sites. although the people occupying the walnut grove site were there to celebrate football, it is not difficult for one to imagine that prior to the game they were consumed by alcohol. excessive inebriation was observed, and this was reflected in the data. young-adults of varying ages, as they often do, came together with their friends and peers to take advantage of this opportunity to be intoxicated in public. the amount of alcohol the data suggest they consumed indicates that the word “moderation” seems to be, for many of these people, absent from their vocabulary on this occasion. these people were taking advantage of the opportunity to let go of inhibitions and be foolish and careless. one may even be able to ascertain that the celebration at the walnut grove site was a celebration of consumption, or a celebration of alcohol, rather than one primarily of football. the occupation of the greenland drive site stands in stark contrast to that of the walnut grove site. although the exact number of people at either site is not known, observations suggest that there were fewer people at this site. these people gathered together not simply with their friends and peers, but also with their families. some gathered around televisions watching the pre-game analysis of commentators while others played football with their children. they gathered not to let go of inhibitions or fully embrace the effects of alcohol, but to relax, to contemplate the football to come, and to enjoy the company of their friends and family. these people seemed to enjoy a certain calmness that was absent at the walnut grove site. while they did consume alcohol, the amounts they consumed indicate that at least some of them were doing so in moderation. the second difference between these two groups of people in this study regards social complexity. the fact that the walnut grove site occupants consumed primarily inexpensive alcoholic beverages indicates that these people were possibly of a lower socioeconomic class. this conclusion concerning class supports the conventional picture of the “broke” college student. on the other hand, the occupants of the greenland drive site not only consumed more expensive alcoholic beverages, but also brought with them large recreation vehicles, televisions, and satellite dishes. we believe that these indicators of personal and familial accumulations of wealth signal that these people are of a higher socioeconomic class than their walnut grove counterparts. these are people who likely play a specialized role in the society and have done so with moderate to substantial success. it was also noted scientia et humanitas 80 spring 2011 that there were several law enforcement personnel roaming the area of greenland drive, whereas none were observed at walnut grove, where they were probably needed most. despite the fact that alcohol consumption was obvious and significant at the student occupied site, it is prohibited. the tennessee board of regents, the governing board for middle tennessee state university, prohibits the consumption of alcohol by students on its campuses. “the use and/or possession of alcoholic beverages on university, community college,  and technology center owned or controlled property shall be prohibited except as provided by policy 1:07:00:00” (tennessee board of regents). the exceptions policy mentioned allows for the president of an institution to make exceptions for foundations and alumni, but specifically prohibits alcohol consumption in “classrooms, labs, faculty or administrative offices, residence halls, student dining halls, student gathering areas, outdoor public areas, or athletic facilities accessible to the public” and in both policies students are expressly forbidden to consume alcohol on campus (tennessee board of regents, emphasis added). the noted absence of law enforcement personnel in or near walnut grove suggests that the policies mentioned above were ignored for this occasion, possibly as a means to bolster support for the mtsu football program. conclusions and recommendations from our data and observation we conclude that on this particular occasion people came together to eat, drink, and commune in a temporary manner; these sites were occupied in this capacity because of a football game and ceased to be so after the game concluded. it is clear that the consumption of alcohol was a primary focus of the gathering at the walnut grove site. also, observations suggest the people who occupied the walnut grove site were of lower socioeconomic class than those at the greenland drive site, since they had fewer amenities and less expensive beverages. occupants of the greenland drive site did so to gather with their families and friends, with alcohol consumption being a secondary function of the celebration. because of the apparent suspension or ignoring of law in regards to alcohol on the premises, it is clear that this aspect of the ritualistic celebration of football is an important one in the eyes of mtsu’s administrative officials. the amount of alcohol consumed, as indicated by the data and observations, is staggering. while it was hypothesized prior to the study that alcohol consumption would be central to this occasion, early expectations were that it would be more veiled. instead observations showed, especially in the case of the walnut grove site, that attempts to veil consumption of alcohol were minimal, while the consumption inferred from our data was immense. clearly, the findings of this research indicate a potential need to re-evaluate the wisdom of sponsoring such events on a college campus. observations at walnut grove were of large crowds of college age students having in essence, a large outdoor party. given that the typical student begins his or her college career at the age of eighteen, it would be reasonable to assume that many of the students were under the legal drinking age. why is it that they would not be able to purchase alcohol at a convenience store across the street, yet they could drink freely here with no objections? alcohol consumption patterns of tailgaters middle tennessee state university 81 to add to the irony, an email was received one week after observations were conducted reminding students that october 17-23 marked the observance of national collegiate alcohol awareness week at institutions across the country. is this a case of “see no evil, hear no evil,” or of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing? in the end, even if it is legal to have alcohol at these events, the question remains; is it the morally responsible thing for the university to do? scientia et humanitas 82 spring 2011 bibliography blue raider athletic association n.d. braa membership benefits. http://www.goblueraiders.com/content.cfm/id/31336, accessed october 21, 2010. falk, gerhard 2005 football and american identity. haworth press, new york. rathje, william, and cullen murphy 2001 rubbish!: the archaeology of garbage. the university of arizona press, tucson, arizona. tailgating: the history 2005 american heritage magazine. october, volume 56, issue 5 http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/ magazine/ah/2005/5/2005_5_11.shtml. tennessee board of regents 2009 subject: general policy on tobacco and  alcoholic beverages. http://www.tbr.state.tn.us/policies/default. aspx?id=4858, accessed october 6, 2010. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 54 spring 2020 the authorial sublime: text and apotheosis connor methvin abstract by definition, the sublime is unknowable, and therefore similarly unachievable. this essay, however, challenges the notion of sublimity as unattainable by comparing the literary criticisms of roland barthes and hélène cixous. in comparing their works and analyzing the dual significance each puts on the importance of “audience” as contributor, the very transformative characteristic of the sublime becomes apparent in the author. writing is an uncanny act, and reading becomes a reimagining of what constitutes the sublime for and within each person who engages with a text. roland ’s famous “the death of the author” elevates the author to a perpetual liveliness when read in conjunction with hélène cixous’s concepts of self, text, and the third body, therefore transcending the author from death to sublimity, even as the author’s works forever incur the uncanny responses of their perpetually-shifting audience and contextualization. writing, thus, acts as a way by which one may surpass the limits of independent humanity and achieve the status of sublime. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 55 spring 2020 the concept of sublimity is fantastical in that it is incomprehensible beyond knowing it cannot be fully comprehended. often, the sublime is brought into focus by metaphors of the ocean: its tumultuous waves, its endless expanse to those watching it—the sublime is the observer’s knowing that they can never know what they are seeing or experiencing in its full capacity. sublimity is an admittance of the inferiority of the self when faced with something perceivably, infinitely beyond one’s capacity. by that very notion, becoming sublime is, by definition, impossible, as it is characterized strictly by the experience of “transformation… vigorously resist[ing] perfection in the sense of ontological completion” (morgan 83), and, therefore, any supposed perfection of it would negate the very transformative property that characterizes it. that is not to say, however, that attempts cannot be made to attain as close to sublimity as is possible. axiomatically, sublimity—even through uncanny pursuit—is unattainable, lest it no longer be sublime. that is, with one exception, what i intend to explore. by exploring the concept of text and authorship presented by hélène cixous and roland barthes, while the sublime author may still be an impossible goal as an individual, the author figure is capable of becoming sublime through their reception by others. if sublimity is the acknowledgment of inferiority in comparison to incomprehensible greatness, then the attempt at becoming so (however futile) is through the uncanny. mike kelley and thomas mcevilley compare the uncanny to intentionally and dangerously riding a motorcycle: to be going “a hundred miles an hour at night to deliberately [emphasis added] feel the terror and wonder of the sublime” (202). i chose to emphasize “deliberately” in this context because the sublime is by definition qualitative of the experience it evokes—seeing a mountain or gazing at the stars, “milton’s descriptions of hell, and infinity” (kelley 201)—and being reminded of one’s minuscular position. the uncanny, however, is the pursuit of recreating that feeling, to get as close to that unknowable sensation as possible. sublimity, sensation, uncanny, recreation— “the sublime [as] primarily by way of trying to shadow forth the formless,” whereas with “the uncanny [,] you’ve reversed the direction” (203). the viewer shifts from being a passive recipient of the sublime subject to active involvement in the process, which incites that very metaphysical response. cixous formulates the majority of her notion of the sublime on freud’s foundation, in which he describes the uncanny as the old, animistic conception of the universe, which was characterized by the… narcissistic overestimation of subjective mental processes; by the belief in the omnipotence of thoughts and the magical practices based upon this belief…by all those other figments of the imagination with which man…strove to fend off the inexorable prohibitions of reality. (freud 93) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 56 spring 2020 freud’s uncanny operates in such a way as to extend one’s self beyond the bodily constraints and experience emotions that “[fulfil] the condition of touching those vestiges of animistic mental activity within us” (93), however inaccessible those visceral feelings may be. to cixous, however detrimental to the self the act may be, writing creates this window to the sublime through which a person may become closest to the uncanny experience. “writing,” writes hélène cixous, “comes from deep inside…some call it hell” (“three steps” 118), and this hell (similar to the example of milton that kelley earlier provided) operates as a metaphor for the internalized de-sublimation of thought. she articulates that “[hell] is deep in my body, further down, behind thought. thought comes in front of it and closes it like a door. this does not mean that it does not think, but it thinks differently from our thinking and speech” (118). to cixous, the hell—the “it” to which she refers—inside people is not a repository of individual thoughts, but more of the thoughts-of-our-thoughts, the primal, reactionary responses we experience when witnessing something sublime that is unable to be articulated. this is reiterative of freud’s declaration that “an uncanny experience occurs either when repressed infantile complexes have been revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs which have been surmounted seem once more to be confirmed” (freud 97), though she deviates from the association of these thoughts as almost exclusively that of youth. cixous holds the act of writing in exceptionally high regard. cixous presents writing not merely as a scrawling of words onto paper, the transference of words to materiality, but as an impartation of oneself: “the portrait of the artist done by himself or herself ” (“three steps” 27). to be a writer is to “institute immurement” (27) of the self, to take part of one’s self, and separate it. one must utilize their facilities to write as a means to “put herself into text—as into the world and into history” (“laugh” 1869), to immortalize both thought, presence, and being. thus, writing becomes not a separate act, but an active separation and transference of parts of oneself into text. the inherent dissection of self is similar to the comparison made to frankenstein, wherein the act of writing acts as a creation of a “golem” (kelley 203) of the inner thoughts, tearing apart the self, reorganizing it, and attempting to recreate these thoughts through writing. the process of writing then trivializes the emotion the artist is attempting to convey. in doing so, such an act subsequently removes the internalized experiences from the previous quality that rendered it sublime: its incomprehensibility. if thoughts, according to cixous, originate in the depths of a self-sustained hell, and hell is quintessentially sublime, then the act of writing is the employment of the uncanny that—instead of achieving sublimity—removes it from the creator: “the voice loses its origin” (barthes 1268). once thoughts are put to words, the thoughts and emotions they represent have therefore been removed from the categorization of sublime. for the uncanny to be scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 57 spring 2020 considered such, it must “exceed the present and the familiar”; matt ffytche describes the uncanny as “disturbing but also generative, existing beyond representation” (70). this draws forth barthes’s concept of the author as equally sublime, “not because [the text] is created by an author but it is the language which gives it sound and meaning” (ahmadi 2670). the “dead” author barthes explores, instead, begins to exist among various times and people in direct relation to the readers’ language(s). once a text is written, it no longer exists exclusively as the author’s intention, but within and beyond its time for having been represented as best it can by the author through the language to which the author was bound. cixous further describes reading as an act of “changing eras, changing families, changing destinies” (“three steps” 22), and if reading is the catalyst to do so, then the author is the creator of such a catalyst. while barthes argues that “the text is henceforth made and read in such a way that the author is absent” (1270), with one’s writing as inseparable from the self, then reading is to unavoidably live (even if temporarily) in the life of another. while barthes posits the “book and author stand automatically on a single line divided into a before and after” (1270), barthes does not consider how this separation acts as a combination of the two through the time and lens of the reader. this process can otherwise be described as “experimental becoming” (bray 65) in which one uses “[one’s] own body as a form of transport” for “journeying through the world” (cixous, “three steps” 64). this is true of both the reader and the writer. the author imparts their being via thought into their work, which transports the reader into a separate mentality, into a world that existed before the reader, and reconstructs the text and the author. the reader internalizes this metaphysical “experimental becoming” and brings the author’s world to them, subjecting it to scrutiny and interpretation through their thought processes. this very notion of an author’s “death” “restores the position of the author by saying that it will be very difficult to eliminate the author from criticism” (di leo 125). according to cixous: “all great texts are prey to the question: who is killing me? who am i giving myself to kill?” (“three steps” 15). to put words unto page is to allow someone else access not just to the physical work, but to the very meaning those words hold, and by proxy, access to the writer. the author and their work then become comparable to “the resuscitation of a corpse” (kelley 203): thoughts of theirs once sublime, rendered not by the author’s uncanny processes, are now reintroduced to sublimity by the reader’s interpretation. by having been read, the author’s thoughts (and therefore, the author) return to sublimity by reentering the process of enigmatic transformation (morgan 83) necessary to qualify as such, becoming “generative” (ffytche 70) once more. cixous explores this notion of ffytche’s generative, eternal uncanny by the prescientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2020 scription of “textual effects” (“three steps” 145) unto authors. textual effect is the means by which an author’s name is the only way that a particular style of writing or evocation of feeling can be described, mimicking the literary technique of “synaesthesia,” in which “a stimulus applied to one sense involuntarily elicits a response from one or more others” (oboussier 115). the name, in this case, is operating as the indicator for whichever specific reaction is expected. this usage of a name in regard to an effect does not necessarily mean one has to be “attracted by the authors whose names are at work in the language but simply that there aren’t any names which don’t produce such effects” (145). cixous herself exemplifies this point in her works: she draws upon former theorists by name, describing her positions as framed either by freudian, or lacanian, or derridean influences on numerous occasions—the “author’s name…the author function…offers instructions on how the text should be read” (ahmadi 2672). with sublime defined as the acknowledgment of experiences or thoughts beyond one’s self, to have a name become synaesthetic as the indicative of a particular mode of expression, theory, or other decisive orchestration of thoughts is to elevate that name as similarly sublime in its self-reliant explanation. by this vein, an author’s name itself becomes similar in nature to that of the word “sublime,” in that any other attempt to describe it comparatively would render its explanation less axiomatic. the sublime’s very definition is evident in its quality as a “willing loss of self ” (kelley 202), similar to cixous’s declaration that “the only book that is worth writing is the one…that hurts us” (“three steps” 32), the book in which one [author] willfully pours oneself, regardless of what must be done or experienced to do so. this reiterates once more that writing is a sublime performance. understanding writing as self-sacrificial, the act (though not the result) becomes sublime as an attempt at both synaesthetic and uncanny recreation: “who am i giving myself to kill?” writing is equal parts writing one’s self as it is permitting an outsider to interpret (and reconstruct) not just the words, but the author. horror author h.p. lovecraft is an exceptional example of both synaesthesias in writing and authorial authority. to focus on the prior point, in his short story “beyond the wall of sleep,” he writes in a fashion that emulates cixous’s conceptualization of an individualized, self-contained hell: as i gazed, i perceived that my own brain held the key to these enchanting metamorphoses; for each vista which appeared to me, was the one my changing mind most wished to behold. amidst this elysian realm i dwelt not as a stranger, for each sight and sound was familiar to me; just as it had been for uncounted aeons of eternity before, and would be for like eternities to come. (lovecraft 25) lovecraft writes of the uncanny in a way similar to its explanation by kelley, having scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 59 spring 2020 “depart[ed], into that hypothetical beyond… showing the small formed reality into which the sublime is ingressing” (203). lovecraft’s protagonist is experiencing a projection from his reality, which can only be described in terms of familiar and not-familiar, exemplifying the human condition in which our “understanding [of ] what constitutes the mysterious… precedes our confrontation with the other…. it is not the product of an intimate connection with the other” (bray 182) that shapes our understanding of it, but our cognizance of self that allows us to then approach and process the information. note how only the familiar is described definitively: “sight and sound” and the protagonist’s “own brain,” whereas the unfamiliar, previously unexperienced sensations, are described in the most recognizable though simultaneously inexplicable means possible: “enchanting metamorphoses,” “elysian realm.” these statements indicate only the vaguest process of knowing something is occurring and being unable to enunciate it—the sublime. his grasp of what is being seen is limited to what his “changing mind most wished to behold,” illustrating his limited discernment of the uncanny and similar barrier between it, “underscore[ing] the shortcomings of the humanistic mode of subjectivity upon which the sublime is predicated” (ralickas 365). were people not restricted in comprehension, the sublime could not exist. not only does lovecraft encompass the sublime in his minimalist presentation of it, he similarly expresses the uncanny as “a disturbance apprehended via the affects of a subject that has not yet elicited the terms of what disturbs it” (ffytche 79) through his protagonist’s attempt at perceiving the ether before him. following this, lovecraft equally showcases how the expulsion of the uncanny occurs. his protagonist once more transcends consciousness, this time encountering an otherworldly being who speaks to him, whereas previously, the understanding was strictly through limited and inaccurate projections. this entity speaks to him: “i am an entity that which you yourself become in the freedom of dreamless sleep… it is not permitted me to tell your waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of the vast spaces and travelers in many ages” (lovecraft 27), and in doing so, eliminates the sense of the sublime that existed before explanation. the uncanny is inherently limited to its being beyond finite understanding, “the subject or individual will never arrive at such terms, for this would be to dissipate the uncanny” (ffytche 79). the uncanny “in this story reaches its peak at the nonverbal speech of the entity through the dead peasant, which the narrator retells in words” (ghodrati 42) and therefore robs of its sublimity. furthermore, the designation of this style as being characteristic of his writing— the very denotation as “lovecraftian” —is indicative of the synaesthetic effects of his style. he has managed to capture in this story the sheer awe, majesty, and terror (kelley 202) characteristic of the uncanny so well that the idea of recreating such a cosmic effect again scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2020 can only be done in comparison to his namesake. it is this ascension of name that cixous reveres, the encapsulation of “names…that produce signifying effects (“three steps” 145). while barthes would put forth this level of interpretative involvement as the death of the author for lack of creative autonomy, this instead elevates the author to a figure that continues to live well beyond their time of writing. cixous enunciates time and again that text offers transport, that writing is “journeying through the world” (“three steps” 64); she says the same of dreams, except “you are not transported, you are already in the other world” (79). if dreams offer insight into the depths of one’s psyche, then dreams represent the sublime, and writing the uncanny— this she later addresses in stating “the dream’s enemy is interpretation” (107), and “the sublime, which thought consumes, is transformed into utilities” (irigaray 79). as barthes puts forth, “the voice loses its origins, the author enters his own death, writing begins” (1268), and it is now the reader who has power over the author’s meaning: “it is the language which speaks, not the author” (1269). because of this dichotomy, the aforementioned prejudices of lovecraft become relevant: regardless of his intentions through text, he has no voice with which to argue, defend, divert, or justify. however, when viewed through the lens of the authorial sublime, cixous’s position becomes paradoxical by analyzing what she refers to as “the third body” (“coming to writing” 53): here, this body opens up another way of thinking through corporeality as something which is not simply anchored in the presence of the flesh but which is nomadic, moves beyond the body, and yet is part of the body. the third body is that which is created through the exchange. (bray 63–4) this creation of the “third body” —this “golem,” as referred to earlier by kelley—is the reader existing both physically as they are, but temporally in the thoughts and time of the author as they process what is being communicated. the third body is not so much an actual body, but the manifestation of the translation of ideas between author, reader, and time(s)—a “form of writing which exchanges representations of the other…and creates a ‘limitless language’ which will ‘perpetuate us’” (bray 64). with “us” being the combination of both the author and reader through this constructed body of thought, the perpetuation of such permits not only that the author never dies, but that the author will continue to live through the lives of those that encounter and project its work. however, this then opens a new avenue through which the author figure may be perceived. if the life of the author is then continued through the reader(s), that can only mean multiple versions of the author exist at any given time. with “the text [as] a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (barthes 1270), the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 61 spring 2020 author and their text act as a vessel to a time in which those previous influences of culture conglomerated. cixous posits that a “text can have begun before us” (“three steps” 99), meaning that just as the author’s writing may influence others, so too has their writing been influenced by those before them. in this case, we may view writing and text not as the “death of the author,” but instead as “a gift[,] because it destroys old conceptions of the self and the world and makes room for a new life, new ways of being” (bray 68). these ways of being, however, must be constructed by the reader—dead authors cannot rewrite themselves. despite language’s fluidity, it “continues to be seen as a medium through which we gain access to the real substance of ideas, feelings, events” (belsey 201). for barthes, this remains true until an author is prescribed, at which point such an association does little more than “impose a limit on [a] text” (1271). for cixous, however, this variation is not the death it is for barthes, but the “death of death itself… a multiplicity of new selves” (bray 68) being born with each new reading and iteration. to follow cixous’s position, “to write against death is to continuously pursue and challenge the limits of identity” (bray 69) imposed by individualism, which “seeks explanations…negating the influence of culture and society in the construction of themselves” (belsey 201). for her, the application of the author to meaning—this “textual effect” of hers—which can then be deconstructed, analyzed, and reconstructed by a reader, is a complete inversion of the implications barthes provides. cixous is instead in favor of the communal construction of text because it allows the writer to surpass death. if the “death of the author must be understood as the birth of the text” (di leo 125), then through cixous’s analysis as sublime, this may be re-envisioned as the birth of a text being the subsequent and multiple rebirths of the author. death is merely “another term for limit” (bray 68) that cixous seeks to surpass through writing. despite her approach being rooted in freud’s interpretation of the uncanny, cixous’s opinions of the uncanny and literature are drastically different: cixous focuses on the aspect of literary creation, which is linked to power, liberty, and life. the power of the creative writer, so envied by freud, is of a different nature than the power of society or science. it is a power that not merely transgresses but transcends the laws of reality and society. fiction entails a victory over death not because it abolishes death, but because it refuses death as the absolute limit. it ignores death. (masschelein 120) while cixous views literature as a vessel through which the uncanny can be explored, transcending reality, freud instead believes writing to act as a limit. instead of a means towards ascendance, his opinion is that a person’s sublime experience “cannot be transposed scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2020 on to the uncanny in fiction without profound modification; for the realm of phantasy depends for its very existence on the fact that its content is not submitted to the reality-testing faculty” (freud 97), reiterated earlier by irigaray (79). however, cixous’s uncanny extends beyond its mere reiteration in textual form, but as a physical embodiment of the author. this focus on faculty that “the story-teller has this license among many others, that he can select his world of representation so that it either coincides with the realities we are familiar with or departs from them” (freud 97), cixous acknowledges and then deepens it, “revers[ing] the direction” (kelley 203) of focus from the exploration of the writing itself to the reader’s internalizing of the writer. something written cannot die. reading is the exploration of the past, interpreting it the sublime, and writing the uncanny, “and anyone who does not go down into the abyss [death] can only repeat and retrace the ways already opened” (irigaray 79) by writers before them. it is in this way that authors achieve sublimity—while not through their own uncanny efforts, but the internalization of them by and through others that engage with their works by inviting the reader to explore a time unfamiliar. here, the uncanny of fiction bleeds into writing as a whole when cixous’s interpretation of the uncanny is applied to barthes’s construction of the author figure. through the amalgamation of the two, barthes’s assertion that “the author is never more than the instance writing” (1269) is dispelled and instead replaced with being simultaneously every instance that their work is being read. writing no longer acts as simply “composing words upon a page,” but as “a mode of living in the world” (bray 69–70)—both the world of the work’s conception and the interpretation by every world that succeeds it. instead of “writing [as] the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” (barthes 1268), this perpetual invitation of interpretation is exactly what gives the author a voice! rather than a writer being exclusively bound to their book, existing as a phylactery of their former self, to be continually engaged in dialogues is the very continuation of the author’s life. if writing were never read, processed, interpreted, shared, well—what point would there be in writing for it to then be forever shelved? barthes’s criticism that interpretation causes a voice to “lose its origin” (1268) completely ignores the very nature of language. “while the world has meaning that a person assigns to it, [the] contribution to its meaning is only one half of the reciprocal relationship that takes place between subject and object” (sullivan 67), drawing barthes’s argument into question—maybe the author has the chance to be misunderstood by the reader, but true death arrives when there is no longer an additional party to contribute to their works’ meaning. while the “subject or individual [the author] will never arrive at such terms” (ffytche 79) as to constitute the sublime, for to do so “would be to dissipate scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 63 spring 2020 the uncanny” (79), the attainment of so can be done vicariously through the reader, “conflat[ing] questions of interpretation with those of identity” (di leo 126). so, if writing is thus uncanny as an (attempted) expression of one’s most primordial thoughts as expressed by freud, but that “some forms of writing do take something from us” (“three steps” 115) in such expression, then through writing and reading “each person and all things rest in one another, flow into the other unconfined” (irigaray 80). for barthes, the structure “imposed by language on reality which determine our perception of it [leads to] the text of art amount[ing] to nothing more than a set of codes which control its production” (di leo 128). however, cixous views this attribute of language much more positively, as an “endless oscillation on the limit between life and death” (massachelein 122) in which the author has the capacity to fluctuate between time, place, and persons. rather than subject the author to death, such reception elevates them to sublimity by the perpetual abstraction and reconfiguration by inhabitants of times inconceivable to the writer. barthes’s author-death, revisited with the understanding of dialogue as inseparably transactional, reaffirms cixous’s proposition of the author as perpetually alive through their work: “who dreams you?” (“coming to writing” 55). this sublime dream, to writing, to reading, to being read is a transformation of the self into a figure “no longer constituted of preordained ideas; words meet and infiltrate each other, exceeding the fixed repertoire of language” (oboussier 122). dreams and text are inextricably linked for cixous, propositioning that people “are not having the dream, the dream has us…even if the dream is in the author in the way the text is assumed to be” (“three steps” 98). writing creates an inversion of ownership of text to the dependence on others and their perception of the text. even after the author dies, the text lives, and the author’s dialogue is capable of “achieving unprecedented intersubjective economies” (oboussier 127) through its constant and ever-evolving interpretations. while the sublime is defined by its inability to be obtained, an analysis of barthes and cixous suggest the possibility that sublimity may still be prescribed by both time and the uncanny processes of the inevitable audience. the elevation to inconsistency and variation of meanings constituted in the third body between the reader and writer create an uncanny author not by the author’s own recreation of self, but their recreation by the reader. the author then acts as an avatar of their time through the perception of the reader, no longer “the instance writing” (barthes 1269), but every and all instances of that writing read and interpreted by every audience thereafter. this transcendence of time and corporality is the very characteristic of the sublime—beyond a concrete and inarguable definition. so long as the text circulates and impresses into the minds of others, the author becomes a sublime surrogate in correspondence with, by, and through the deciscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2020 phering of the audiences’ uncanny processes. by achieving death according to barthes, and then surpassing it according to cixous, the dead author achieves a synaesthetic, a liminal and limboid authorial sublimity through their infinite interaction with and among times. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 65 spring 2020 works cited ahmadi, mohebat. “the death or the revivals of the author?” theory & practice in language studies, vol. 2, no. 12, dec. 2012, pp. 2670–2673. barthes, roland. “the death of the author.” translated by stephen heath. norton anthology of theory and criticism, edited by vincent b. leitch, norton, 2018, pp. 1268–1272. belsey, catherine. “the death of the reader.” textual practice, vol. 23, no. 2, apr. 2009, pp. 201–214. bray, abigail. “the major concepts.” hélène cixous: writing and sexual difference. palgrave/macmillan, 2004, pp. 43–80. cixous hélène. “coming to writing.” coming to writing and other essays. translated by deborah jenson. harvard up, 1991, pp. 1–58 cixous, hélène. “the laugh of the medusa.” translated by keith cohen and paula cohen. norton anthology of theory and criticism, edited by vincent b. leitch, norton, 2018, pp. 1869–1886. cixous, hélène. three steps on the ladder of writing. translated by sarah cornell and susan sellers. columbia up, 1993. di leo, jeffrey r. “sovereignty of the dead: authors, editors, and the aesthetic text.” comparatist, vol. 36, 2012, pp. 123–136. ffytche, matt. “night of the unexpected: a critique of the ‘uncanny’ and its apotheosis within cultural and social theory.” new formations, no. 75, 2012, pp. 63-81. freud, sigmund. “the uncanny.” dialogues in philosophy, mental & neuro sciences, vol. 11, no. 2, dec. 2018, pp. 84–100. ghodrati, negin. the creation, evolution and aftermath of lovecraftian horror. 2013. university of oslo, thesis. irigaray, luci. “belief itself.” the sublime, by simon morley, mit p, 2010, pp. 77–82. kelley, mike. “in conversation with thomas mcevilley.” the sublime, edited by simon morley, mit p, 2010, pp. 201–204. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2020 lovecraft, howard phillips. “beyond the wall of sleep.” the new annotated h.p. lovecraft, edited by leslie s. klinger, liveright, 2014, pp. 18–29. masschelein, anneleen. “cixous and derrida: the uncanny and/as theory of fiction.” the unconcept: the freudian uncanny in late-twentieth-century theory, suny p, 2011, pp. 112–123. morgan, david. “secret wisdom and self-effacement: the spiritual in the modern age.” the sublime, edited by simon morley, mit p, 2010, pp. 82-85 morley, simon. “introduction.” the sublime, edited by simon morley, mit p, 2010, pp. 12–21. oboussier, claire. “synaesthesia in cixous and barthes.” women and representation. 1995, pp. 115–131. ralickas, vivian. “‘cosmic horror’ and the question of the sublime in lovecraft.” journal of the fantastic in the arts, vol. 18, no.3, 2007, pp. 364-378. sullivan, shannon. living across and through skins transactional bodies, pragmatism, and feminism. indiana up, 2001. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2020 shin gojira: return of the angry god jameson bivens abstract shin gojira returns to the original themes of horror and cultural commentary that were the foundation of the original 1954 film. it works as a running analogy to many of the most pressing issues on the mind of japanese society at the time of this film’s creation. it serves also as a window into these pressing issues and a medium through which we can look and understand these issues.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 69 spring 2020 anno hideki and higuchi shinji’s 2016 film, shin gojira, literally translates as “the new godzilla.” it stands out as one of the few godzilla films that could be called a horror film. shin gojira harkens back to the original with its tone and presents us with a slow film that is terrifying and touching through a conservative but effective portrayal of action and a graphic depiction of the human toll of the monster.  apart from its novel and immersive blend of cinematography, the film is unique for how it packages its politics by being upfront about its key points but tactful in their presentation. it is not about the monster, but rather about japan reminiscing on the success of the japanese economic miracle or the optimism of 1954 when it was the success story of asia. now, japan faces challenges to its very survival. at home, it has to cope with a geriatric government, economic stagnation, and a military with a questionable ability to defend the country. abroad, it has growing enemies who are long-standing rivals and overbearing allies who are sometimes no better. all these things are made manifest in a film that takes us back to a godzilla that is an angry god and not just a monster. it presents us a question of identity: as the old way of doing and being comes to an end, what identity will japan make for itself ? in trying to understand japan and how it both struggles with and will answer this question, analyzing shin gojira and its symbolism creates a window for us into the psyche of the japanese people. a chip on its shoulder: domestic politics, foreign relations, and military shin gojira is often more political drama than kaiju film. the monster is used carefully, and large stretches of screen time are devoted to the government’s attempts to respond to the crisis, or its relations with other countries. japan’s government appears cautious and bureaucratic, and the other nations of the world equally help and hinder japan. even the japan self-defense force ( jsdf) is criticized in the movie for its inability to counter the monster. how the government, military, and foreign powers are portrayed tells us how anxious japan is about its state of affairs. domestic                japan would not be the first country to make a film critical of its government; neither is shin gojira the first godzilla film to be critical. however, in shin gojira, criticism of government stagnation and bureaucracy is front and center.            japan is an aging country. those in power are old and getting older and want to do what is safe and conventional. this is what we see in shin gojira’s critical depiction of the japanese government. throughout the film, the prime minister (pm) and the members of his cabinet are depicted as capable, if not exceptional, administrators during normal times. during exceptional times, like those in the film, they are inflexible and cling to procedure.             before they even know what godzilla is, or that he is the cause of the current crisis, our protagonist, yaguchi, and a fellow aid are discussing what to do since the pm is not in.1 this frames the story as a political one, dealing with two types of people, the young and able like yaguchi, and the old and incompetent. the leader of the country is 1 shin gojira, directed by hideaki anno and shinji higuchi (2016, tokyo: toho co. ltd., 2017), dvd. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 70 spring 2020 absent during a crisis. even once the elderly pm arrives, his image does not much improve. he is not presented as unqualified; however, he is incapable of dealing with a crisis of such a monumental scale. a giant, constantly evolving monster may be something with which even the most exceptional leaders would struggle. however, a monster can easily be replaced with invasion by a foreign power, an unprecedented natural disaster, or a historic nuclear catastrophe.            the fukushima dai-ichii nuclear disaster was the worst in history. it was a part of a string of events that began with a magnitude 9.0-9.1 earthquake. this, in itself, was a tragedy, but japan often experienced them and was prepared for one of this magnitude. even the fifteen-meter tsunami that followed, which was large enough to sweep over seawalls, was a possibility they had prepared for.2 no one was prepared for the subsequent failure at the fukushima dai-ichii nuclear plant.  when the tsunami hit, power and cooling were lost at three of the reactors. further damage to the roads made access difficult. non-essential personnel was evacuated, and a skeleton crew struggled to prevent a catastrophic meltdown and control any radiation leaks. over the next few days, the situation became progressively worse as the reactors experienced explosions, leaks, and further damage. eventually, a zone of evacuation was established around the plant. four of the six reactors would suffer damage, and the presence of large amounts of spent––but still hot––radioactive fuel, as well as in-use fuel rods, complicated the situation.3 most of the radioactive material that escaped from the plant went into the atmosphere and was primarily composed of elements with a half-life of only a few days.4 and 5 small amounts of contaminated water were vented into the ocean. exactly how much radiation was released into the environment can only be estimated since most sensors were destroyed by the quake. a mandatory evacuation was extended out to a twenty-kilometer radius around the plant, which was later turned into an exclusion zone. hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the area around fukushima. it is considered the worst nuclear disaster since chernobyl in 1986. the fukushima dai-ichii disaster was an evolving and complex problem, only made more difficult by having to deal with quake and tsunami damage. despite mitigating circumstances, it was not handled well. later, the full scale of the incompetence with which the disaster was handled came to light. tokyo electric power company (tepco), the operators of the plant, failed to properly prepare for such a disaster. the government regulators were also complicit. the japanese courts ruled that tepco was negligent for the failure to make proper preparation for a quake and tsunami of such magnitude in a country prone to them. the government 2 “fukushima daiichi accident,” world nuclear association, october 2018, http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx. 3 “fukushima daiichi accident,” world nuclear association. 4 “fukushima daiichi accident,” world nuclear association. 5 author’s note: half-life is a term used to refer to the time it takes for a radioactive element to break down and lose it’s radioactivity. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 71 spring 2020 was ruled negligent for failing to regulate tepco and ensure the safety of the plant.6 there were accusations of collusion between government regulators and the industry that created the lax standards, but this was not the end of controversy.  while the disasters––both the natural and nuclear––were still an ongoing crisis, the japanese government was already facing accusations over lax regulation and their handling of the disaster, despite having dealt with preceding natural disasters well.7 their response to fukushima was disorganized. over the several-day attempt to get the reactors and radiation under control, the government struggled to deal with constantly evolving problems. there was a lack of communication between the different offices and teams trying to deal with the disaster. the pm at the time was not notified of the disaster until an hour after it had begun. there was a severe lack of cooperation between tepco and the government.8 tepco was reluctant to cooperate and was defensive and lacked transparency. instead of taking swift action, nisa (the nuclear and industrial safety agency) was relatively passive. it did not send a representative to communicate with tepco.9 centers set up close to the disaster area to help with quick crisis response were hindered by personnel failing to arrive.10 at first, the government personnel in shin gojira believe the monster to be a strange natural phenomenon, and they handle it in an orderly and professional fashion.11 the events begin strangely but not outside the limits of standard operating procedures. it is only when the monster comes ashore that he becomes a disaster.  throughout the film, the monster is a constantly evolving threat. the monster changes his form during different acts of the film, in parallel to the fukushima disaster, and the incompetence with which he is handled is an equal parallel. the pm and his cabinet are consistently portrayed as indecisive and inept. often they wait too long to make decisions because they do not have the stomach for hard choices. they spend so much energy trying not to make mistakes that they seem to fall into them. early in the film, the pm and his cabinet members dismiss the idea that what is happening in the bay could involve a creature. in the same scene, the monsters causes them to appear comically incompetent.12 nothing significant is achieved by the cabinet or the pm. the work that led them to the defeat of godzilla does not come from firm leadership at the very top but from driven and innovative thinking from lower levels. the real change is driven by young and ambitious citizens who are beginning to become politically active and are eager to create 6 motoko rich, “japanese government and utility are found negligent in nuclear disaster,” the new york times, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-tepco-ruling.html. 7 daniel kaufmann and veronika penciakova, “japan’s triple disaster: governance and the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises,” brookings institute, 2011, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/japans-triple-disaster-governance-and-the-earthquake-tsunami-and-nuclear-crises/.  8 akiyama nobumasa, et al., the fukushima nuclear accident and crisis management, the sasakawa peace foundation, 2012, https://www.spf.org/jpus/img/investigation/book_fukushima.pdf. 9 nobumasa, the fukushima nuclear accident. 10 nobumasa, the fukushima nuclear accident. 11 shin gojira, anno.  12 shin gojira, anno. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-tepco-ruling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-tepco-ruling.html https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/japans-triple-disaster-governance-and-the-earthquake-tsunami-and-nuclear-crises/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/japans-triple-disaster-governance-and-the-earthquake-tsunami-and-nuclear-crises/ https://www.spf.org/jpus/img/investigation/book_fukushima.pdf scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2020 change.13 this criticism is from, not just the directors of this film, but the japanese people. in the wake of the mishandled fukushima event, a downward trend in government trust only accelerated.14 japan is a country that has a chronic problem of public mistrust of the government, and the japanese government’s handling of godzilla, like its handling of fukushima, is a clear criticism coming from public discontent.   japan and its “military”   the jsdf is not a military; it is a self-defense force. the important difference is that a self-defense force is limited to only possessing those arms and equipment with defensive value and not those with primarily offensive value. this jsdf has tanks, helicopters, and enough artillery to repel an invasion. it does not have long-range bombers, true aircraft carriers, or sufficient offensive weaponry and logistics to be an aggressor. for japan, especially with the pacifist sentiment that has dominated for the last few decades, this has not been a problem. while under the protective umbrella of the cold war-era american military, and not facing any real challengers in the region, there was no reason to change the status quo. but in recent years things have changed. american military dominance is not what it used to be, even if the american commitment to japan is no less now than it was twenty years ago. new threats have risen in the area, not just military threats in a nuclear-armed north korea and strengthening of china, but economic threats as well.  in shin gojira, the jsdf does not make a good show of itself. the government is hesitant to let them do anything that might bring about civilian casualties, and so is the jsdf. the politicians are shown to be inflexible and overly cautious. it is clear that that jsdf is playing politics as well to guard its reputation. in other godzilla films, the jsdf is sometimes instrumental in godzilla’s defeat, godzilla does not even notice them in this film, even when they are ordered to act. the jsdf is not thought of as military by many in japan; it is considered more akin to a well-armed search and rescue service.15 after wwii, the japanese were afraid of a military as strong as the imperial army and navy. they feared the political power of the military, which had lead to the disastrous war and how a return to military strength would be perceived internationally. for decades, the people were willing to accept the pacifist constitution given to them by occupying u.s. forces after the war. japan has kept its defense force close to home and tried to avoid anything that resembled a show of force. although the jsdf is respected for their high professionalism in humanitarian efforts, they are a small force that depends on the u.s. to make up for the firepower they lack. the last time the jsdf is featured prominently is when they attempt to stop 13 “students finally find their voice,” the japan times, 2015, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/08/15/editorials/students-finally-find-voice/.  14 kerstin lukner, et al., “japan’s political trust deficit,” japan forum 29, no. 1 (2016): 1–18, doi:10. 1080/09555803.2016.1227349. 15 john traphagan, “how japan sees its military,” the diplomat, 2012, https://thediplomat. com/2012/08/how-japan-sees-its-military/.  https://thediplomat.com/2012/08/how-%20japan-sees-its-military/ https://thediplomat.com/2012/08/how-%20japan-sees-its-military/ scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 73 spring 2020 godzilla from reentering tokyo after he returns. the jsdf throws everything it has at godzilla––tanks, artillery, bombs, missiles, guns––but nothing works. a brilliant display of firepower becomes a spectacular display of impotence. the monster is not only unharmed but unfazed.16 in other godzilla films, they at least get the monster’s attention. in this film, godzilla’s utter disregard makes them look particularly useless. in contrast, although the american assault still fails to kill godzilla, they wound him badly with considerably less effort.  the jsdf is a well-trained and equipped force, with some of the most advanced technology available. however, japan is surrounded by some of the largest militaries in the world and by many countries that are much more militant. china, russia, and north korea have historically confrontational relations with japan, dating back to wwii or farther. most of its neighbors still hold lingering resentments over 20th-century wrongs, even among allies. the image of a japan surrounded by enemies is not hard to understand. their display of firepower shows us that the jsdf is a capable force. the quality of its men and equipment make it the equal of any military, but what it does not have puts it at a disadvantage. it lacks offensive weapons like intercontinental missiles, heavy bombers, and nuclear weapons, which have the power to actually hurt godzilla. yet surrounding countries such as china and russia do possess intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them.  every year, the jsdf conducts live-fire drills called the fuji firepower demonstration near mt. fuji. similar to the scene from shin gojira, it is a well-orchestrated and impressive display, but some commenters argue that, as is seen in the film, it would only be a grand but ineffective show against a real enemy. in the face of fundamental flaws in the jsdf, well-orchestrated drills mean little.17 in recent years, japan has faced a number of threats from other countries. the firing of north korean missiles over japan helped bring current prime minister, abe shinzo, and his more hawkish policies to the forefront. this chain of events was already building in the background when shin gojira premiered. at that time, and arguably today, the much greater threat lies in china and its aggressive push to become a regional naval power to contend with the u.s.18 these threats, and rising nationalism that pm abe fosters, suggests that a more expansive and capable jsdf is called for.   pm abe, when he was elected in 2014, made it clear that one of his goals was to change the constitution, article 9 in particular, and strengthen the jsdf’s position, allowing for it to be deployed abroad if necessary. he upgraded the defense agency to a 16 shin gojira, anno.  17 grant newsham, “japan’s military has some serious problems (as china’s military gets stronger),” the national interest, 2016, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-military-has-some-serious-problems-chinas-military-17613.  18 ronald o’rourke, china naval modernization: implications for u.s. navy capabilities – background and issues for congress, congressional research service, 2018, https://fas.org/spg/crs/row/ rl33153.pdf. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-military-has-some-serious-problems-chinas-military-17613 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japans-military-has-some-serious-problems-chinas-military-17613 https://fas.org/spg/crs/row/rl33153.pdf https://fas.org/spg/crs/row/rl33153.pdf scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2020 ministry and has taken other steps towards his goal of a more powerful jsdf.19 looking at current events, and back on the film, we can see the beginning of current trends already being illustrated in the weakness of the jsdf. japan is not fully committed to turning the jsdf into a military. although the memories of wwii are no longer fresh, the lesson is still hard to forget, especially for japan’s elderly population. for this reason, it may be too soon to say that the film points to the beginning of an inevitable remilitarization. in recent years, however, japan has started acquiring technologies and capabilities that are questionable under article 9.20 it is clear that japan recognizes its relatively weak military posture. it is falling behind its neighbors and remains dependent on the u.s. china has already overtaken it economically, and recent events point to its continued dependence on the u.s. to supplement its defense. the filmmakers present a japan critical of the jsdf and, through this, point to some of japan’s shortcomings. america and the international community            it is easy to see this film as anti-american with the u.s. portrayal. the u.s. fluctuates between being japan’s closest friend or biggest bully from scene to scene. when one looks more closely at the criticism and the context, it is not directed as much at america, as it is at japanese dependence on america and the position of “tributary” that this attitude has left the country.21            the u.s. is the most actively involved foreign nation in the film, and its military power is featured prominently. apart from the mention of countries like china, or organizations like the u.n., there are two scenes where countries besides japan or the u.s. are shown contributing. in one we see a german computer lab and the other the french ambassador.  one of the main supporting characters is a japanese-american representative from the u.s. named kayoko. in her first appearance, she is a stereotypical assertive american. she makes a john wayne-esque arrival, wearing an aviator’s jacket and immediately takes control of the conversation, presenting yaguchi with a deal for information exchange that seems non-negotiable.22  next time, after the jsdf has failed to stop godzilla, the united states informs the japanese government that it plans to use conventional high-power bombs against godzilla while he is in tokyo. the film takes the time to tell us the bombers are carrying massive ordinance penetrator, one of the largest non-nuclear weapons in the u.s. arsenal. the u.s. government does not request permission. the japanese government can only make a chaotic attempt to save face and respond to a potentially wide-area urban bombing––a sly reference to the wwii carpet bombings so heavily symbolized in the 1954 film. the next time america appears is to tell 19 rajeswari pillai rajagopalan, “where is japan in its military under abe?” 2018, the diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2-18/03/where-is-japan-in-its-military-push-abe.  20 “long-range cruise missiles for the sdf’s arsenal,” the japan times, 2019, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/12/19/editorials/long-range-cruise-missiles-sdfs-arsenal/.  21 shin gojira, anno.  22 shin gojira, anno. https://thediplomat.com/2-18/03/where-is-japan-in-its-military-push-abe https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/12/19/editorials/long-range-cruise-missiles-sdfs-arsenal/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/12/19/editorials/long-range-cruise-missiles-sdfs-arsenal/ scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 75 spring 2020 japan that the u.s. is ready to use nuclear weapons to kill godzilla. a closer look at these two scenes reveals some enlightening context. america’s role in the film, though often incredibly helpful, is usually that of a schoolyard bully, telling japan what it should do or dictating what it will do to japan. before the bombing of godzilla by b-2 heavy bombers (a weapon the jsdf cannot possess), the americans have been helpful. they are not selfless but did not extort anything in exchange. earlier in the film, a cabinet member even asks if the government can just have the americans kill godzilla to avoid a controversial deployment of its own forces.23 in this scene and several others, we see references to the long-standing security arrangement between the u.s. and japan. during the economic miracle, relying on the u.s. for defense allowed japan to put all their resources into an economic recovery, and it worked. the old leaders of recently pacifist japan are unwilling to break that mold and take action. it is still trying to shift its security burden onto the u.s.24 bombing the middle of tokyo without permission seems like a callous move by the americans. when considering the long-standing security partnership between the two, it is not surprising that the japanese government does not seem upset. the pm and his subordinates are merely insulted; they had so little warning or input, not that the americans intervened. during the bombing scene, yaguchi and several others are apparently excited by american success. this is the only point in the film where godzilla is actually wounded.25 even in the final showdown, when he is defeated, no blood is ever drawn. at no point is the american attack condemned. in fact, the attack forces the monster into hibernation and gives the film’s heroes time to find a way to defeat godzilla. this scene may seem like american overbearing, but it only comes after the japanese fail to stop the monster.             the next noteworthy moment for the americans as the bully is when they tell the japanese that, on behalf of the u.n., they intend to launch a nuclear missile at godzilla before he wakes up, despite the resultant destruction of tokyo.26 this decision is condemned throughout the film, and many characters are clearly emotional at this apparent betrayal. many not only come to accept this fact but also begin to rationalize it as the only correct decision. in one scene, a character tries to convince yaguchi that, due to the building economic and humanitarian crisis from the monster, the only way to save japan from imploding is with international aid promised in return for japan’s cooperation with the nuclear strike.27 the nuclear option was not, originally, an american plan. kayoko tells yaguchi that it was not americans, but the russians and chinese, who pushed forward the plan.28 both countries have long-standing disputes with japan, and in the case of china, it is 23 shin gojira, anno. 24 shin gojira, anno.  25 shin gojira, anno. 26 shin gojira, anno. 27 shin gojira, anno.  28 shin gojira, anno.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2020 becoming an active challenger in the region.29 at this first mention of the plan, there is little to suggest that, with the backing of the u.n., the u.s. will be taking the lead against godzilla.             the international community’s decision to nuke godzilla seems callous. it is important to note that the focus is never solely on the americans in this respect, but often on the u.n., and surprisingly, japan. the japanese would consent to make godzilla a u.n. problem, with america at the lead. the only people who can be said to be acting strangely are the japanese, who are consenting to being the victims of a third nuclear attack. it is not unusual to see americans taking the lead in multi-national military actions. japan is a long-standing junior security partner to the u.s. the japanese response is, unfortunately, not out of keeping with one of the major approaches to japanese foreign policy, which is to simply follow the american lead. it is a strange parody to see japan, a victim of nuclear war, trying to justify something it finds so appalling. this scene is not simply critical of the rest of the world; it is critical of japan. japan continues to do as it always has ––follow the american lead and consent to american wishes.  this reflects on two of the major political divides in japan—the conservative approach of keeping closely tied to the u.s. security and foreign policy in asia, and the anti-clientelist who want japan to carve its own path.30 these ideologies roughly correspond to the ldp (liberal democratic party,) and the former dpj (democratic party of japan,) two of the largest parties in japanese politics at the time. the competition between the young officials striving to make change and the older leaders looking to follow convention illustrates the competition between the ldp and the dpj. in this case, the directors are clearly taking the anti-clientelist perspective, portraying japan as a country that lacks the determination to solve its problems on its own terms, or the resolve to fight america and the other world powers. it is a tributary, but only because it acts like one. if japan stands up for itself, it can carve its own path instead of the one america, china, or the u.n. creates for it. what does the future hold?            at the film’s climax, humanity has won this time. but, we are warned that there may be more monsters, and we are shown that there are with every new godzilla film. at the end of shin gojira, the constantly evolving monster godzilla is shown to have been on the brink of splitting into thousands of smaller firms, which may have made it unstoppable.31 this time, they barely managed to stop the monster. but will they be able to next time?            this is the question the movie leaves us with, and the question those seeking to understand a changing japan must ask themselves. all that we see in the film have 29 andrew l oros, “japan’s relative decline and new security challenges in a multipolar asia,” in japan’s security renaissance: new policies and politics for the twenty-first century (new york: columbia university press, 2017), 66-95. 30 margarita estévez-abe, “feeling triumphalist in tokyo: the real reasons nationalism is back in japan,” foreign affairs 93, no. 3 (2014): 165-71, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24483416. 31 shin gojira, anno. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24483416 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 77 spring 2020 been on the minds of the people of japan as they tackle the metaphorical monsters of government, security, or economy the country must decide what new identity it will create. since shin gojira premiered almost four years ago, and the concepts struggled within the film are starting to coming to fruition. you could call this monster north korean aggression or china’s increasing political, military, and economic power in asia. it could be the rising number of natural and man-made disasters that call into question the health and safety of the japanese.            now, almost four years after the film’s release, we can see some of these images coming to fruition. japan has quietly and carefully acquired new weapons systems or adapted what it has. for a country facing challenges on all sides, this is not surprising. however, it is still divided over the question of the military. even if it has offensive capability in practice, the principle of it still has great symbolic significance and divides the nation, perhaps now more than it has since ww ii.32 furthermore, the generational gap between the old and careful and the new and hopeful has manifested in a variety of social movements regarding gender, sexuality, immigrants, and more. japan is a country in transition. through films like shin gojira, we can see the stresses of transition come alive the sources of fears, the possible solutions, and the monsters of daily life turned into something real that people can face and tackle through film. 32 william sposato, “shinzo abe can’t afford to rest on his laurels,” foreign policy, 2019. https:// foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/24/japan-shinzo-abe-2020-prime-minister-rest-laurels/.  https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/24/japan-shinzo-abe-2020-prime-minister-rest-laurels/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/24/japan-shinzo-abe-2020-prime-minister-rest-laurels/ scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2020 bibliography anno, hideaki and shinji higuchi, dir. shin gojira. 2016; tokyo: toho co, ltd., 2016, dvd. duss, peter. the rise of modern japan. boston: houghton mifflin co., 1976. estévez-abe, margarita. “feeling triumphalist in tokyo: the real reasons nationalism is back in 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kerstin, and alexandra sakaki. “japan’s political trust deficit.” japan forum 29, no. 1 (2016): 1–18. doi:10.1080/09555803.2016.1227349. napier, susan j. “panic sites: the japanese imagination of disaster from godzilla to akira.” journal of japanese studies 19, no. 2 (1993): 327-51. https://www.jstor. org/stable/132643.  newsham, grant. “japan’s military has some serious problems (as china’s military gets stronger).” the national interest, 2016. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/ the-buzz/japans-military-has-some-serious-problems-chinas-military-17613.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 79 spring 2020 nobumasa, akiyama, sato heigo, kaoru naito, yosuke naoi, and tadahiro katsuta. the fukushima nuclear accident and crisis management. the sasakawa peace foundation, (2012). https://www.spf.org/jpus/img/investigation/book_fukushima.pdf.  nuclear proliferation (1949-present), united states department of energy, accessed january 3, 2019, https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/ events/1945-present/proliferation.htm. o’rourke, ronald. china naval modernization: implications for u.s. navy capabilities – background and issues for congress. congressional research service, 2018. https:// fas.org/spg/crs/row/rl33153.pdf. oros, andrew l. “japan’s relative decline and new security challenges in a multipolar asia.” in japan’s security renaissance: new policies and politics for the twenty-first century, 66-95. new york: columbia university press, 2017.  rajagopalan, rajeswari pillai. “where is japan in its military under abe?” 2018. the diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2-18/03/where-is-japan-in-its-militarypush-abe. rich, motoko. “japanese government and utility are found negligent in nuclear disaster.” the new york times, march 17, 2017, https://www.nytimes. com/2017/03/17/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-tepco-ruling. html.  richie, donald. a hundred years of japanese film. tokyo: kodansha international, 2001. sposato, william. “shinzo abe can’t afford to rest on his laurels.” foreign policy, december 24, 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/24/japan-shinzo-abe2020-prime-minister-rest-laurels/. “students finally find their voice.” the japan times, august 15, 2015. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/08/15/editorials/students-finally-find-voice/. tomoeda, takahiko. “the essence of shinto.” pacific affairs 3, no. 4 (1930): 34349. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2750558.  traphagan, john. “how japan sees its military.” the diplomat. august 17, 2012. https:// thediplomat.com/2012/08/how-japan-sees-its-military/. middle tennessee state university 59 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse jayme brunson abstract in 2014, elliot rodger, a self-proclaimed incel (involuntary celibate), murdered six people and injured 14 in isla vista, california, as retribution for his experiences in romantic and sexual rejection. incels generally believe women are at fault for men’s celibacy. misogynistic gender beliefs, such as incel ideology, often develop in adolescence under the influence of social environment and media exposure. this literature review explores the formation of gender beliefs through gender socialization and masculinity performances. it also looks into how incels internalize a distorted perspective of normative masculinities and what they expect conformance to these masculinities should bring. readers will be presented with a brief history of incels and multiple examples of incel discourse from internet forums. discussions surround incel discourse and how it may be shaped by representations of men, masculinities, and incels in the media. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2021 misogynistic violence is not a new phenomenon. violence specifically attributed to women refusing men’s sexual advances, however, has become more prevalent since elliot rodger’s isla vista, california, attack in 2014 wherein rodger murdered six people and injured 14 more (anti-defamation league, 2018; scaptura & boyle, 2020). described as his “day of retribution,” rodger’s violence aimed to avenge “a lifetime of romantic and sexual rejection” (scaptura & boyle, 2020, p. 279), which aligns his beliefs with the incel community. short for “involuntary celibates,” most incels believe women owe them sex, so women are to blame for men’s celibacy (ging, 2017; romano, 2018). incels sometimes respond to this predicament with online forum posts that document their experiences of rejection and the ways in which they lack the privileging attributes found in the “hegemonic ideal” man (witt, 2020, p. 678). their varying levels of whiteness, physical prowess, and class standing pull incels away from socially constructed normative masculinities (palma, 2019; witt, 2020). some incels go on to express their frustrations through acts of offline violence (wright, 2018). rodger’s attack is one of many incidences of incel-related violence (anti-defamation league, 2018). studies of incel misogyny are numerous (bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; casey, 2019; ging, 2017), but few delve into what influences incel gender beliefs in the first place (doyle, 2018). there is evidence that gender beliefs develop throughout adolescence, influenced by one’s social environment and the media (epstein & ward, 2011; hanke, 1998; kim et al., 2007; rousseau et al., 2018), but we do not yet fully understand how these various influences shape incel ideology. exploring the relationship between the media representations of men, masculinities, and incels and the beliefs incels publish online could fill this gap in knowledge. thus, the purpose of this literature review is to explore the history of incels, incel discourse, and how incel discourse could be influenced by media representations of men, masculinities, and incels. this paper will also examine when and how gender beliefs are formed and attempt to identify the point at which incels both internalized and pushed back on the standards (and expected outcomes) of performing normative masculinities. role of researcher before proceeding with the goal of this review, it is important to understand how my identity and role as the researcher influence my research. sandra harding (1987) suggests that feminist researchers should be visible in their work in order to recognize how one’s personally held beliefs can impact the results and analyses of a study. by revealing the potential impacts of a researcher’s beliefs, the study becomes more objective; it does not attempt to hide evidence of subjectivity (harding, 1987). my interest in this topic emerged from my fascination with online radicalization. “radicalization” has many negmiddle tennessee state university 61 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse ative connotations, so it can be easy to associate all of incel culture with acts of violence. to challenge this bias, the current literature review attempts to “study up,” which “shifts the way we see who is ‘the problem’ from those who are the victims of power to those who wield it disproportionately” (sprague, 2016, p. 203). it may be difficult to see incels as an oppressed group, but i chose to research this topic from the standpoint of the disadvantaged. articles and comments written by members of incel communities indicate that they truly feel the pain associated with their victimhood, which, they argue, is one of a lower power position. while acknowledging there are other issues of power inequality at play in gender relations, romantic rejection and loneliness caused by one’s inability to live up to some standard of masculinity can be distressing (scaptura & boyle, 2020). entitlement to women’s bodies is prescribed in normative masculinity (hanke, 1998). incels feel, however, a sense of aggrieved entitlement; a system of hypergamous women and successful “alpha” males oppresses them (kimmel, 2017). this is likely a result of gender beliefs that, at some point in development, skewed their perception of normative masculinities (as well as the expected outcomes of performing them). understanding their perceived plight has the potential to help boys and men who may be susceptible to incel ideology, which is ostensibly self-harming, and the potential to prevent gender-based violence. i cannot, however, purport to understand everything incels say or do. as a white, cisgender, heterosexual, serially monogamous woman who usually avoids social media, i cannot relate to incels’ predicament in any way. this could have influenced the articles i chose to reference or the discussions i chose to read online, as well as how i interpreted their relationship to the research question. this furthers the necessity to continue research in this area, though. as related academic literature increases and improves, future researchers will be able to lessen the impact of their personal biases. technology will also influence the current literature review. the incel community is largely online (ging, 2017), which allows for review of their publicized gender beliefs. online discourse can be very difficult to study as it is rarely permanent or static. some forums are removed by their platform for violating codes of conduct (hauser, 2017), concealing data and impacting the replicability of any study. for the sake of consistency, i have chosen to pull most incel quotes from incels, a forum website dedicated to incel topics. review of literature theoretical framing the expression “boys will be boys” conjures an image of the inevitable, and therefore acceptable, behavioral conduct of boys and men (roberts, 2012). speaking this scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2021 phrase potentially normalizes the actions or attitudes it is referencing (hlavka, 2014). a patriarchal and dichotomous culture organizes the world in absolutes, so, for every dominant concept, there is a subordinate, binary opposite (popan, 2020; scott, 1988). thus, there are more meanings to “boys will be boys,” such as “boys will not be girls” and “girls will not be boys.” these utterances are a form of discourse, or “a historically, socially, and institutionally specific structure of statements, terms, categories, and beliefs” (scott, 1988, p. 34). feminist poststructuralist theory is concerned with how descriptions of gendered behavior reveal how “gender is being performed in that particular text and context” (gannon & davies, 2005, p. 312). the words we use can shape reality, and reality can then influence our words (gannon & davies, 2005; popan, 2020; scott, 1988). grounding the current literature review in poststructuralism affords the opportunity for future researchers to deconstruct language to reveal how incel discourse might be influencing and influenced by incel reality (gannon & davies, 2005; popan, 2020; scott, 1988). for the purposes of this literature review, discourse refers to communication among incels on the internet via forums, websites, and social media, as well as how masculinities are conveyed in other media representations (e.g., movies, television, and magazines). gender socialization and performing masculinities masculinities can be thought of as identity performances traditionally attributed to men and the male body, “but not women” (milani, 2015, p. 23) or the female body (butler, 1993). gender studies scholars tend to pluralize masculinities to indicate that there is no universally normative masculinity and to highlight how gender performances vary among individuals (connell & messerschmidt, 2005; jandt & hundley, 2007; milani, 2015). however, hegemonic masculinities are the commonly accepted and rarely questioned beliefs surrounding the social expectations of men, and in a patriarchal society, that men are expected to socially dominate women (connell & messerschmidt, 2005; groff, 2020; hanke, 1998). in western cultures, hegemonic masculinities afford white, heterosexual, cisgender men institutional privileges via social dominance over women (groff, 2020; hanke, 1998). american culture tends to conflate and dichotomize gender and sexuality, meaning that when individuals do not follow the societal rules for their gender, they could be perceived as homosexual (mccormack & anderson, 2014). hegemonic masculinity can lead to homohysteria, whereby men fear being perceived as homosexual if they fail to conform to the dominant masculine norms, because being mis-identified as gay threatens their masculinity (and all its privileges) (mccormack & anderson, 2014). homohysteria can limit the range of possibilities for men’s gender performances (mccormack & middle tennessee state university 63 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse anderson, 2014), making normative masculinities more restrictive. however, according to mccormack and anderson (2014), homophobia, and thus homohysteria, have declined in the united states, allowing men to include characteristics once thought to be “gay” or “feminine” in their performance of masculinities. mccormack and anderson’s (2014) inclusive masculinity theory is criticized for glossing over sexual politics (power dynamics in gender relations) (o’neill, 2015). by eradicating hegemonic masculinities, inclusive masculinity theory can ignore the ways that masculinities are defined in relation to women, thus negating the need for (and previous work of ) feminism (o’neill, 2015). technological advances have brought about hybrid masculinities, which allow one to choose which masculine characteristics to embody without losing social dominance (ging, 2017). incels are thought to embody hybrid masculinities because they act as victims of feminism in order to “strategically distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity” while they reinforce “existing hierarchies of power and inequality online” (ging, 2017, p. 651). for example, they can establish homosociality in online spaces, even if they do not meet hegemonic standards of masculinity offline (ging, 2017). poststructuralist theory allows one to consider that masculinities may be constructed via discourse (and vice versa) (butler, 2006; hanke, 1998; jandt & hundley, 2007; kimmel, 2017). men and boys use discourse to police each other’s behaviors via an intra-masculine stratification of men (morris & anderson, 2015). for example, a youtube video of a man dressing like a woman could elicit public commentary from other men about how that man is “misperforming” masculinities. the question is, when and where does that discourse originate? adolescents likely learn normative gender behaviors through gender socialization, a process in which gendered behaviors are observed and internalized (epstein & ward, 2011; kim et al., 2007; rousseau et al., 2018). behaviors modeled by media and one’s social environment serve as a script by which one is to perform one’s identity (kim et al., 2007; milani, 2015; rousseau et al., 2018). sex role theory purports that men are to play a specific role and women are to play the complementary role (ging, 2017; messner, 1998). as evidenced by the long history of women’s and men’s liberation movements, some people internalize the script differently (bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; casey, 2019). one such group of people are men’s rights activists (mras), who not only believe they are as equally, if not more, oppressed than women, but they also blame women and feminism for their plight (anti-defamation league, 2018; bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; ging, 2017; messner, 1998; palma, 2019; phillips & milner, 2017). like any looseknit online community, the mra subscriber base is ideologically diverse and frequently scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2021 splinters into smaller, niche communities such as incels (anti-defamation league, 2018; bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; caffrey, 2020). incels the term “incel” was first published online in 1993 on a website for a canadian student, alana, to document her struggles to have sexual experiences (caffrey, 2020). sexism on the website became more prominent with an influx of male users, so alana gave up her administrator role in 2000 (caffrey, 2020). incels continued to converse in forum-style websites like 4chan and reddit where the blame for incel status shifted to women and feminism (caffrey, 2020) and the tone shifted from supportive to self-loathing (bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; romano, 2018). many incels believe in genetic predispositions and place themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy as “beta” males (ging, 2017). these incels contend that women are genetically inferior and prefer men of superior genes (alpha males) (ging, 2017; hines, 2019; scaptura & boyle, 2020), “and thus deny lesser males sexual access to their bodies” (palma, 2019, p. 320). this aggrieved entitlement, or sense of having something deserved (e.g., sex from women) taken away by an “other” (e.g., women and alpha males), is often expressed through anger and violence (kimmel, 2005; romano, 2018). aggrieved entitlement to sex may have its roots in the tenets of hegemonic masculinity. as witt (2020) explains, “the ideal hegemonic masculine subject embodies sexual ability and prowess,” which results in the commodification of women’s bodies in a way that builds “social and masculine capital for men” (p. 4). in other words, having sex with women is a defining feature of hegemonic masculinity; men who have sex with more women are more masculine and men who have less sex (or no sex) with women are perceived as less masculine (witt, 2020). aggrieved entitlement is likely the result of acceptance threat, or the feeling that one is not meeting hegemonically masculine standards (scaptura & boyle, 2020). this can lead to felt powerlessness from believing that one’s sexuality and masculinity are controlled by women (bordo, 1994). somewhere along the way, incels internalized a script where their role is to achieve masculinity (bordo, 1994) through sexual encounters with women, but the women in the story are not performing their role correctly (palma, 2019). if most people are exposed to similar messages about gender socialization, then one would expect most boys to latch onto the same beliefs. indeed, the pressure on a man to perform hegemonic masculinities is high (witt, 2020), but it does not always lead to the extremely polarized views on gender found in incel forums. this points to an additional influence in the process of gender socialization that leads a segment of boys to feel entitled to women’s bodies, to the point of explosive rage and violence when it is denied. middle tennessee state university 65 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse incel discourse subjects are thought to become gendered through the repetition of behaviors categorized as gendered (butler, 2006). for example, many attribute muscularity to masculinity because discourse has repeatedly made that connection. incel discourse tends to frame masculinity in terms of what physical characteristics incels lack and why that makes them unsuccessful (ging, 2017; hines, 2019). incel communities are often isolated from the rest of the internet, sometimes due to social media restrictions and bans (hauser, 2017). this isolation lends itself to tribalism, or the “growth of insulated communities” that share common beliefs (kte’pi, 2019, para. 8), which can foster an echo chamber effect. in an echo chamber, one’s “beliefs, views, and assumptions are reinforced as the result of the stimuli to which the reader/viewer is exposed” (kte’pi, 2019, para. 1). incel discourse can become increasingly polarized (kuhn et al., 2019) as the echo chamber reverberates and reinforces the beliefs of the community (kte’pi, 2019). the cyber location of incel discourse plays a significant role in its perpetuation as well. many online platforms use algorithms to filter content based on what a user has shown interest in, creating the sense of a larger community sharing the same beliefs (ging, 2017). in addition, memes—easily shareable ideas associated with images (cooper, 2019)—provide a rapid delivery system to present new, and reify old, incel beliefs (ging, 2017). given that the primary location of incel discourse is online, media culture likely informs its development. masculinity and media as michael kimmel (2017) aptly explains, “american films are among the most gendered in the world” (p. 59). whether it be an action movie with explosions and a muscular male hero, a mob movie glorifying guns, drugs, and sex, or a romantic “chick flick” with a scrawny male fawning for the attention of a pretty woman, the cinema can instruct consumers on how (and how not) to be a man (consalvo, 2003; hanke, 1998). magazines are often categorized as men’s or women’s subjects (e.g., popular mechanics is a men’s magazine, and bon appetit is a women’s magazine), implying that men should be interested in mechanical work and not cooking (milani, 2015). television themes follow a heterosexual script in which men are consumed by fantasies and urges and are posited as sexual initiators (kim et al., 2007). outrage media (e.g., infowars) takes input from its majority white, male audiences and puts out content that affirms or exacerbates their beliefs (kimmel, 2017). for instance, a consumer might call the host of a show to complain about how feminism has ruined his life. the host might respond with how angry it makes him, then present an antifeminist diatribe to his listeners, solidifying the audience’s antifeminist sentiments scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2021 (kimmel, 2017). when one observes incel discourse, there is evidence that these media representations influence incel definitions of masculinity. while media consumption may be a passive experience of discourse, incels engage in active forms of discourse as well. online incel communities facilitate public discussions about various aspects of performing masculinities. the following are responses on a forum post (from the “bluepill forum” where non-incels can engage in “constructive” discourse with incels) asking if any incels had tried to improve their physical appearance: “you’d be surprise [sic] how many of us actually have good haircuts and a good weight. how many of us actually care more about our hygiene than most chads. of course, i guess your little brain can’t process that” (theunworthy, 2019); “i cut my long hippie hair that i loved and took me over 3 years to grow. i’ve been going to the gym for 4 months and i’m actually starting to get jacked. hasn’t helped me with women at all” (kaumak, 2019); “i’ve gotten a car and gotten promoted at my job and tried to be positive and confident maaaaan [sic] but none of those things have helped me in any meaningful way” (kolibri, 2019, emphasis original). these users are describing how they have tried and failed to meet the specific standards of masculinity (i.e., physical attractiveness and financial status) that they believe should lead to sexual experiences with women. incels are represented in the media in a limited capacity. for example, television shows portray them as oafs (wilkinson, 2018), and the news media often calls them sad, sexless, pathetic, insular cult members (cbc news, 2018; wright, 2018). it should be noted that “black pilled” incels (the terms “red pill,” “blue pill,” and “black pill” are references to a paradox in the film the matrix) (ging, 2017) would likely agree with some of these sentiments. black pilled incels believe that, as beta males, they are physically unattractive and unworthy of love (palma, 2019; romano, 2018). one can find examples of incel responses to their media presence. some are frustrated with the lack of incel representation in the media (humancentipede, 2020) and hollywood’s refusal to use “normies and ugly dudes” in action or romance movies (wasteman, 2020). other incels claim that some movies are about incels (e.g., joker, falling down, and taxi driver) (elephantman12, 2020), even though the characters in these films are never explicitly named as incels. these points establish that incels do pay attention to how the media portrays them, to the point that it enters their discourse. the following is an example of how media representations can enter discourse and shape (or be shaped by) reality. in 2014, a self-identified incel named elliot rodger killed six people, largely because, as his manifesto purported, he had been rejected by women (caffrey, 2020). the new york times published his 141-page manifesto detailing his life as an incel as well as his youtube video announcing his “day of retribution” (lovett & nagourney, 2014). middle tennessee state university 67 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse following all this infamy, rodger was canonized by the incel community as “saint elliot” (witt, 2020). his initials are still used to describe violence (e.g., “going er” or “doing an er”) (wright, 2018). his initials also appear in words on incel forums to establish a relationship between incel violence and something else (e.g., taxi driver, a movie about an insane, lonely, violent taxi driver, is stylized as “taxi driver”) (vansavage, 2020). the widespread glorification of rodger’s violence likely inspired alek minassian’s 2018 toronto van attack (killing ten), which was preceded by a social media post hailing the “supreme gentleman elliott rodger!” (cbc news, 2018). this may be evidence of reality (rodger’s attack) shaping discourse (“going er” and “supreme gentleman”) and discourse (“supreme gentleman”) influencing reality (minassian’s attack). conclusion although many online communities celebrate violence, the act and glorification of violence is rampant in the incel community (anti-defamation league, 2018). while there is an ongoing debate among scholars as to whether one’s internet persona reflects one’s true beliefs or offline intentions (aricak et al., 2011; phillips & milner, 2017), the prevalence of incel violence is indicative of some connection between discourse and reality. as palma (2019) explains, “understanding the narrative underpinnings of entitled beliefs may yield insight into gender-based violence” (p. 325). the gender identity incels perform is likely based on a script they internalized in adolescence (kim et al., 2007; milani, 2015; rousseau et al., 2018). incel culture and its potential for violence has received ample attention (bratich & banet-weiser, 2019; casey, 2019; ging, 2017), but there is a lack of research identifying if, or how media representations of men, masculinities, and incels are affecting incel discourse. according to poststructuralist theory, it is possible for discourse and reality to influence each other (gannon & davies, 2005; popan, 2020; scott, 1988). when that reality is destruction of one’s self or others, then the discourse and all its influences should be examined. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2021 references anti-defamation league. 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(2017). alphas, betas, and incels: theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. men and masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. https://doi. org/10.1177%2f1097184x17706401 groff, a. (2020) hegemonic masculinity. salem press encyclopedia. hanke, r. (1998). theorizing masculinity with/in the media. communication theory, 8, 183-202. harding, s. (1987). introduction: is there a feminist method? in s. harding (ed.), feminism and methodology: social science issues (pp. 1-14). indiana university press and open university press. hauser, c. (2017, november 9). reddit bans ‘incel’ group for inciting violence against women. the new york times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/technology/ incels-reddit-banned.html hines, a. (2019, may 28). how many bones would you break to get laid? “incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects. new york magazine. https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/incel-plastic-surgery.html hlavka, h.r. (2014). normalizing sexual violence: young women account for harassment and abuse. s, 28(3), 337-358. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0891243214526468 humancentipede. (2020, july 24). why can i never watch some shit in peace? they must always add love, sex and ppl getting girlfriends…[comment on online forum post netflix-series ruined by chad producers]. incels. https://incels.net/threads/netflix-series-ruined-by-chad-producers.20034/ jandt, f., & hundley, h. (2007). intercultural dimensions of communicating masculinities. the journal of men’s studies, 15(2), 216-231. https://doi.org/10.3149/ jms.1502.216 kaumak. (2019, may 8). i cut my long hippie hair that i loved and took me over 3 years to grow…[comment on online forum post how many of you have tried to improve yourselves?]. incels. https://incels.net/threads/how-many-of-you-have-tried-toimprove-yourselves.964/post-8174 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 70 spring 2021 kim, j.l., sorsoli, c.l., collins, k., zylbergold, b.a., schooler, d., & tolman, d.l. (2007). from sex to sexuality: exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. the journal of sex research, 44(2), 145-157. https://doi. org/10.1080/00224490701263660 kimmel, m. (2017). angry white men: american masculinity at the end of an era. bold type books. kolibri. (2019, may 18). i’ve gotten a car and gotten promoted at my job and tried to be positive and confident maaaaan…[comment on online forum post how many of you have tried to improve yourselves?]. incels. https://incels.net/ threads/how-many-of-you-have-tried-to-improve-yourselves.964/post-9140 kte’pi, b. (2019). echo chamber effect. salem press encyclopedia. kuhn, d., floyd, d., yaksick, p., halpern, m., & ricks, w. (2019). how does discourse among like-minded individuals affect their thinking about a complex issue? thinking & reasoning, 25(3), 365-382. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2018. 1532460 lovett, i., & nagourney, a. (2014, may 24). video rant, then deadly rampage in california town. the new york times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/california-drive-by-shooting.html mccormack, m., & anderson, e. (2014). the influence of declining homophobia on men’s gender in the united states: an argument for the study of homohysteria. sex roles, 17, 109-120. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-014-0358-8 messner, m.a. (1998). the limits of “the male sex role”: an analysis of the men’s liberation and men’s rights movements’ discourse. gender & society, 12(3), 255-276. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0891243298012003002 milani, t.m. (2015). theorizing language and masculinities. in t.m. milani (ed.), language and masculinities: performances, intersections, dislocations (pp. 8-33). taylor & francis. morris, m., & anderson, e. (2015). ‘charlies is so cool like’: authenticity, popularity and inclusive masculinity on youtube. sociology, 49(6), 1200-1217. https://doi. org/10.1177%2f0038038514562852 o’neill, r. (2015). whither critical masculinity studies? notes on inclusive masculinity theory, postfeminism, and sexual politics. men and masculinities, 18(1), 100-120. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184x14553056 palma, s. (2019). entitled to a happy ending: fairy-tale logic from “beauty and the beast” to the incel movement. marvels & tales, 33(2), 319-337. https://doi. org/10.13110/marvelstales.33.2.0319 middle tennessee state university 71 literature review exploring relationship between media representations of men, masculinities, and incels on incel discourse phillips, w., & milner, r.m. (2017). the ambivalent internet: mischief, oddity, and antagonism online. polity press. popan, e. m. (2020). post-structuralism. salem press encyclopedia. roberts, s. (2012). boys will be boys…won’t they? change and continuities in contemporary young working-class masculinities. sociology, 47(4), 671-686. https://doi. org/10.1177%2f0038038512453791 romano, a. (2018, june 20). what a woman-led incel support group can teach us about men and mental health. vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17314846/incel-support-group-therapy-black-pill-mental-health rousseau, a., rodgers, r.f., & eggermont, s. (2018). a short-term longitudinal exploration of the impact of tv exposure on objectifying attitudes toward women in early adolescent boys. sex roles, 80, 186-199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199018-0925-5 scaptura, m.n., & boyle, k.m. (2020). masculinity threat, “incel” traits, and violent fantasies among heterosexual men in the united states. feminist criminology, 15(3), 278-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085119896415 scott, j.w. (1988). deconstructing equality-versus-difference: or, the uses of poststructuralist theory for feminism. feminist studies, 14(1), 33-50. https://doi. org/10.1017/cbo9780511570940.020 sprague, j. (2016). feminist methodologies for critical researchers: bridging differences. rowman & littlefield. theunworthy. (2019, may 4). you’d be surprise how many of us actually have good haircuts and a good weight…[comment on online forum post how many of you have tried to improve yourselves?]. incels. https://incels.net/threads/how-many-of-youhave-tried-to-improve-yourselves.964/post-7741 vansavage. (2020, july 16). taxi driver [comment on online forum post black pill movie?]. incels. https://incels.net/threads/black-pill-movie.19648/post-329445 wasteman. (2020, july 25). this shit makes me angry. i just read how hollywood industry works and many good looking chads are being discovered…[comment on the online forum post i cannot watch action/romantic movies with pretty actors anymore]. incels. https://incels.net/threads/i-cannot-watch-action-romanticmovies-with-pretty-actors-anymore.20097/ wilkinson, a. (2018, may 30). unbreakable kimmy schmidt deftly takes on #metoo and terrible men in season 4. vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/30/17391290/ unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-season-4-review-netflix-spoilers-metoo. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2021 witt, t. (2020). ‘if i cannot have it, i will do everything i can to destroy it.’ the canonization of elliot rodger: ‘incel’ masculinities, secular sainthood, and justifications for ideological violence. social identities, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630 .2020.1787132 wright, m. (2018, april 25). incel: the online cult for sad, sexless young men is terrorism by any other name. newstatesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/ social-media/2018/04/incel-online-cult-sad-sexless-young-men-terrorism-anyother-name. 2021 scientia book file 65 2021 scientia book file 66 2021 scientia book file 67 2021 scientia book file 68 2021 scientia book file 69 2021 scientia book file 70 2021 scientia book file 71 2021 scientia book file 72 2021 scientia book file 73 2021 scientia book file 74 2021 scientia book file 75 2021 scientia book file 76 2021 scientia book file 77 2021 scientia book file 78 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 1 spring 2020 humanizing the dehumanized: the complex connections between william lloyd garrison’s preface and fugitive slave advertisements micah hallman abstract by connecting nineteenth-century slave advertisements and the preface provided by william lloyd garrison to frederick douglass’s narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave, written by himself, this article argues that garrison’s preface provides a moment in history when the voice of a specific person, speaking for a group of people who were frequently silenced, is recovered. examining particular slave advertisements published around the time of douglass’s 1845 narrative, it is possible to see that these advertisements tend to highlight the lack of voice provided to slaves while being focused on the body and the kinds of work that the slave was capable of doing. other types of writing, such as the authenticating preface written by garrison, also serve as advertisement, which recognizes the implicit silencing of african american humanity while also acknowledging slaves as authorities to tell their own stories. * winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2020 the publication of runaway slave advertisements was far from unusual in the mid-nineteenth century. these publications were published by southern slaveowners who hoped to recover their property—slaves—that had run away. these kinds of publications frequently appeared in newspapers throughout the united states and utilized a specific kind of rhetoric that sought to call attention to the body of the slave. these advertisements were frequently published in both the north and the south and utilized language that would provide slave catchers with physical information about the missing slave. the slaves who managed to obtain their freedom by running to the north, and especially those who were able to become literate during or after their journey (like frederick douglass), would have been knowledgeable about both the plight that slaves faced in the south and the publication of these advertisements, which made them knowledgeable voices to speak for those who were kept historically silenced.             while these advertisements were being published, fugitive slave narratives were also becoming increasingly popular among the american public. one such narrative that gained prominence in the american mindset was frederick douglass’s the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave, written by himself (1845), which included different prefaces that serve a variety of different purposes, such as the authentication of the former slave’s story for a skeptical white audience. one of the prefaces to the 1845 version of douglass’s narrative was written by william lloyd garrison. his preface to the narrative accomplishes important work for douglass. from the beginning of his preface, garrison attempts to highlight the uniqueness of douglass’s narrative and the importance that it offers to both the abolitionist movement and the construction of historical narratives. garrison’s preface provides verification for a nineteenth-century audience who might have been skeptical of the ability of a former slave to write effectively about his experience while at the same time provides a voice to a historically ignored group of people. garrison’s preface should be put into conversation with the slave advertisements, and perhaps even as an advertisement, in and of itself, albeit with a different purpose. garrison’s work recognizes the implicit silencing of african american humanity that occurred in slave advertisements and made those traits explicit in his preface. from this, i argue that these two different kinds of texts are in conversation: slave advertisements are focused on the body while garrison is focused on the mind and contributions to historical narratives.             the relationship between garrison and douglass has been the subject of much critical debate since the publication of the narrative. robert levine’s book, the lives of frederick douglass, discusses their relationship and their break, mentioning that garrison “did much more than see the book through the press” since he supplied one of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 3 spring 2020 “‘paratexts’ of the antebellum slave narrative. . . which served to legitimate the black text for white readers” (46). at the same time, though, levine also mentions the ways in which scholars have thought of garrison’s preface as paternalistic, particularly in regard to “his account of douglass’s speech at the august 1841 nantucket meeting of the massachusetts anti-slavery society” (49). the preface, according to levine, also shows garrison “portraying himself as the teacher of a black man” who was “uncertain” of taking on the role of the abolitionist speaker (49). thinking in this way, the preface written by garrison is important because it would have provided a sense of creditability for the nineteenth-century audience because of garrison’s posturing of himself as a teacher; he is, in the garrison-douglass relationship, a paternalistic person — someone in a position of power who restricts the freedom of others, like slaves. in this light, garrison, as a white person, is capable of exposing douglass’s story to a white audience and by suggesting that garrison served as a guide for douglass as he became integrated into abolitionist society. at the same time, though, it may also be suggested that douglass’s credibility should be taken a step further and that garrison is suggesting that slaves like douglass who are fortunate enough to write narratives are doing so to insert their voices into an overarching historical narrative.             john sekora mentions the relationship between the prefaces and the narrative as being parallel to the relationship between garrison and douglass, as well as the master and slave. he claims that “white sponsors compel a black author to approve, to authorize white institutional power. the black message will be sealed within a white envelope” (502). sekora’s argument focuses on the power relationship between the works of douglass and garrison. rather than simply seeing garrison’s preface as trying to acknowledge that douglass has written a narrative that provides a necessary voice to the american narrative, however, sekora argues that the preface helps to provide authentication and authority to the text. instead of it only providing authority, though, it does so in a way that still legitimizes white dominance; with this understanding, there is a paternalistic relationship between the two texts.            the construction of historical narratives tends to accommodate dominant voices, and, at times, purposefully excludes the voices of different groups of people. according to michelle ballif in her introduction to theorizing histories of rhetoric, and utilizing framework provided by victor vitanza, certain voices are commonly excluded, where writers and historians have “an obligation to search for ‘the third man’ or ‘the third woman,’” as well as “for that which has been ‘systematically excluded’” from historical archives (3). employing the framework provided by vitanza, ballif makes this claim because “to write any history… demands ‘systematic exclusions’ of figures, of events, of artifacts, of scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2020 whatever cannot be accounted for or synthesized by the historical narrative” (3). certain archives, or collections, like the published slave advertisements of the nineteenth century, leave out specific voices or people, and it is necessary for scholars and historiographers to actively look for the “‘third man’” rather than continue to construct a historical narrative that leaves out these voices. fugitive slave advertisements tend to focus on specific traits and, unlike garrison’s preface, do not allow for slaves to have authority over their bodies or voices. as garrison encourages his audience to recognize the importance of douglass’s narrative, he is recognizing a gap in the american historical narrative and attempting to include other voices.            garrison’s work seeks to authenticate and provide a voice to a man, and a group of people, who might have been excluded from american historical narratives. instead of adhering to a white, male understanding of history, garrison encourages douglass’s audience to examine the narrative for the voices of african americans as a part of the abolitionist movement and as a part of the larger american historical narrative. as they tried to actively combat the gaps in historical narratives and thinking specifically of the african american experience and historiography, v.p. franklin suggests “african american historians were interested in documenting the fact that ‘we were there too’” for a variety of different historical events, such as the civil war (214). african american historians were also concerned with altering “the pervasive distortions and misrepresentations about africans and african-descended people in the historical literature and popular media” by “[setting] the record straight and [documenting] the numerous and significant contributions” of african americans (214). it might also be contended that garrison’s preface is attempting to provide douglass’s audience with further knowledge of who douglass was as a person.             the structure of the preface also suggests garrison’s attempt to help the readership know douglass, as much as is possible. garrison engages in a kind of “stranger humanism,” as posited by lloyd pratt, which allows him to suggest that garrison is working to provide douglass with an authoritative selfhood that is built on the concept of the “semi-private room” (1). pratt suggests that this room is a space both rhetorical and material, [where] people discover their difference from one another, but they are barred from trying to appropriate or penetrate those differences. this discovering of difference facilitates the coming-into-selfhood of those who elect to enter the room. (1-2)  garrison recognizes the differences between himself, douglass, and their audience, but at the same time appears to recognize that they all have voices that contribute to an american historical narrative. pratt also contends that “this discovering of difference scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 5 spring 2020 also forms the groundwork of democracy” (2). garrison’s preface also helps to fill in the gaps of the historical narrative rather than playing into african americans’ “elliptical subtraction” from historical narratives (22).             garrison’s preface, in this way, counteracts the archival silences that might have surrounded slave experiences by providing access to what might have been ignored if he had not emphatically highlighted the importance of it. the slave narrative, as sekora acknowledges, deals with issues of power and how that power might appear in writing, particularly in regard to the relationship between master and slave: “slavery and the language of slavery are virtually coextensive. of the slave narratives, one must ask: who is entitled to claim, to possess these lives? in whose language do they appear? what historical conditions permit or demand their appearance?” (485). these questions regarding the power relationship between slaves and masters, which sekora considers for slave narratives, are at work in the interrelationship between douglass’s 1845 narrative and garrison’s preface. the traditional reading of the interrelationship between these texts is that “most white northerners were as indifferent as garrison believed them to be; for them slavery was remote, abstract, and inconsequential” (sekora 495), and it also became more apparent that “not black storytelling but white authentication made for useable narrative” (497). while he does valuable work by noting the power relationships involved between the two texts, sekora’s article continues to view garrison as paternalistically authenticating douglass’s work, since white authentication is what made for “useable narrative.”            while douglass was publishing his 1845 narrative, slavery was still in existence, meaning that fugitive slave advertisements were a common form of writing and utilized specific word choices to dehumanize slaves and remove their archival authority. these advertisements were focused almost solely on the body of the slave, as pieces of personal property. focusing on advertisements for runaway slaves in the eighteenth century, tom costa’s work focuses on these pieces of writing as “[following] a kind of formula” because of the “very detailed descriptions of the runaways” provided by owners (38). these advertisements mention specific literacies that they might have, such as an eighteenthcentury slave’s ability to play an instrument, as robert winan describes in his book chapter, and the different languages they might speak, as mark louden discusses in his article, “african americans and minority language maintenance in the united states.” advertisements, winan notes, also highlight “how well or how badly the runaway speaks english and what other languages he speaks” and the ability to read, write, and “‘cypher’ or ‘do accounts’” suggest their occupation as house servant (198). although they might highlight the ability to speak, these advertisements also suggest that these are skills that can be used by owners to their benefit. these advertisements, despite their mentions of the ability scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2020 to speak a specific language, do not try to provide a voice directly from slaves. instead of thinking about how the stories and voices of these slaves might contribute to a united overarching narrative, advertisements for runaway slaves purposefully eliminate the voices slaves might be given. they are put into newspapers for the recovery of property, not to emphasize the importance or contributions of these runaways. these advertisements focus solely on the body and traits, rather than the voices of the individual.             garrison’s preface provides douglass with authority; these are his experiences, and he should be given the privilege of being able to write about them. garrison’s preface before douglass’s narrative of the life of a slave relies heavily on specific punctuation, including many exclamation points, which suggests an emphatic attempt to make the voices of slaves, voices who might be ignored by a white audience, heard. garrison’s preface should be juxtaposed against fugitive slave advertisements, since his preface is almost an advertisement of its own, although instead of focusing on the physical, it is focusing on the humanity of douglass. garrison’s material does important work to contribute to the missing archive of slaves’ voices by utilizing punctuation and language that other printers, particularly those who would have been writing and printing runaway slave advertisements, would not have had the space to include in their writing.   throughout both the south and the north, slave advertisements frequently appeared in newspapers. these advertisements were written to serve a specific purpose, which was to help owners of slaves recover what they considered lost property: escaped slaves. these advertisements focused on the physical aspects of slaves, such as their clothing or other physical traits, like their hair or specific scars. patricia hunt-hurst discusses the prominence of the clothing noted in georgia fugitive slave advertisements, mentioning that “most of these notices… focused on the clothing worn by the fugitive rather than on his or her occupation on the plantation. yet such descriptions of clothing can shed light on the value of the slave, which was generally based more on that occupation… than on any other factor” (729-30). david g. smith in his discussion of slavery in the south-central portion of pennsylvania notes that advertisements, even those run in areas farther north, tended to follow a particular pattern: “the advertisements generally followed a similar style: an account of when and where the slave escaped, the slave’s name, a description of the slave and his or her clothing, and the reward offered” (23). focusing on the physical, albeit physical aspects that could potentially be changed given the time and space to do so, these advertisements gave the people searching for slaves’ tangible aspects to look for.             partially because of their purpose and partially because of their genre, the advertisements that were being published around the time that douglass was making scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 7 spring 2020 his own escape and writing his narrative in the late 1830s and mid-1840s, neglected to mention the voices of their distinct group of people, nor their contributions to an overarching american historical narrative. because of the amount of space provided for advertisements and the amount of information that slaveowners deemed necessary to the recovery of their property, advertisements were only able to convey certain, tangible traits and to use an authoritative, and at times imploring, tone. since advertisements were usually confined to relatively small spaces in newspapers, they could provide only a certain amount of information.             looking at various advertisements from throughout the united states during the mid-1840s, around the time that douglass was writing and publishing his narrative, it is possible to see that there is still a specific kind of language, or “formula” used, as costa and smith both suggest. one advertisement, offering a reward of twenty-five dollars from the georgia newspaper, the milledgville federal union, states: ranaway from the subscriber on the 15th of january last, my negro man poldore—he is about fifty years of age, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches high, black complected, and weighs about 150 lbs., walks very erect, and speaks quickly when spoken to; he has a very notable scar i think on his left thigh, caused by a burn; he will doubtless deny any knowledge of me. i will give the above reward for his apprehension and delivery to the jailer of baldwin county, or $20 if lodged in any safe jail so that i may get him.  o.h.p. bonner. (1 april 1845) this advertisement places emphasis on the specific traits of poldore. by focusing on this kind of language, the owner is providing the general outline of a physical body; from this advertisement, we know that he is about fifty years old, stands at almost six feet, and has a notable scar, which would help to differentiate him from other fugitive slaves. the owner notes that poldore does have a specific way of speaking, but does nothing to elaborate on poldore’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions—presumably because of space in his advertisement or to better suit his purpose of property recovery. the advertisement made for poldore shows that he has been dehumanized and, for his master, is just a body meant for work, rather than a person with an intellect and a voice to speak for himself.             another advertisement from tennessee suggests a similar focus on physical traits. one advertisement, published in the nashville union and offering a twenty-dollar reward, focuses on a slave named henry: ranaway from the subscriber on the twenty-eighth day of january last. . . he is about thirty-five years old, dark complexion, five feet six or eight inches scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2020 high; he speaks quick when spoken to; walks very erect and steps short. he will, i presume, write himself a free pass of some sort, and attempt to get to a free state. the above reward will be given to any person who will deliver said negro to me in habersham, georgia, or confine him in some safe jail so that i can get him. (14 april 1842) while this advertisement comes from a different state and another date, although around the same time period, similar dehumanizing language is being used. again, both the slave’s possible age and height are described, along with his speech; both of these statements are almost identical between advertisements. the advertisement’s focus on the way in which he walks is also suggestive of a draft animal, with the emphasis being on his posture and the way in which he steps, possibly in the same way the gait of a horse is observed. tonally, the owner, like poldore’s own, comes across as authoritative, particularly with his assurance that there will be a reward involved and with his presumption that henry will not acknowledge his ownership if asked. like the advertisement placed for poldore, this advertisement for henry strips him of his humanity and neglects to claim that he is anything other than an almost empty vessel, capable of completing work and being subservient.             looking at yet another advertisement, the pattern of language that is being used becomes clearer. published in the new orleans the daily picayune is another advertisement, this time focused on a girl named mary anne: $20 reward.—ran away from the subscriber the yellow girl mary anne, aged about thirty years; about five feet two inches high very black hair, rather straight; black eyes; large mouth; well and strongly built, without being stout; has a little of an indian look. the above reward will be paid to any person who will bring her to the jail of the second municipality. evarist blanc, new basin. (25 may 1845) the owner, in this instance, focuses on a woman, but the language that he uses is still similar to the other two advertisements examined. instead of focusing on her posture or way that she talks, though, the owner chooses to emphasis her physical looks; instead of physical markers, like a scar or burn, he comments on what might have made her attractive to her owner, or eye-catching to someone who is looking for her. the focus on physical traits, like the hair and the mouth, suggests stereotypical traits on which a white audience might have focused. yet again, her humanity is removed in this advertisement because he pays little to no attention to anything other than how she looks.             while these are only three of thousands of other slave advertisements that are scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 9 spring 2020 available from both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by only examining a few, it is possible to see that there is a common language and tone among them. they focus on the physical; by virtue of who the advertisements are mostly written by — white southern men — and their purpose, which was to recover lost property, at the least cost to them, the ads do not try to provide a voice for the slaves. it would not serve their purposes to humanize their “lost property.” it could be assumed from these advertisements that the owners were hoping to convey just enough information to recover their slaves, while at the same time, continuously stripping away the humanity of their slaves by following a pattern of language that helped to maintain a sense of historical dominance. putting slave advertisements in conversation with a preface to douglass’s narrative allows for a discussion of what traits are being suppressed in the advertisements but highlighted by the preface.            at the same time that the voices of slaves were being silenced through the advertisements, slave narratives sought to actively prevent the silencing of slave voices. by 1845, douglass’s publication had caused a stir among the public. because of this, he left for europe. some newspapers like the american republican and baltimore daily clipper made the general statement that douglass “the fugitive maryland slave, who spoke in new york last may, was among the passengers in the cambria, which sailed for england last week” (“gone to europe”). by going to europe, douglass avoided backlash and threats of being recaptured and returned to slavery that he would have faced if he had remained in the united states, therefore silencing him.            throughout his preface to douglass’s 1845 slave narrative, garrison attempts to advocate for and suggest that douglass’s voice is essential to the development of an inclusive american narrative. the preface, placed at the beginning of the narrative, serves its own kind of advertisement, which is both similar to, and different from, the fugitive slave advertisements published at the same time. jeannine marie delombard discusses the lack of personhood provided to slaves, and, focusing on the confessional works of e.d.e.n. southworth, she notes that where white citizens who descended into criminality can be charted, the same traits “could also plot the black print subject’s extraordinary ascension from the civil death of the slave… into legal personhood” (92). she also suggests that “at times, first-person articulation of individual black selfhood could even fill out this meager guilty legal personhood with an incipient civil personality. to be the narrator of one’s own historical life is to claim responsibility for and authorship of that life” (92). these early criminal confessions recognized the humanity of fugitive slaves because, at a basic level, they participated in the judicial system of the united states, and, as delombard claims, “the black print persona attained the requisite civic presence to authorize his scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2020 reemergence in the slave narrative as african american protocitizen” (93).             throughout his preface, garrison refers to how fortunate he was to hear douglass speak. garrison also claims that douglass was “fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, ‘gave the world assurance of a man,’ quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great works of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free” (douglass 1164). garrison’s claims that douglass has brought him into the “field of public usefulness” has not been ignored by critics and is typically read as garrison suggesting that douglass has made himself useful for the purposes of garrisonian abolitionists (levine 49). while it is feasible to read his statement in this way, with garrison serving as the more restrictive figure, striving to highlight his own purposes instead of douglass’s, it is also possible to think of garrison as suggesting that douglass is making himself useful to the collection of historical voices and that garrison wants for people like douglass to have the power to contribute to the historical narrative that might have otherwise excluded them.             also, garrison places emphasis on douglass’s ability to move his audience with his speech. he claims that douglass began to speak with “a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind” and “after apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections” (douglass 1164). again, in this instance, it could be easy to see garrison as being paternalistic, claiming that it was shocking and moving to see a former slave, someone that nineteenth-century thought would consider of lower intellect, make such complex and revealing statements about slavery. at the same time, it is worth thinking about douglass, via garrison’s preface, as revealing to his audience the existence of other narratives with which they are not familiar. unlike the lack of authority given to slaves’ voices and the dehumanization that takes place in slave advertisements, by including this moment in his preface, garrison is advertising that douglass is worthy of being listened to and that he has a valuable story to add to the american historical narrative.            douglass’s first speech is almost a revelatory experience for his audience and for garrison, to the point that douglass is able to make his audience reflect on slavery and to be so moved that they later emphatically claim that they would be willing to intertwine douglass’s history with their own local massachusetts’s history. when garrison asks the audience after the speech, “‘will you succor and protect him as a brother-man—a resident of the old bay state?’” his audience eagerly responds ‘yes!’” (1165). the choices that garrison makes here, like the choices that the slaveowners made in their advertisements, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 11 spring 2020 shows him consciously linking the runaway slaves who have escaped to the north, like douglass, and their narrative, with the history of the north. garrison, at this moment, chooses to display the emphatic response of the audience, suggesting with his all capitals and the choice of punctuation that the audience would be receptive to the inclusion of the excluded voice of slaves into the american narrative.             the concept of excluded voices in the historical narratives comes up as garrison addresses the cruelties of slavery. he claims that “nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind, and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries!” (1166). garrison, at this moment, could again be perceived as exhibiting paternalism toward slaves. however, at the same time, it could also be seen as garrison openly acknowledging the cruelties of slavery, the strength with which the slaves have resisted domination, and their worthiness of having their voices and their stories listened to. instead of focusing on the physical toll of slavery, like advertisements tend to, garrison utilizes language that will garner the sympathy of his reader by using words that recall extremes, like “cripple,” “debase,” “obliterate,” which allows him to highlight the plight of slaves, while at the same time pointing out that there is a group of people who have not been listened to, despite their “groaning for centuries!” (1166).            the preface also mentions that garrison recognizes slaves as human, unlike the dehumanized image presented in slave advertisements. he laments, “o, how accursed is that system, which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image, reduces those who by creation were crowned with glory and honor to a level with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh above all that is called god!” (1167). instead of the focus on the physicality of slaves, garrison appeals to the audience’s sense of religion. all men are created in god’s image, which appears to include slaves, who are frequently related to animals rather than other humans. by focusing on the inequality garrison sees involved in the institution of slavery, he is able to suggest, subtly, that there should be equality in the historical narrative. the conscious choice of language here suggests equality, which means that if all people are equal, then perhaps there should not have to be an excluded group of people who get left out from the historical narrative.             punctuation also plays an important role in how garrison’s preface material is received. he makes several emphatic statements, most of which conclude with an exclamation or question mark. he structures his material in such a way that he is constantly asking his readers questions and then emphatically providing a response, which he might hope is similar to his audience’s response. toward the middle of his preface, for scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2020 example, garrison points out that while douglass had a comparatively better slave experience than if he were further south, “yet how deplorable was his situation! what terrible chastisements were inflicted upon his person! what still more shocking outrages were perpetrated upon his mind!… and how signal have been his deliverance and preservation in the midst of a nation of pitiless enemies!” (1167). the section, like other sections of his preface, is structured in a way that calls attention to the series of abrupt, forceful descriptions of douglass’s treatment in slavery. but, again, it places emphasis on the treatment and douglass’s mind, rather than on just douglass’s physical body. garrison’s work is attempting to show that douglass is unlike the other slaves with whom the readers might be familiar; he is unique and important to the historical discussion that is going on, rather than just another body that is sacrificed to the toils of slavery.             garrison’s refrain from utilizing the physical descriptions that are seen in slave advertisements suggests a different kind of advertising: douglass is attempting to put something forward that will have a lot of significance to history, as it is remembered. it also suggests that, instead of simply using douglass to suit his own abolitionist needs, garrison recognized that douglass’s work would have an impact and that he needed to use language that would help support the work that douglass is accomplishing for the american historical narrative.  from the opening of garrison’s preface, the reader is drawn into his relationship with douglass and garrison’s rhetorical choices. he almost immediately claims the importance, and good fortune, for the audience to read the following narrative and for douglass to have written the narrative, which emphasizes douglass’s thoughts and capabilities. by calling attention to the humanity of both douglass and other slaves, garrison is able to create an expanded advertisement. he is not advocating for douglass to be returned to slavery, but instead advertising the plight of those in slavery and left out of the historical narrative. garrison’s advertisement contends that the audience should concern themselves with what douglass has to say.             both the audience and douglass are benefitting from the publication of the narrative: the audience has the opportunity to read and listen to a former slave share his experience, and douglass has the opportunity to have his voice heard as a part of the american historical narrative. the relationship between douglass and garrison, then, becomes a moment in which recovery is occurring, where the voice of a specific person or group of people is looked for, found, and ultimately included in the historical narrative of the united states. garrisons’ work, instead of being restrictive or adversarial, should be seen as being helpful and inclusive because he is putting forward the work of douglass as important. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 13 spring 2020            the comparison between nineteenth-century fugitive slave advertisements and garrison’s preface to douglass’s narrative is beneficial. this kind of comparison provides a look at two kinds of writing, one that focuses on preventing the agency of a group of people while the other actively suggests the equality and importance of making sure that minority groups of people are included and listened to as a part of the american historical narrative. although of different genres and styles, both use different kinds of language, which helps to demonstrate how the inclusion of slaves’ voices into historical narratives was both accepted and resisted by different groups of people.             the kind of work being accomplished with garrison’s preface also suggests that the historical narrative is constantly under revision and subject to any number of preferences from a time period or dominant group of people. he suggests that the historical narrative should not be completely dominated by the voices of white men by putting forward the work of someone who would typically be excluded, and emphatically suggests that the american public is fortunate enough to have access to and to read what others, like douglass, have to contribute to our historical narrative. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2020 works cited ballif, michelle, editor. “introduction.” theorizing histories of rhetoric, southern illinois up, 2013, pp. 1-7. costa, tom. “what can we learn from a digital database of runaway slave advertisements?” international social science review, vol. 76, no. 1/2, 2001, pp. 36-43. delombard, jeannine marie. “black catalogues: crime, print, and the rise of the black self.” in the shadow of the gallows : race, crime, and american civic identity, u of pennsylvania p, 2012, pp. 87-116.  douglass, frederick. “narrative of the life of a slave.” norton anthology of american literature: 1820-1865, edited by robert s. levine, 9th edition, norton, 2017, pp. 1163-228. franklin, v.p. “introduction: symposium on african american historiography.” the journal of african american history, vol. 92, no. 2, spring 2007, pp. 214-17. “gone to europe.” american republican and baltimore daily clipper [baltimore, md], 22 august 1845, p. 2. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83009567/1845-08-22/ ed-1/seq-1/. hunt-hurst, patricia. “‘round homespun coat & pantaloons of the same’: slave clothing as reflected in fugitive slave advertisements in antebellum georgia.” the georgia historical quarterly, vol. 83, no. 4, winter 1999, pp. 727-40. levine, robert. the lives of frederick douglass. harvard up, 2016. louden, mark. “african americans and minority language maintenance in the united states.” the journal of negro history, vol. 85, no. 4, autumn 2000, pp. 223-40.  pratt, lloyd. the strangers book: the human of african american literature. u of pennsylvania p, 2016. sekora, john. “black message/white envelope: genre, authenticity, and authority in the antebellum slave narrative.” callaloo, no. 32, summer 1987, pp. 482-515. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 15 spring 2020 [slave advertisement]. milledgville federal union, 1 april 1845, milledgville, ga, freedom on the move. app.freedomonthemove.org/search?adlanguage=en&limit=12&maxpublicationdate=1845-04-01&minpublicationdate=1845-04-01&page=1&postedby=enslaver. accessed on 24 april 2019. [slave advertisement]. nashville union, 4 april 1842, nashville, tn, freedom on the move. app.freedomonthemove.org/search?adlanguage=en&limit=12&maxpublicationdate=1842-04-04&minpublicationdate=1842-04-04&page=1&postedby=enslaver. accessed 24 april 2019. [slave advertisement]. the daily picayune, 25 may 1845, new orleans, la, freedom on the move. app.freedomonthemove.org/search?adlanguage=en&limit=12&maxpublicationdate=1845-05-26&minpublicationdate=1845-05-25&page=1&postedby=enslaver. accessed on 24 april 2019. smith, david g. “south central pennsylvania, fugitive slaves, and the underground railroad.” on the edge of freedom: the fugitive slave issue in south central pennsylvania 1820-1870, fordham up, 2013, pp. 12-38. winan, robert. “black musicians in eighteenth-century america: evidence from runaway slave advertisements.” banjo roots and branches, u of illinois p, 2018, pp. 194-213.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 28 spring 2020 how has the portrayal of women on the television series doctor who evolved from 1963 to 2019? sophia watts abstract this essay examines the question, “how has the portrayal of women on the television series doctor who evolved from 1963 to 2019?” first, the universe of doctor who and all its complexities are established, explaining how the show has lasted as long as it has with a revolving cast of characters. in addition, this essay defines the portrayal of a character and what that entails. this essay then delves into the lives and personalities of six major female characters on the show. they include susan foreman, sarah jane smith, ace, rose tyler, amy pond, and the thirteenth doctor. their actions, words, and character developments are all scrutinized and examined in this essay. eventually, it becomes apparent that the role of women in the series has evolved and expanded. over time, they are given more chances to be independent and have storylines outside of their relationships with male characters, especially the doctor. they make decisions for themselves and challenge the doctor on his actions and views on the universe. eventually, women on the show take the lead, which is made apparent by the recent casting of the show’s first female doctor. by the end of this essay, the conclusion is reached that the role of women on doctor who has evolved by allowing these characters to have bigger parts and more complex backgrounds. furthermore, women on the show can carry their own storylines and are not controlled by other characters’ decisions or relationships with them. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 29 spring 2020 introduction “an unearthly child” — the first episode of doctor who — premiered on 23 november 1963. it was advertised as “an adventure in time and space” in british tv listings, starring william hartnell as the doctor.1 it was met with generally favorable reviews and was given a “reaction index of 63” out of 100. this was close to then-current averages for the premieres of television dramas (sixty-two) and children’s television shows (sixty-four). additionally, it was described as a “cross between well’s time machine and a space-age old curiosity shop, with a touch of mack sennett comedy” as well as praised for being “written imaginatively enough to appeal to adult minds and would, no doubt, prove to be quite intriguing as it progressed.”2 these findings proved that the bbc was headed in the right direction with doctor who, so the company acted accordingly. however, no one could have predicted just how far the show would go. today, the show reaches millions of people with every episode. in fact, the premiere of the reboot-series’ season 11 – on 7 october 2018 – averaged about 8.2 million viewers alone.3 in addition, as of 2006, it holds the guinness world record for being the longest-running science fiction television show.4 this is all possible thanks to the unique traits of the show’s main character, the doctor. he is part of the alien race time-lords from the planet gallifrey and possesses the ability to regenerate into a new person instead of dying.5 as a result, the show can continue with an ever-changing cast of characters. the one constant, however, is the doctor’s spaceship called the tardis, which stands for “time and relative dimension in space.” in essence, it can travel anywhere in all of time and history, which allows the doctor to go on many wild and daring adventures. furthermore, he often has companions that travel with him—usually female ones. these companions change along with the doctor, sometimes leaving him and other times getting left behind. this unique aspect then allows for the show’s longevity. consequently, over the years, doctor who has gone through quite a few changes. as society evolves, so does its culture, which includes television shows. the role of its female characters has arguably changed the most, made especially apparent with the 1 “radio times’ tv listing,” the radio times, november 23 1963, www.bbc.co.uk/archive/doctorwho/6405.shtml. 2 “an audience research report,” british broadcasting company, 30 december 1963, www. bbc. co.uk/archive/doctorwho/6406.shtml. 3 hannah mays, “jodie whittaker’s doctor who debut is most watched launch for 10 years,” the guardian, 8 october 2018, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/oct/08/doctor-who-jodiewhittakers-debut-is-most-watched-launch-for-10-years.. 4 beth mcloughlin, “doctor who named longest-running sci-fi tv show,” campaign, 29 september 2006, www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/doctor-named-longest-running-sci-fi-tv-show/595605.. 5 jason loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia (london: dk publishers, 2013), 4. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2020 recent casting of jodie whittaker as the first female doctor.6 character portrayals depend on various factors, but they are most influenced by the society within which they are created. by definition, a portrayal is “the way that someone or something is described or represented in a painting, film, book, or other artistic work.”7 therefore, analyzing the portrayals of various female characters from doctor who would allow for one to see how they have, or have not, changed over time. this would then lead to a deeper understanding of the show’s place and purpose within today’s culture. the beginning: susan foreman            from 1963 to 1964, susan foreman was the first doctor’s first companion and his granddaughter. she was played by carole ann ford and was typified as an ordinary teenager, meant to give younger viewers someone with whom to identify.8 beyond that, her character did not have much of a personality. ford even complained that she was a frustrating character to play because susan was never allowed to develop or grow.9 this was mostly because she played the role of the damsel in distress, waiting for the doctor to rescue her, having “little to do other than look pretty and frightened.”10            after fifty-one episodes, susan foreman left the doctor, or rather, the doctor left her. she fell in love with a man named david campbell, a resistance fighter from the 22nd century.11 she wanted to be with him but also desired to stay and take care of her aging grandfather. the doctor, on the other hand, believed that it would be selfish of him to let her do so. in order to let her live her own life, as he believed was best, he locked her out of the tardis. after a tearful farewell, the doctor left, and susan remained on earth to begin a new life with david.12            thus, it is clear that, at least at first, female characters did not have much of a role to play in doctor who. susan foreman was more of an audience stand-in at best or a one-dimensional, token sidekick at worst. the fact that, in the end, she did not even get to choose to leave, the doctor is supportive of this interpretation. in essence, he took away her agency, deciding he knew what was best for her, while she did not. thus, the portray6 camilla turner, “doctor who: jodie whittaker becomes 13th time lord, urging fans ‘not to be scared by my gender,’” the telegraph, 17 july 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/07/16/doctor-jodie-whittaker-replace-peter-capaldi-time-lord-regeneration/. 7 “portrayal,” cambridge dictionary, cambridge university press, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/portrayal. 8 james chapman, inside the tardis: the worlds of doctor who (london: bloomsbury, 2013), 23. 9 benjamin cook, “who on earth is… carole ann ford,” doctor who magazine, december 2010, web.archive.org/web/20140322111800/http://benjamincook.net/writing/doctor-who-magazine/ interviews-and-articles/who-on-earth-is/carole-ann-ford/. 10 chapman, inside the tardis, 23. 11 chapman, inside the tardis, 23. 12 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 173. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 31 spring 2020 al of susan foreman shows that female characters were not vital contributors to doctor who’s storyline early on in the series. the redefinition: sarah jane smith            the next major female character came in the form of sarah jane smith, played by elisabeth sladen from 1973 to 1976. she was a companion to the third and fourth doctors and quickly became a huge fan favorite.13 this is in part because she broke from the traditional female companion role; instead of being yet another damsel in distress, sarah jane was a feisty investigative journalist.14 after her first meeting with the doctor, she sneaked onto the tardis and followed him to the middle ages in order to discover the whereabouts of several missing scientists.15            this firecracker spirit often led her into more than a few sticky situations, but she and the doctor always managed to make it out, forming a strong bond along the way. they were so close, in fact, that sarah jane never quite recovered after the doctor left her on earth with no explanation or warning.16 this would not be the last people saw of her, though. the character’s popularity eventually led to a lead role in one of the rebooted series’ episodes, “school reunion,” alongside david tennant’s tenth doctor. not long after, she earned a show of her own with the sarah jane adventures.17            this expanded universe brought with it added praise and analysis of the character. elisabeth sladen felt that sarah jane “was the kind of character that [people] needed at that time. so she took on the companion that had to be for the series and the companion that [people] wanted.”18 another explanation offered up to explain the character’s popularity is that her “jolly-hockey-sticks good nature” made her the most beloved of all.19 in fact, even one of the show’s writers admitted that sarah jane was his favorite. in an interview, toby whithouse noted that she “redefined the role of the companion. and there are elements of sarah jane smith that you can see in every companion afterward… she changed the companion from being a rather helpless hysteric to being a feisty, opinionated, strong equal to the doctor.”20            overall, these elements all help to typify sarah jane smith. this character 13 martin barber, “doctor who: elisabeth sladen talks,” bbc, 22 august 2006, www.bbc.co.uk/ norfolk/content/articles/2006/04/19/film_doctor_who_lis_sladen_interview_feature.shtml. 14 daniel martin, “doctor who: the five best and worst companions,” the guardian, 28 march 2007, www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/mar/28/doctorwhothefivebestandw. 15 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 153. 16 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 153. 17 martin, “doctor who: the five best and worst companions.” 18 barber, “doctor who: elisabeth sladen talks.” 19 martin, “doctor who: the five best and worst companions.” 20 kevin wicks,“interview: toby whithouse on cast changes for ‘being human,’ ‘doctor who,’” bbc america, www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2012/02/interview-toby-whithouse-on-castchanges-for-being-human-doctor-who/2/. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2020 broke down barriers in terms of what it meant to be a companion, which has especially resonated with audiences even to this day. her adventures continued even after her tenure on the original series ended, adding more stories to the continuously expanding doctor who universe. boundless admiration for sarah jane shows that her influence expands further than almost any other character’s, besides the doctor himself.            thus, with all this evidence, it is clear that the role of female characters on doctor who changed during the time of sarah jane smith. gone were the days of helpless companions, and in came a new era of independent, strong-willed women. however, it is important to note that there were still some similarities between her and previous characters. sarah jane did not choose to leave the doctor, but was instead left behind, just like susan foreman; things were not as starkly different as they appeared to be. nevertheless, this should not detract from the progress made by elisabeth sladen’s portrayal of the iconic sarah jane smith. the modernization: ace            towards the end of the original series of doctor who, another female companion was introduced who would become especially popular with audiences. her name was ace, and she was portrayed by sophie aldred from 1987 to 1989. ace also proved to be a break from the traditional companion template, often being cited as the “first companion [audiences] all either knew, could be, or could spot on the street.”21 in addition, her background was particularly unique; ace had a rough relationship with her mother and lost a friend at a young age. this later resulted in her developing an intense, rebellious streak and a penchant for blowing things up.22 up until this point, characters like ace had never been placed in the public eye before. as sophie aldred put it, “there were no equivalent young female roles on television who were doing realistic, down-to-earth, tomboyish things,” which made the character particularly revolutionary during that time.23            one moment that best exemplifies ace’s unique personality is when she is confronted by daleks, machine-like aliens that are the doctor’s worst enemy. instead of running away scared, or screaming for help, she takes matters into her own hands and beats up one of them with a baseball bat.24 no character on the show had done this before or has since, marking a truly distinctive moment in doctor who history. moreover, ace is the only arsonist to have traveled with the doctor; she even created her own special 21 andrew younger, “doctor who: how ace set the template for modern companions,” den of geek, 5 january 2015, www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/33496/doctor-who-how-ace-set-the-template-for-modern-companions. 22 martin barber, “doctor who: ace visitor in norwich,” bbc, 4 february 2008, www.bbc.co.uk/ norfolk/content/articles/2008/02/04/doctor_who_sophie_aldred_20080204_feature.shtml. 23 barber, “doctor who: ace visitor in norwich.” 24 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 7. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 33 spring 2020 explosive, which she named nitro-9.25 despite these differences, she and the seventh doctor proved to be an explosively-dynamic team, being viewed as more of “a double act” than the typical “doctor and [his] assistant” pairing audiences had become so accustomed.26 furthermore, the introduction of ace brought other firsts to the television screen. this character enabled the show to bring up themes of “teenage angst, racism, and eventually sexual awakening… a notable first for not only doctor who, but all genre tv of that age.”27 additionally, while other female companions had been “a bit glam [and] girlie, [with] lots of screaming,” ace got to wear doc martens and a bomber jacket, and hold her own during adventures.28 she slowly became a separate entity from the doctor, growing to be more than just his companion. over the course of her time on doctor who, ace embarked on a journey of her own, transforming from an “immature and emotionally scarred teenager… into a confident young woman.”29 this evolution, however, extended beyond ace’s character development. the introduction of such a distinctive character as ace marked the beginning of an era of more realistic, modernized characters on doctor who. audiences began to see more and more of themselves in the people on their television screens, especially for those on the fringes of society. ace not only laid the groundwork for later companions in the series but also displayed a maturity and fearlessness that was truly ahead of its time. she was allowed to develop in ways previous characters were not, could make decisions for herself, and progressed beyond what the doctor wanted her to be. thus, with ace, the show entered a new era of storytelling that would change the portrayal of female characters on doctor who forever. the revival: rose tyler            after its almost two-decade-long hiatus, doctor who started up again in 2005. with it came an all-new cast, including the ninth doctor and his latest companion rose tyler, played by billie piper from 2005 to 2006. meant to act as an audience surrogate to help introduce a new audience to the show, lead writer russell t davies chose the name because he felt it was “the most british name in the world” and wanted to subvert a recent trend of companions with boyish names, like ace.30 for many people on the show, it was important to showcase a truly authentic, quintessentially female character. piper once said 25 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 7. 26 simon brew, “the den of geek interview: sophie aldred,” den of geek, 14 february 2008, www. denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/19406/the-den-of-geek-interview-sophie-aldred.. 27 younger, “ace set the template for modern companions.” 28 barber, “doctor who: ace visitor in norwich.” 29 younger, “ace set the template for modern companions.” 30 benjamin cook and russell t. davies, the writer’s tale (london: bbc books, 2008), 24. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 34 spring 2020 that “[rose is] both strong-willed and vulnerable… that is a really healthy representation of women. instead of showing a female character endlessly striving towards perfection, here, we saw a range of genuine female reactions. the show seemed to say, it is ok to cry [and] it is ok to question yourself.”31 this furtherment of genuine representations of female characters on the show also creates compelling role models for young girls. christopher eccleston, who portrayed the ninth doctor, added that “[s]o far there has been no heroine out there for eight to 12-year-old girls, but [rose] is one… [billie piper] carries the series with me.”32            additionally, doctor who allowed rose to be the doctor’s equal. at one point, she absorbs deadly energy in order to save the doctor from a huge fleet of daleks.33 in an analysis of this scene, script editor helen raynor felt it gave rose a chance finally to match him with a gesture that is so noble, and strong, and heroic, and clever.” russell t davies also believed that this moment helped typify the character as being “braver than brave and more loyal than anyone else in the universe.”34 she was willing to die in order to save his life. all of these characterizations proved to audiences that a female character is more than her pretty face, and can be a hero in her own right.            what really made rose different, however, is that she started a trend of the doctor’s companion developing a romantic interest in him. this especially came to the forefront of the show when the doctor regenerated into his tenth self, played by david tennant. in an interview, piper commented that there was a “different kind of energy” between the two characters, with tennant adding that “the audience would get to see the doctor-companion relationship [develop] and [become] something that it maybe [hadn’t] before.”35 by the end of their series together, rose admits to the doctor that she loves him, but he does not get the chance to confess to her in return. in a commentary on this scene, writer julie gardner declared that she would “confirm to the world” that the doctor was going to “say it back.”36 nevertheless, despite their relationship never coming to fruition, rose and the tenth doctor set a precedent that remained throughout the 31 “doctor who? the time lord’s companions since 2005 have their say,” the guardian, 28 september 2013, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/28/doctor-who-companions-billie-piper-catherine-tate-karen-gillan. 32 tom bishop, “revitalized doctor who takes off,” bbc, 9 march 2005, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4331559.stm. 33 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 150. 34 doctor who confidential, series 1, episode 13, “the last battle,” directed by gillane seaborne, narrated by simon pegg, featuring russell t. davies, christopher eccleston, and billie piper, aired 18 june 2005, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2012, dvd. 35 “q&a: david tennant and billie piper,” sfx, 31 march 2006, web.archive.org/ web/20060428090917/http://www.sfx.co.uk/features/q_and_a_david_tennant_and_billie_piper. 36 doctor who, series 2, episode, 13, “ doomsday comementary,” directed by graeme harper, written by russell t. davies, featuring david tennant and billie piper, aired 8 july 2006, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2009, dvd. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 35 spring 2020 rebooted doctor who – of romance being a central theme of the show.            altogether, rose is arguably one of the best companions to create for the revival of doctor who. she was, like ace, a realistic human being who did not need the doctor to define herself to the audience. the doctor and rose were allowed to be equals, complementing each other in ways other companions were not quite able, due to the romantic subtext lining their interactions. moreover, rose became a role model for young girls in an era that lacked such characters. with all this to consider, it is clear that billie piper’s distinctive portrayal helped cement rose as one of the best companions of all time. the entanglement: amy pond            amelia “amy” pond was portrayed by karen gillan from 2010 to 2012 and was introduced alongside the eleventh doctor in the fifth series of the rebooted doctor who. right from the beginning, it is clear that this companion will be different from the rest, as the doctor first meets amy as a spunky seven-year-old girl. he has to leave not long after but assures her that he will be right back. in a way, he does keep this promise, though for the doctor, it is five minutes, for amy, it is twelve years. throughout her childhood, she insists that the doctor is real, but no one else believes her, leading to her treatment by several psychiatrists.37 thus, the doctor does not influence amy’s life solely during their time together, but as she grows up as well. gillan once noted that “[the audience is] really seeing her life pan out… [and watching] her grow up before [his or her] very eyes. she starts off as a little girl, then a young woman.”38 amy goes through much more than her previous counterparts, with the doctor affecting her worldview and beliefs into adulthood. she is much less trusting and more cynical than other people, developing a tough exterior as a result.39 thus, amy became the first companion to be so all-encompassingly influenced by the doctor.            additionally, amy was engaged by the time she started exploring time and space. with previous companions, their romantic relationships became secondary concerns once the doctor entered their lives. however, amy’s relationship with her fiancé rory strengthened, once he started traveling with them; eventually, the audience even saw them get married.40 as a result, amy began to break the mold of the doctor’s 37 doctor who, series 5, episode 1, “the eleventh hour,” directed by adam smith, written by steven moffat, featuring matt smith and karen gillan, aired 3 april 2010, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2010, dvd. 38 todd vanderwerff, “karen gillan,” the a.v. club, 25 august 2011, tv.avclub.com/karen-gillan-1798227152. 39 doctor who confidential, series 5, episode 1, “call me the doctor,” directed by gillane seaborne, narrated by alex price, featuring steven moffat, matt smith, and karen gillan, aired 3 april 2010, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2010, dvd. 40 chris haydon, “doctor who: the evolution of amy pond,” den of geek, 7 september 2011, www. denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/20937/doctor-who-the-evolution-of-amy-pond. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2020 companions, developing a romantic interest in him. she even had a child with rory, named melody.41 however, the doctor still impacted amy’s life, despite her creating one outside of his travels. for one, since melody was conceived on the tardis, she became a time-lady in her own right, with regeneration powers akin to the doctor’s. melody was also kidnapped and brainwashed to kill the doctor, losing contact with her parents. furthermore, since she also changed her appearance when she regenerated, it was eventually revealed that melody was river song, another traveling companion of the doctor’s that amy and rory had met before.42 moreover, when amy and the doctor met when she was a child, there was a crack in the space-time continuum in her bedroom, which he investigates. by the end of the fifth series, it turns out that amy is connected to the cracks, with them being formed in an explosion on her wedding day.43 thus, it becomes clear that amy is also unique in that her connection to the doctor is furtherreaching than either of them could have guessed.            furthermore, amy’s personality is rather unique. gillan has said that she did not want to “conform to what works or what has worked in a companion… the whole, likeable, girl-next-door business.”44 she is also “feisty and outspoken and a bit of a number,” arguably the wildest companion the doctor has traveled with thus far.45 as such, amy stands out as a wild card and free spirit throughout her time on doctor who.            overall, amy pond is more unique than she seems at first glance. she is the first companion to meet the doctor as a child, before later traveling with him as an adult; her wild personality was also influenced by this impromptu visit. additionally, her relationship with rory does not deteriorate over time, as has happened with other companions’ relationships. furthermore, her life is incredibly entangled with the doctor’s in ways that no other character’s ever has. it is with this information that one can conclude that amy pond is a clear departure from the typical female character found on doctor who. the metamorphosis: the thirteenth doctor            in 2017, it was announced that jodie whittaker would take on the role of the doctor, becoming the first woman on the show to do so. this revolutionary moment was 41 loborik, doctor who: character encyclopedia, 15. 42 doctor who, series 6, episode 8, “let’s kill hitler,” directed by richard senior, written by steven moffat, featuring matt smith, karen gillan, and alex kingston, aired 27 august 2011, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2011, dvd.” 43 doctor who, series 5, episode 13, “the big bang,” directed by tony haynes, written by steven moffat, featuring matt smith, karen gillan, and arthur darvill, aired 26 june 2010, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2010, dvd. 44 “doctor who star karen gillan defends ‘too sexy’ amy pond,” the telegraph, 15 june 2010, www. telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/7828765/doctor-who-star-karen-gillan-defends-too-sexy-amy-pond.html. 45 daniel martin, “doctor who: why we will miss amy pond,” the guardian, 31 august 2012, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/aug/31/doctor-who-farewell-amy-ponds. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 37 spring 2020 met with praise and criticism alike, but ultimately, whittaker was deemed perfect for the part.46 once audiences met her, she was described as being “intensely moral, a little distracted and bursting with energy… both the doctor we know and a new version of the time lord.”47 thus, she is a distinct departure from previous female characters since doctor who began.            while only two seasons with whittaker as the doctor have been released, there is plenty to unpack in terms of her portrayal of the iconic character. one fan noted that she is “channeled the best elements of recent doctors (matt smith’s whimsy, david tennant’s frenetic energy, peter capaldi’s wry humour…), but above all she’s made the role her own.” another remarked that “[whittaker’s] doctor is a whirlwind of likeability and energy,” becoming a powerhouse of a character in her own right.48 here, it becomes evident that the doctor is now more than her gender, with audiences reacting more to her as a character than as a woman. in addition, the new series showrunner chris chibnall has said this doctor is “incredibly lively, warm, funny, energetic, inclusive – she’s the greatest friend you could wish to have as your guide around the universe.”49 as such, while this doctor may be different from past ones, she is not so dissimilar to previous companions. ace was a force of nature, making explosives to get herself in and out of trouble. rose had a warmth and compassion that brought a human touch to the doctor’s alien whimsy. amy’s spirit provided many humorous and exciting moments to the show. with whittaker’s doctor, while she may not be human, her personality brings reminders of companions past along the way. her portrayal is not as unique as one might first assume.            however, as jodie whittaker’s tenure as the thirteenth doctor has only just begun, audiences have much more to anticipate. for now, her character is an explosive enigma, both familiar and original. her portrayal is also drastically different from and similar to past female characters on the show. as the doctor, whittaker has become what no other actress has before; nevertheless, her personality is also reminiscent of prior portrayals of female companions. overall, one can conclude that jodie whittaker’s thirteenth doctor shows that great progress has been made in terms of how doctor who treats its female characters. things had significantly changed since the days of susan foreman back in 1963. 46 turner, “jodie whitaker becomes 13th time lord.” 47 “doctor who: everything we know about jodie whittaker’s new doctor,” the radio times, www. radiotimes.com/news/2019-01-07/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker/. 48 “doctor who half-term report – how is jodie whittaker’s first series doing so far?,” the radio times, 11 november 2018, www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018-11-11/doctor-who-half-term-report-how-is-jodie-whittakers-first-series-doing-so-far/. 49 “everything we know about jodie whittaker’s new doctor.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2020 conclusion a staggering number of characters have entered the world of doctor who since its inception in 1963. this has helped transform it into a staple of british culture, with children “born knowing what a dalek [and] a tardis [are].”50 thus, the show is able to provide them with many role models to follow, showcasing the different types of people living around the globe. as times change, these portrayals tend to do the same; they reflect the culture and ideas they were created in. as doctor who has existed for over fifty years, it makes for an excellent case study. one can examine how character representations have evolved, which prevents other factors – such as genre and medium – from interfering in that analysis.            female characters are especially fascinating because their role in society has transformed substantially since the 1960s, which is then reflected in the media. for doctor who, this is made apparent by the casting of jodie whittaker as the first female doctor. this is a far cry from the days of susan foreman when she was only needed to be attractive and cry for help.            therefore, one can easily conclude that the portrayal of female characters on doctor who has evolved from 1963 to 2019. however, that is not the question needing an answer; the real query is how these characters have been altered.            with susan foreman, she was not given much in the way of character development, instead of being used as a way to advance the plot. this became a staple of the companion character until sarah jane smith crushed that stereotype. instead, the companion became someone who challenged the doctor and forced him or her to view the universe in a new light. ace then took the role a step further, having a storyline of her own and defining herself beyond her relationship with the doctor. this then became a trend with later companions, including rose. she had a life outside the doctor’s traveling but eventually fell in love with him, setting another precedent on the show. amy was ever more intertwined into the plot, becoming more than the ordinary girl she initially seemed. finally, the thirteenth doctor was given the green light to headline the show in 2017; this also reflects a growing trend within the series where women get to take the lead. overall, these facts show how the role of women on doctor who has evolved to let them be more powerful and capable. they can hold their own in the face of danger, and grow from these experiences. thus, doctor who has become a show where its female characters accurately reflect the modern world and how far it has progressed. 50 vanderwerff, “karen gillan.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 39 spring 2020 bibliography “an audience research report.” british broadcasting company, 30 december 1963, www. bbc.co.uk/archive/doctorwho/6406.shtml. barber, martin. “doctor who: ace visitor in norwich.” bbc, 4 february 2008, www.bbc. co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2008/02/04/doctor_who_sophie_aldred_20080204_ feature.shtml. ---. “doctor who: elisabeth sladen talks.” bbc, 22 august 2006, www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2006/04/19/film_doctor_who_lis_sladen_interview_feature. shtml. bishop, tom. “revitalized doctor who takes off.” bbc, 9 march 2005, news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/entertainment/4331559.stm. brew, simon. “the den of geek interview: sophie aldred.” den of geek, 14 february 2008, www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/19406/the-den-of-geek-interview-sophie-aldred. chapman, james. inside the tardis: the worlds of doctor who. london: bloomsbury, 2013. cook, benjamin. “who on earth is… carole ann ford.” doctor who magazine, december 2010, web.archive.org/web/20140322111800/http://benjamincook.net/writing/ doctor-who-magazine/interviews-and-articles/who-on-earth-is/carole-ann-ford/. cook, benjamin, and russell t davies. the writer’s tale. london: bbc books, 2008. davies, russell t., writer. doctor who. series 2, episode, 13, “ doomsday comementary.” directed by graeme harper, featuring david tennant and billie piper. aired 8 july 2006, in broadcast syndication, bbc, 2009, dvd. “doctor who: everything we know about jodie whittaker’s new doctor.” the radio times, www.radiotimes.com/news/2019-01-07/doctor-who-jodie-whittaker/. “doctor who half-term report – how is jodie whittaker’s first series doing so far?” the radio times, 11 november 2018, www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018-11-11/doctorwho-half-term-report-how-is-jodie-whittakers-first-series-doing-so-far/. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2020 “doctor who star karen gillan defends ‘too sexy’ amy pond.” the telegraph, 15 june 2010, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/7828765/doctor-whostar-karen-gillan-defends-too-sexy-amy-pond.html. “doctor who? the time lord’s companions since 2005 have their say.” the guardian, 28 september 2013, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/28/doctor-who-companions-billie-piper-catherine-tate-karen-gillan. haydon, chris. “doctor who: the evolution of amy pond.” den of geek, 7 september 2011, www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/20937/doctor-who-the-evolution-ofamy-pond. loborik, jason. doctor who: character encyclopedia. london: dk publishers, 2013. martin, daniel. “doctor who: the five best and worst companions.” the guardian, 28 march 2007, www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/mar/28/doctorwhothefivebestandw. ---. “doctor who: why we will miss amy pond.” the guardian, 31 august 2012, www. theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/aug/31/doctor-who-farewellamy-ponds. mays, hannah. “jodie whittaker’s doctor who debut is most watched launch for 10 years.” the guardian, 8 october 2018, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/ oct/08/doctor-who-jodie-whittakers-debut-is-most-watched-launch-for-10-years. mcloughlin, beth. “doctor who named longest-running sci-fi tv show.” campaign, 29 september 2006, www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/doctor-named-longest-runningsci-fi-tv-show/595605. moffat, steven, writer. doctor who, series 6, episode 8, “let’s kill hitler.” directed by richard senior, featuring matt smith, karen gillan, and alex kingston. aired 27 august 2011, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2011, dvd. ---. doctor who, series 5, episode 1, “the eleventh hour.” directed by adam smith, featuring matt smith and karen gillan. aired 3 april 2010, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2010, dvd. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 41 spring 2020 ---. doctor who, series 5, episode 13, “the big bang.” directed by tony haynes, featuring matt smith, karen gillan, and arthur darvill. aired 26 june 2010, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2010, dvd. pegg, simon, narrator. doctor who confidential. series 1, episode 13, “the last battle.” directed by gillane seaborne, featuring russell t. davies, christopher eccleston, and billie piper. aired 18 june 2005, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2012, dvd. “portrayal.” cambridge dictionary, cambridge university press, dictionary.cambridge.org/ us/dictionary/english/portrayal. price, alex, narrator. doctor who confidential. series 5, episode 1, “call me the doctor.” directed by gillane seaborne, featuring steven moffatt, matt smith, and karen gillan. aired 3 april 2010, in broadcast syndication. bbc, 2010, dvd. “q&a: david tennant and billie piper.” sfx, 31 march 2006, web.archive.org/ web/20060428090917/http://www.sfx.co.uk/features/q_and_a_david_tennant_and_ billie_piper. “‘radio times’ tv listing.” the radio times, november 23 1963, www.bbc.co.uk/archive/ doctorwho/6405.shtml. turner, camilla. “doctor who: jodie whittaker becomes 13th time lord, urging fans ‘not to be scared by my gender.’” the telegraph, 17 july 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/ tv/2017/07/16/doctor-jodie-whittaker-replace-peter-capaldi-time-lord-regeneration/. vanderwerff, todd. “karen gillan.” the a.v. club, 25 august 2011, tv.avclub.com/karen-gillan-1798227152. wicks, kevin. “interview: toby whithouse on cast changes for ‘being human,’ ‘doctor who.’” bbc america, www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2012/02/interview-tobywhithouse-on-cast-changes-for-being-human-doctor-who/2/. younger, andrew. “doctor who: how ace set the template for modern companions.” den of geek, 5 january 2015, www.denofgeek.com/tv/doctor-who/33496/doctor-whohow-ace-set-the-template-for-modern-companions. the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 21 the legend of zelda: a religious record this is but one of the legends of which the people speak . . . legend of zelda: the wind walker ansley morgan pearson abstract this essay evaluates the religious allusion and construction found within nintendo’s the legend of zelda video game series by utilizing several religious studies theories in an effort to examine the meaning-making phenomena the series creates for players. the series’ 3d entries are analyzed using forbes and mahan’s framework from religion and popular culture (for describing relationships between religion and popular culture) to examine religious imagery and iconography within the zelda series, and how such representation has changed over time. the series’ gameplay elements are evaluated using rachel wagner’s arguments from her book godwired which explores the ritual nature of video games as a way of explaining the persisting religious nature and meaning-making systems present in the series. finally, the narrative direction and storytelling are examined using joseph campbell ’s “hero’s journey” in an effort to understand the series’ underlying spirituality and lasting appeal. this is all in an effort to examine the zelda series’ relationship with religion, the narratives and experiences it creates under such a relationship, and the conversations about religious narratives and ritual storytelling that zelda creates space for in the intersection of religion and popular culture, ritual and play. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 22 spring 2019 legend of zelda series is a nintendo video game franchise that follows the high fantasy adventures of a young warrior named link on his quest to save his kingdom and princess zelda from ruin. at first glance, the game’s story may read as a common medieval adventure game, but the series’ lore runs deep and spins webs of religious allusion, cultural homage, and narrative invention. zelda’s relationship with religion has a complicated history, and an even more complicated future. it is productive to evaluate the instances of direct religious allusion within the series’ story and game design as well as the evolution of the series’ in-game religion in the 3d entries or “hylianism.” my work also interrogates joseph campbell’s familiar narrative structures and how they become a productive way of engaging with the zelda universe. this essay will closely examine 3d games (open-world entries that allow players to move in 3-dimensional space) as those entries have had the most influence in shaping the legend of zelda’s religious structure. the zelda series chronicles an evolution of religious narrative that reveals an underlying struggle between criticism and commentary on existing belief systems and reverence for those same systems when they served as inspiration. both in-game and in real life, the series has a complicated history with religious depiction. what starts as mere background detail invoking christian symbolism evolves into a polytheistic holy war documented across reincarnated players and a confounding timeline of events. the dialogue between religion and legend of zelda has produced a plethora of narratives that demand examination. i employ bruce david forbes’ relationship model (2017) to evaluate the series, examining where religion appears in legend of zelda, legend of zelda in religion, and how legend of zelda and religion have been in dialogue with one another. however, in order to grasp these concepts, it is important to understand the narratological context focusing my work. religious allusion within zelda every zelda game follows a similar structure: players inhabit the role of a heroic young elven boy who wakes up to find the world is ending. sometimes it is the moon barreling towards the earth, sometimes it is a wind mage trying to seize power, and sometimes it is a giant sea monster corrupting the world. most of the time, participants are pitted against a reincarnation of the demon king, ganondorf, who is after the ultimate power of your world; the triforce. most players cannot beat him right off the bat; the hero must grow into their power first. that means crawling through several dungeons, collecting magical items, and breaking a few curses. when players have evolved, they make their way to the final boss battle and slay the evil plaguing the kingdom. it is an apocalyptic hero’s journey narrative, but each step holds religious significance. depending on the entry, that significance is either to the game-world or to the corporeal world. the legend of zelda, the first game in the series, was released in february of 1986 on the famicon disk system (aonuma 2011). since then, the series has grown to include eighteen titles on over ten different consoles, with the most recent release being the critically acclaimed breath of the wild on the wiiu and nintendo switch. in the series’ early days, religion was merely alluded to through in-game details: a cross on link’s shield the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 23 and graveyard headstones, locations of a church, and obtainable items including a crucifix and a bible (aonuma 2013). a link to the past was originally released as the triforce of the gods and heavily alluded to christian imagery, but the title and some of the design elements were altered to meet with american censorship regulations. since its early days, the series was designed to align link, and therefore, the “good guys” with western perceptions of religion, specifically christianity. this alignment that sides heroes with christianity inadvertently brought the baggage of colonialism and western bias into the series. to combat the issue, zelda would eventually turn from religious allusion to religious construction. nintendo’s problematic use of religious allusion became most apparent in the 1998 release of legend of zelda: ocarina of time, one of the first ever 3d console games. the antagonist of that game, ganondorf, comes from a tribe of desert-dwelling thieves, whose symbol originally very closely mirrored the islamic moon and star. additionally, nintendo combined a muslim prayer and examples of cultural music found in muslim societies as one thematic aspect of the game’s fire temple. the prayer used is not meant to be paired with music; by doing so, nintendo not only appropriates but insults the islamic faith. due to implications surrounding islamic-coded antagonists against christian-coded protagonists, and the misuse of symbolism and music, the game was re-released with these offenses removed. in being direct with its allusion and apparent in its bias, the zelda series alienated and offended many players. being so direct proved challenging for a game series wishing to appeal to a world-wide audience. nintendo tried religious allusion again in the 2010 entry, skyward sword, by only drawing design inspiration and referencing religion in its visuals. most notable are an angel-like depiction of the goddess hylia, the exemplary figure for the hylian people, and a dungeon that reflected buddhist and hindu theology and imagery. while the angelic figures of relative modernity are traditionally thought of as a christian staple, the imagery and idea of heavenly beings has since expanded into mainstream imagery. the reference drew more from cultural and artistic interpretations, such as renaissance painting and sculpture, than from religion itself. a dungeon featured in the game was referred to as the “ancient cistern,” and featured two layers: an upper, heavenly layer in warm colors and water features, and a hellish lower layer in cool colors and jagged rocky features. the centerpiece of this dungeon is a giant statue that resembles a buddha. the big boss at the top of the dungeon is a sixlimbed automaton reminiscent of the many-armed hindu god shiva. one section has link climb up from the lower chambers on a slim rope, in an obvious nod to the buddhist short story the spider’s thread, by japanese writer ryūnosuke akutagawa. in this story, the buddha is looking through the clear waters of a pool into hell, and he sees a sinner who once spared a spider. the buddha pities him and lowers a spider’s thread to allow the sinner to climb up to paradise. in skywards sword ’s version, link must climb up a lone rope before a small army of zombie monsters overtakes him. the journey to hell and back works thematically and mechanically in the dungeon’s design. through these faithful scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 24 spring 2019 design choices, skyward sword corrected the mistakes of ocarina; the allusions pay respect to the narrative and visual inspirations without twisting or misusing the source material. this entry also marks the series’ decisive switch from incorporating real-world religion to creating its own. in addition to these more direct religious references, zelda also codes its language and narrative elements to evoke religion. these elements play a role in more than just laying the foundations for zelda to build its own theology; they also create a religiously charged experience for players. the dungeons which, in the gaming mechanics context are contained areas involving puzzle-solving, boss fights, and item looting, are often referred to as “temples.” some of these are recurring; the temple of time has appeared in four games so far. link is often aided on his journey by “holy” beings, such as the sages (who in different regional releases of the games have been referred to as priests), the sheikah (a tribe whose sole purpose is protecting the royal bloodline of the goddess hylia) and all manner of mystical spirits, fairies and monks. the central conflict of the series draws heavily on judeo-christian themes of apocalyptic narratives, detailing an eternal war between demonic and heavenly beings. the visual depiction of hylia bears an angelic design. her people, referred to as hylians, have pointed ears that allow them to “hear the whispers of the gods,” which is also reminiscent of “chosen people” narratives. even the game mechanics arrange themselves into blatant ritual. ocarina of time tasks link with purifying the sage temples that ganondorf poisoned with dark power (aonuma 1998). twilight princess hosts several scavenger hunts that result in link restoring light spirits to their former glory (aonuma 2006). several items in link’s inventory are received through or used in ritual; for example, drawing from links blade named the “master sword” requires the player to have completed a certain portion of the game. it is used narratively as a sealing device or a key. link’s varied musical instruments contain ritual power and enact certain effects on the environment to link’s advantage. breath of the wild conducts any life gauge or stamina gauge upgrades through prayer and veneration of hylia statues found through the world and follows princess zelda’s journey of hylia veneration and physical purification by baptism as she embarks to different goddess springs (hidemaro 2017). the series features countless instances where religious language and allusion have dictated game design. yet the series does not simply stop at allusion; in addition to implementing religion into the structure of the games themselves, the series also developed its own in-game religion, hylianism. the religion of hylianism in response to both the criticism of past religious allusion and the pre-existing foundation of religiously coded game design, zelda began to formulate an in-game religion. within this fictitious belief system, nintendo has the freedom to explore religious narratives and themes without risking offense. the game-related religion hylianism has roots in christianity but has since drawn elements from other major world religions, including judaism, greek mythology, egyptian mythology, and hinduism. it is polythe legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 25 theistic, cyclical, and ritual-driven. according to the creation story recounted in ocarina of time, the land of hyrule was created by three golden goddesses: din, goddess of power; nayru, goddess of wisdom; and farore, goddess of courage (aonuma, 1998). like judeo-christian creation stories, these divine beings came to a space of nothing and brought light. they formed the world, then left it to the care of goddess hylia, who would become the patron deity of the hylian people. the physical point where the three goddesses returned to the heavens became an artifact of immense divine power, the triforce. the triforce is an unmediated, morally neutral object that grants the wish of whomever possesses it, so long as that person’s heart has a balance of power, wisdom and courage. in ocarina of time¸ the main players of this recurring narrative are established: link, a boy from the forest who grows into a savior figure and serves as the avatar the player controls; zelda, a divine princess blessed with omniscient powers and prophetic abilities, who is tasked with protecting her kingdom and the triforce; and ganondorf, a desert king of thieves whose ambition and greed cause him to pursue the triforce, destroying anything that impedes him. the three attributes of the triforce7—power, wisdom, and courage—are best embodied by ganondorf, zelda, and link, respectively. there are instances in-game of various people worshipping one goddess more than the other two, and it is widely accepted that each goddess serves as a patron deity to the mortal who wields her piece of the triforce. aiding link and zelda are the sheikah tribe, who serve as attendants to the royal family, and any number of sages, who operate in the same capacity as priests or shamans. this game is also the first to feature a few of the recurring religious locations, including the cathedral-inspired temple of time and the sacred grove. ocarina of time provided the foundations of hylianism with an established divinity, a rather over-powered divine artifact, religious structure and hierarchy, and exemplary figures that take part in pre-existing narratives. in all entries after ocarina of time, the lore of this “religion” is expanded and refined. in the 2006 release of twilight princess, the royal family’s history appears connected to the crusades; because of them, an entire tribe of magic users has been banished. a cutscene reveals that the tribe of magic users or “interlopers” sought to create a power to rival that of the triforce: however, this was interpreted as sacrilegious and the light spirits banished this tribe to a netherworld to rot (aonuma, 2006). both the game’s antagonist and link’s companion and guide originate from this tribe, who are known as the twili. design notes from hyrule historia denote the twili as being inspired by middle eastern peoples, harkening back to the subtly coded language of the games’ religious allusions (aonuma 2013). the lore of zelda expanded to include notions of nationalism and cultural erasure. the twili in this context can be interpreted as a stand-in for any displaced peoples slaughtered during the crusades. in substituting europe with hyrule, twilight princess ascribed colonialism (and its baggage) to the hylian royal family. no longer is the series a simple story of heroes against villains; with twilight princess the series begins to move away from the binary of good and evil, sacred and profane, and moves scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 26 spring 2019 more towards a complicated, realistic tangle of history and competing perspectives. the narrative is further complicated by the 2011 entry, skyward sword. this game canonically takes place first in the official zelda timeline and fills in key information surrounding the gods and the cyclical nature of the games. the main addition is the goddess hylia, who was created to protect the triforce and the people of hyrule. over the course of the game she abandons her divine form and is reborn as the first zelda, which provides explanation for the matrilineal tradition of the royal family and zelda’s power: she and her descendants bear divine blood. the kingdom of hyrule then follows an egyptian-style government system, where a “pharaoh” or holy being holds divine sovereignty over the land and this divine right passes down a family line. the opening prologue of skyward sword also establishes the overarching conflict behind the series in more specific terms, telling the tale of “malevolent forces” that “rushed forth from a fissure,” using their destructive forces to harm and terrorize humanity as well as the earth itself. this mayhem is perpetrated with the intention of commandeering “the ultimate power protected by her grace, the goddess. the power she guarded was without equal…such was the might of the ultimate power that the old ones placed it in the care of the goddess.” finally, the goddess rescues surviving humans and sends them “skyward, beyond the reach of the demonic hordes.” the goddess then returns to her land to fight evil forces, which are eventually vanquished. this is the entry point for players who are told, rather ominously, that a “new legend bound to this great story stands ready to be revealed.” the evil antagonist in skyrule is demise, the king of daemons; he is described as hatred and malice incarnate. at the end of the game, after link has defeated him, demise curses link and zelda. he claims that his hatred will endure for ages to come and, indeed, he comes back as as the evil ganondorf. it is rigorously theorized by fandom that this caused the cyclical nature of the zelda games; link and zelda are reincarnated whenever the hatred born of demise returns, and the apocalyptic narrative begins anew (hidemaro, 2011). with the introduction of hylia in skyward sword, veneration of the goddess became a major design feature. unlike her three sister goddesses hylia has statues, monuments, ceremonies, and a crest that would eventually become the crest of the royal family. it is also canonized that link’s blade, the master sword, houses a robot-like spirit named fi, which re-wrote the spiritual implications of all instances of that item; it, too, is a holy artifact with a set purpose. certain materials and objects house power, and these phenomena is explicated more thoroughly by two important story mechanics: the forging of the master sword and the introduction of materials such as the time-shift stones and the goddess cubes (both from skyward sword). to “power up” his blade throughout the game, link must pass three trials, perform three musical pieces on a holy instrument, and participate in rituals at preordained locations, all of which are overtly ceremonial and reverent to hylia. the time-shift stones and goddess cubes exemplify the ability of certain materials to house power that can only be accessed by specific items or people (hidemaro, 2011). it the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 27 also demonstrates how certain items can affect time and space, drawing from the established concept of reality-shaping power established in the triforce. skyward sword refined the foundations of hylianism and gave the hylians a deity to worship while informing some of the ritual practices, government structures, and artifact rules of the series. through these developments and refinements, zelda transitioned further away from religious appropriation and allusion by cementing the framework of its own original religion. the 2003 entry, the wind waker, adds yet another layer of complications and parallels. this game plays with an alternative ending to the biblical story of noah’s ark; the premise of wind waker states that the gods flooded hyrule to prevent evil from razing the land. the result is a literal ocean of an overworld, with the kingdom of hyrule and the old legends nothing but distant memory. throughout the game, link encounters remnants of the old world, sinking below the waves to visit the grave that is hyrule. the final battle takes link beneath the waves, out of hyrule castle and up the way to ganondorf ’s tower, echoing locations from ocarina of time. just before link faces off against ganondorf in ocarina, the villain makes these states that the kings and citizens of hyrule have been naive in the faith that one day “the left behind people . . . would awaken hyrule.” ganondorf ’s justification of his malevolent actions, both in wind waker and ocarina of time, by explaining an inherent jealousy for the comforts the people in hyrule enjoyed compared to the environmental dearth of his homeland, stating further that, my country lay within a vast desert. when the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. and when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. no matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing . . . death. but the winds that blew across the green fields of hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. i coveted that wind, i suppose (wind waker, 2003). this introduces the modern ideation of apathetic gods and the question of who is favored and allowed providence, as well as adding a member to the modern troupe of sympathetic evildoers. wind waker’s ganondorf presents himself as more of a tragic hero than a pure villain and seems to have been consumed by greed in his pursuit of a better life for his people (aonuma 2003). his monologue also points out the imbalance of favor that employing the triforce creates. indeed, it is clear that while hyrule thrives, other countries suffer. ganondorf ’s intentions may stem from a sense of justice, but his actions ultimately bring ruin on all involved parties. hyrule remains in its underwater grave at the end of the game. by questioning the intention of the gods, wind waker sets up the problem of authority in hylianism. for narrative reasons, it is understood that zelda’s bloodline will serve as royalty, but hyrule is the kingdom, not the world. the zelda series has a rich tapestry of races and cultures woven into the world-building, yet the land appears prosperous only when the hylians hold control over ritual power (namely the triforce). whether this is a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 28 spring 2019 plot choice to clear the divide between friend and foe, or a by-product of hylian ancestral efforts, the legend of zelda’s in-game religious history now boasts ambiguous authority figures and questions of whom has a right to power and prosperity. in going beyond simple allusion and appropriation, the zelda series created a rich and complex religion that fits naturally into its existing lore, while keeping the player grounded in the mythos of the real world. therefore, hylianism resulted from a shift away from religious allusion to religious construction, but in that construction remains the veins of socio-cultural commentary. the shift also allowed for nintendo and the player to generate more meaningful and personal interaction with religious narratives. the ritual nature of video games rachel wagner, author of godwired, examines the relationship between video games and interactive ritual by evaluating narratives, interactive structures, and other performance or ‘play’ phenomena within a closed system, what she dubs the “magic circle.” in her words, “the magic circle . . . can apply to any bounded system characterized by rules and some fixed mode of performance” (p. 86). in the context of zelda, the magic circle is the game world as one sees it through their console screen: from link’s perspective. one of wagner’s main arguments finds a strong similarity between ritual and game-play, in that both set aside time and space, create a closed system of rules and follows a set narrative. the one difference is that religious ritual aims to reinforce theological ideas and social constructs, adhering the performance more to fate and predetermined endings; video games allow participants more freedom in dictating the narrative they are enacting. for the zelda series, wagner’s studies on apocalypse narratives and customizable identities provide insight into the allure of playing the hero and saving the world. wagner (2011) argues that video games often follow the apocalypse narrative structure; that is, a time sensitive, worlding-ending framework wherein a chosen savior manages to fend off ultimate destruction. the two major components of this structure are time-sensitive countdowns and divine intervention. zelda does often fit apocalypse structure, with most of the games in the series having been designed to guide players down a linear sequence of events in which link is trying to prevent the destruction of hyrule. one of wagner’s arguments illuminates another complicated aspect of the zelda series, noting that in the judeo-christian traditions, “one very obvious difference between these genres is in the representation of violent agency in bringing about humanity’s salvation. in traditional apocalypses, visionaries look forward to rewards for the faithful and punishment for the wicked as enacted by god” (wagner, 2011, p. 201). this is a comment on the distribution of “smiting power” between religious traditions and video games: the latter grants it to mortals while the former reserves that kind of power for the divine. zelda does both, and this causes the triforce to stand alone as fascinating creation, both in lore and as an artifact: it is this holy power that often decides the ending of the zelda narratives and this holy power is born directly of the highest gods in the game’s religion. as zelda relays to link in a skyward sword cutscene, “for while the supreme power of the triforce was created by gods, all of its power can never be wielded by one. knowing this power was the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 29 her last and only hope, the goddess gave up her divine powers and her immortal form” (hidemaro, 2011). it is widely speculated that the gods did this to give hope to their mortal creations. most apocalypse structures reserve such power for the gods alone. for zelda to grant that power to its players reflects the trend noted by wagner; video games grant agency to players within narrative structures that religiously they may not have held. fate seems less imposing, and by performing the role of savior, the player takes a more personal investment in restoring the world and defeating the evil. video games also allow for more possibility in how one saves the world. the direct sequel to ocarina of time breaks away from the traditionally linear narrative structure and instead modified the apocalypse narrative into a time loop. in this game entitled majora’s mask, link has three days to defeat a demonic mask before it can summon a moon to crush the world. he is granted the ability to reset the in-game timeframe at will by playing the “song of time” on his ocarina (aonuma, 2000). this manipulation sets mask apart in the series: on the one hand, one has all the time in the world to complete player objectives; on the other, the limited time-frame of each cycle demands that participants be strategic in what they strive to accomplish. majora’s mask also boasts a more direct threat to the game world. should a player fail to reset time before the ever-present onscreen timer reaches 00:00:00, they are treated to a horrendous cutscene where the moon succeeds in barreling into the earth, sending the entire overworld up in flames. countdowns, both in apocalypse narratives and game-play, serve to provide users with a sense of urgency and a continual push forward in the story. wagner notes that while video games follow a trend of granting players more agency and freedom within that magic circle, that freedom is recognized by the players themselves. the game world and the ritual world both follow their own established rules, and majora’s mask demonstrates this idea perfectly. players can reset, slow down, and speed up time within the mechanics of gameplay, but are still limited by the game’s code that restricts them to a three-day period. they can only manipulate time within the defined bounds of the magic circle. for wagner, this reflects a humanistic trend of seeking structure and order. she argues that “the appeal has something to do with the sense of accomplishment and territorial control; by visiting other imagined worlds, we enter into spaces that are structured, ordered, programed and predictable . . . we know before we even play that [games] are winnable” (p. 198). video games allow players to be the agent of change themselves. within the zelda series, link is designed to allow players full, uninhibited immersion into the game world. another of wagner’s arguments centers on customizable identity. in the chapter, me, myself and ipod, she explores the theory of “hyperidentity” or “the selves we create in various online environments” (p. 108), outlining the impact alternative modes of self-expression have had. wagner concludes that this resulted in a technological revolution as it pertains to religious engagement; this includes the substantial influence of video games. hyperidenties and imagined selves are a natural result of game design and online interaction; the very concept of an avatar follows this idea. players take on a role that is scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2019 not themselves and use that avatar as a medium from their world to the virtual. link is a blatant example of an avatar who performs in this capacity. zelda series creators claim that link’s name comes from his role as the ‘link’ between the past and the future, between player and the game. link’s personality is intentionally left blank; he has no overt interpersonal characteristics, having almost no in-game dialogue outside of his trademark “hiyaah!” and “het! haaah!” up until breath of the wild, players could even customize link’s name to their liking. he embodies the idea of an immersed, personal gameplay experience (aonuma, 2013) and the series creators wanted their controlled avatar to be someone players could step into. the ‘play’ of zelda means quite literally taking on different roles, such as a messianic savior, or as a child navigating the transition to adulthood or the adventurer navigating danger. wagner (2011) argues that online virtual identities are inherently fluid and shifting, as they reflect one’s ongoing dialogue with their own identity within a closed system free of the social restraints and expectations of the real world. virtual identities serve as playgrounds for the mind and the ego, as they hold no real-world consequence for experimentation. within the zelda series, this plays out in how people name link, move him through the story, and choose his path forward. as with every game in the zelda series, not all playthroughs will go in the same order or even have the same number of cycles. how players react to the structures in place and how they in turn control link’s reaction reveals player priorities and actions. in essence, by having no personality, link has been given every personality. in this way, link’s identity is personalized to the player. this gives the player freedom to wrestle with apocalypses, make and lose friends, fight demons, slay dragons, solve puzzles and grow in power and inventory. as wagner describes it, imagined identities are a way for people to collect and understand themselves, and are inherently meaning-making in their practice. by her logic this process is a religious act (p. 125). in playing through the ‘legends’ of the zelda series, we embark on our own spiritual journey, traversing this religious-laden mythos in search of our own heroic identity. the hero’s journey and spirituality spiritual exploration has always been a major component of the zelda games. coded language in-game aside, the mythic elements of zelda resonate with medieval knights, ancient warriors, and monster-slayers. creators have combined tropes with the personal growth of a single heroic protagonist. for example, whenever link defeats a dungeon boss, he receives a heart container; this grants him additional lives. joseph campbell’s documentary the power of myth (1998) explores the familiar “hero’s journey” and describes this journey as being one of fundamental growth. “it’s a cycle – it’s a going and return that the hero cycle represents. but then this can be seen also in a simple initiation ritual, where a child has to give up his childhood and become an adult” (campbell 1998). ocarina of time takes that idea quite literally; link is a child at the beginning, but must wield the master sword to beat ganondorf because drawing out the sword requires a certain amount of power. nintendo’s solution is to seal link in a “holy” void space until the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 31 he reaches adulthood. the player is then allowed gameplay as either child or adult version of link. inventory and the accessibility of the in-game world is limited based on the age players select for their avatar. the series draws upon campbell’s framework and explores what it means to journey into adulthood while simultaneously allowing for the liminality that most young people experience between childhood and adulthood. campbell argues that stories following the hero’s journey are primarily self-reflective and resonate with audiences because they pry at the deeper mysteries of identity and self-realization. in his words, “myths bring us to a level of consciousness that is spiritual” (campbell, 1998). in a game series where creators designed their avatar to be a blank slate onto which players could easily project themselves, the ability to soul-search and internalize link’s struggles and victories naturally becomes second nature. campbell describes the hero’s journey as a “transformation of consciousness,” wherein the mythic content reflects deeper battles of the conscious and the subconscious. he uses different analogies to describe recurring tropes in heroic narratives, which zelda literally applies to its world-building. for example, there is always a dragon to slay; the dragon representing the ego, or what binds one to their ego. in ocarina of time the ego appears as ganondorf. in a story of growing up, fears about adulthood, greed, pride and power abide, coming to life in utter unbalance with the villain. defeating ganondorf requires link to prove his own growth. campbell also explores the belly of the fish story, which he illuminates as being representative of the subconscious, as water often is. ocarina of time’s third dungeon is aptly named “inside jabu jabu’s belly,” as it takes place within the belly of a giant fish god. the purpose of that dungeon is to retrieve the “spiritual stone of water” (aonuma 1998). a bit obvious but effective, nonetheless. one cannot help but see the influence of mythology in the series, and campbell’s theory reveals why such encounters have persevered over time. in utilizing these narratives and structure, the zelda series—particularly ocarina of time—creates space for spiritual exploration and personal enlightenment. campbell makes the case that all hero’s journeys are concerned with death. an individual must die to themselves to grow into a new person, one must slay metaphorical monsters, and one must experience loss and sacrifice. in fictional works like film, books, or television, these deaths can only be witnessed, not necessarily experienced. with video games, particularly role-playing games, this journey can be taken as the hero, from their perspective. as i’ve mentioned earlier, link was designed to allow players their own personal adventure. the trials and triumphs link experiences in-game are theirs as well. many gamers are capable of relating to the sense of loss one feels when they see the game-over screen. mechanically, the presence of death is measured by link’s heart container count; likewise, in scripted events such as the death of the great deku tree. campbell would likely claim that death comes in the guise of link abandoning his home and childhood. demise of his innocence occurs as he explores more of the world and the darkness within it. players share in link’s sorrow and triumph and make it their own. the more link grows and dies to his old self, the more players are called to do the same. it is this narrative of death and resurrection scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2019 that best describes campbell’s hero’s journey, for the hero’s journey is ultimately one of growth. it is why such stories pervade our culture and religion: they pull at a deeper question of what spirituality is. the zelda series lets players take direct control of experiencing the hero’s journey for themselves. conclusion nintendo seemingly surmised a successful formula for working with their cultural inspirations and problems without generating overt controversy. by having created their own in-house religion, they allowed themselves the freedom to create bold statements and scenarios under the guise of fantasy. most importantly, the zelda series creates the space for dialogue between religion and pop culture to take full form. zelda takes on religious inspiration, controversy over representation, generated socio-cultural commentary, and reflection through in-game establishment of a new religion. how people divine meaning is explored in the various narratives and motivations presented to link at the beginning of each game; the cyclical nature allows the same story to play out in different scenarios and conditions, fully exploring the problem of who deserves and wields power. the story structure holds up against different theories surrounding meaning-making, particularly in the religious and spiritual sense. fans have theorized and created full studies on the philosophy, theology, and history that is part of the zelda universe. this series generates all manner of conversation with the scenarios it has devised, and the religious study of this series builds upon this rich framework by illuminating the epistemological power at the core of the many meaning-making opportunities zelda offers its players to explore. the legend of zelda: a religious record middle tennessee state university 33 references aonuma, eji. 2013. the legend of zelda: hyrule historia. dark horse comics: nintendo. aonuma, eji. 1998. the legend of zelda: ocarina of time. japan, nintendo. video game. aonuma, eji. 2000. the legend of zelda: majora’s mask. japan, nintendo. video game. aonuma, eji. 2003. the legend of zelda: the wind waker. japan, nintendo. video game. aonuma, eji. 2006. the legend of zelda: twilight princess. japan, nintendo. video game. campbell, joseph. 1998. joseph campbell and the power of myth. episode 1: the hero’s adventure. pbs documentary. forbes & mahan. 2017. religion and popular culture in america, third edition. university of california press. hidemaro fujibayashi. 2011. the legend of zelda: skyward sword. japan, nintendo. video hidemaro fujibayashi. 2017. the legend of zelda: breath of the wild. japan, nintendo. video miyamoto, shigeru, dir. 1986. the legend of zelda. japan, nintendo. video game. nintendo. 2017. the legend of zelda: art and artifacts. dark horse comics: nintendo. nintendo. 2018 the legend of zelda: encyclopedia. dark horse comics: nintendo. wagner, rachel. 2011. godwired: religion, ritual, and virtual reality (media, religion, and culture). routledge; 1 edition. moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 39 moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments isaac baca abstract moral foundations theory posits that there are five foundations of morality from which americans make political decisions: 1) care/harm, 2) fairness/reciprocity, 3) ingroup/loyalty, 4) authority/respect, and 5) purity/sanctity. previous research finds that liberals primarily endorse foundations 1 and 2, while conservatives primarily endorse foundations 3, 4, and 5. to examine which moral values are most persuasive to liberals and conservatives, political arguments aimed at decreasing support for an issue were reframed to appeal to foundations 1 and 2, or to foundations 3, 4, and 5. results indicate that conservatives might be persuaded by arguments grounded in ingroup/loyalty, authority/ respect, and purity/sanctity values, but might not be persuaded by arguments grounded in care/harm, or fairness/reciprocity values. liberals might be persuaded by arguments grounded in any of the five foundations. moderates were the only group that showed no evidence of persuasion. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2021 the political divide between liberals and conservatives in the united states stems from a deep-rooted moral divide, which underpins the way that liberals and conservatives make political judgements (graham, haidt, et al., 2011; graham, nosek, et al., 2009). recent research has found that the divergent moral values endorsed by liberals and conservatives act as a starting point from which they formulate and analyze political arguments. when liberals are asked to make persuasive political arguments targeting conservatives, they generally ground their arguments in the values that liberals endorse, such as fairness, equality, care, and protection. likewise, when conservatives are asked to make persuasive political arguments targeting liberals, they generally ground their arguments in the values that conservatives endorse, such as loyalty, patriotism, respect for authority, and purity. because these arguments are grounded in moral values that are unappealing to the target, they are generally not persuasive (feinberg & willer, 2013, 2015). the present study seeks to examine a perspective-taking approach whereby political arguments are reframed to better align with the moral values of the target in an effort to increase the persuasive power of the arguments. background kohlberg and haidt – a brief historical survey culminating in the moral foundations theory for much of the late 20th century, lawrence kohlberg was regarded as the leading theorist in the field of moral psychology. the origins of kohlberg’s theory of moral judgement largely grew from jean piaget’s early work mapping the moral development of children. kohlberg sought to expand and develop piaget’s work on moral development with the proposal of the cognitive developmental model of morality (kohlberg, 1969). according to the cognitive developmental model of morality, morality is a product of reasoning. the better ability one has to reason about the world, the better one’s moral judgement can be. therefore, kohlberg’s cognitive developmental model posits that morality develops through stages, similar to piaget’s theory of cognitive development (piaget, 1932). as a reasoning ability develops and improves, so too should the quality of one’s moral judgements (kohlberg, 1969). kohlberg’s cognitive developmental model prevailed as the dominant theory in moral psychology for about 30 years after its inception. in the late 1990s, jonathan haidt began doing research on the origins of moral judgement by presenting hypothetical scenarios to participants and asking them to make moral judgements about the scenarios (haidt, 2012). haidt noticed that participants were able to quickly make moral judgments about hypothetical scenarios, but when asked to provide the reasoning that led to a particular judgement, participants often struggled to find a logical explanation that could fit the scenario (haidt, 2012). moreover, when moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 41 participants searched for an explanation but could not find one, their moral judgements remained just as strong. among many participants it was observed that “even when the servant (reasoning) comes back empty-handed, the master (intuition) doesn’t change his judgement” (haidt, 2012, p. 50). the observation that moral judgments can occur and remain strong without justifiable reasoning led haidt to propose four reasons to doubt that reasoning is the source of moral judgements (haidt, 2001). first, reasoning and intuition both play a part in moral judgments. due to the prominence of the cognitive developmental model of morality, reasoning has been overemphasized and intuition has been understudied. second, reasoning is motivated. people are generally motivated to find evidence to support their intuitions. third, most of what we believe to be objective reasoning is simply post-hoc rationalization. fourth, “moral action covaries with moral emotion more than with moral reasoning” (haidt, 2001, p. 815). for these reasons, haidt proposes the social intuitionist model as an alternative to the cognitive developmental model to explain moral judgements (haidt, 2001). the social intuitionist model posits that the basis for moral judgment is intuition rather than reasoning. according to the social intuitionist model, one first has an intuition, or gut feeling, about the morality of a scenario in question, then makes a judgement, followed by a post-hoc reasoning for the judgment. moral foundations theory with the presupposition that moral judgments are a product of intuition rather than reasoning, researchers surveyed people in several countries around the world asking about issues that were morally important to them (graham, haidt, et al., 2011; graham, nosek, et al., 2009). results indicated that there are five universal moral foundations by which people make intuitive moral judgements: 1) care/harm: concerns about defending, caring for, and protecting others, especially the vulnerable, 2) fairness/reciprocity: concerns with reducing bias, discrimination, and unfair treatment, 3) ingroup/loyalty: concerns about maintaining solidarity and loyalty to an ingroup, 4) authority/respect: concerns about maintaining control, order, obedience to authority, and respect for hierarchy, 5) purity/sanctity: concerns about modesty, piety, innocence, and purity, especially related to sexual behavior. additionally, researchers found that liberals and conservatives generally tend to endorse different sets of moral foundations (graham, nosek, et al., 2009). liberals tend to endorse the care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations to a greater degree than conservatives. however, conservatives tend to endorse the ingroup/ loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations to a greater degree than liberals. support for the moral foundations theory the applicability of the moral foundations theory has been demonstrated across scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2021 many domains. in one study of moral reasoning in video game play (krcmar et al., 2016), participants were given the moral foundations questionnaire (graham, haidt, et al., 2011), then asked to play video games. participants were asked to report aloud the reasons for their video game decisions in real time. decisions were coded as either “strategic” or “moral.” the moral decisions were then coded according to the moral foundations theory. results indicated that participants’ scores on the moral foundations quiz were positively associated with moral reasoning during video game play. in a more realistic study, business and accounting students at a large midwestern university were given the moral foundations questionnaire (graham, haidt, et al., 2011), then asked to report how they make moral judgments when presented with scenarios associated with business or accounting. students’ scores on the moral foundations questionnaire predicted their moral judgements (andersen et al., 2015). further studies highlight the differences between individuals who endorse the care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations and individuals who endorse the ingroup/ loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations. in a multi-country study consisting of participants from germany, italy, and spain, participants were asked to take the moral foundations questionnaire to determine the degree to which they endorse each of the five moral foundations (milesi et al., 2019). next, they were asked to read both sides of a rape case in which the man and the woman give conflicting information. the woman claimed that while on a date the previous night “she understood that she could not further resist without being injured; [the man] pushed her to the ground and raped her” (milesi et al., 2019, p. 115). in contrast, the man claimed that “although at the beginning the woman was a little bit reluctant, she never gave him reason to think that she was not consenting” (milesi et al., 2019, p. 115). participants were then asked to make a determination as to who was to blame for the incident. overall, higher scores on the authority/ respect and purity/sanctity measure predicted higher level of victim blaming, while higher scores on the care/harm and fairness/reciprocity measures predicted lower levels of victim blaming. for most individuals, religion plays an influential role in many scenarios involving moral judgement. to gain an understanding of the divergent moral foundations that are associated with religious and non-religious individuals, researchers in italy examined the moral foundations that were most salient in regular religious attenders and compared them with the moral foundations that are most salient in non-religious individuals (di battista et al., 2018). results found that individuals who identify as religious tend to endorse the ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations to a higher degree than do non-religious individuals. moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 43 in terms of the relationship between political ideology and moral foundations, research supports the notion that right-wing and left-wing individuals fall along predictable sets of moral foundations (hahn et al., 2018). in a study examining terrorist group motivations in the united states, extremist right-wing ideologies were associated with the ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations while extremist leftwing ideologies were associated with the care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations. critiques of the moral foundations theory the moral foundations theory operates from the premise that it is intuition rather than reasoning that leads to moral judgement. however, recent research undermines the assumption that cognitive ability plays no role in moral judgements. in a japanese study examining the relationship between moral values and cognitive ability, the care/ harm, fairness/reciprocity, and purity/sanctity foundations were positively associated with cognitive ability for all participants, while the ingroup/loyalty, and authority/respect foundations were statistically significant for participants below the age of 50. although these results do not invalidate the intuitive nature of the moral foundations, they do provide evidence for a significant interaction with cognitive ability. moral foundations theory as an instrument of persuasion given that different groups of people endorse predictable sets of moral foundations, researchers have hypothesized that messages can be more or less persuasive depending on the degree to which the message aligns with one’s primary moral foundations. in one analysis, researchers examined the association of moral foundations language with monetary donations to charities (winterich et al., 2012). results found that when the management process and mission statement of various charities displayed the care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations, donations from liberals increased. similarly, conservative donors increased their donations when a charity displayed the ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, or purity/sanctity foundations. further research suggests that by reframing an issue to better align with the moral foundations of the target, one can increase the persuasiveness of the message. in an archival study of new york times articles, researchers discovered that more than a decade of articles used arguments that were grounded in language associated with specific moral foundations. this occurred in articles supporting stem cell research as well as articles opposing stem cell research. further, the use of moral language proved to be an effective persuasive strategy. the authors state that “both proponent and opponent moral language had the expected effects on public opinion: increasing support for the targeted position” (clifford & jerit, 2013, p. 670). additional work suggests that political issues that have been reframed to better scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2021 align with the moral values of the opposing political party can be effective in bridging the gap between divergent opinions (feinberg & willer, 2013, 2015). in an analysis of newspaper op-eds and public service announcements, researchers found that concerns about the environment are generally framed using the care/harm foundation. however, when researchers reframed concerns about the environment to conform to the purity/ sanctity foundation, conservatives dramatically increased their concern for the environment to such a degree that the differences between liberals’ and conservatives’ attitudes towards the environment were largely eliminated (feinberg & willer, 2013). in a parallel line of research, the reframing of political issues proved successful in increasing conservative support for same-sex marriage and universal healthcare, as well as increasing liberal support for military spending and making english the official language of the united states (feinberg & willer, 2015). the present research although much research has been done to test the effects of moral reframing for increasing support for political issues, the effects of moral reframing have not been tested on attempts to decrease support for political issues. this study seeks to test the effectiveness of the moral reframing technique when used to decrease support for 1) gun control, an issue that liberals generally support, and 2) the death penalty, an issue that conservatives generally support. my hypothesis is that for both the gun control group and the death penalty group, arguments that are grounded in the moral foundations that align with one’s political ideology will be more persuasive than arguments that are grounded in moral foundations that do not align with one’s political ideology. method participants in order to obtain participants for this study, 61 university instructors in 52 academic departments were contacted via email asking for permission to administer a survey to students during class time. of the 61 instructors who were contacted, 17 instructors granted permission to administer the survey. of the 17 who granted permission, ten classes within eight different academic departments at mtsu were included in the study. the remaining seven classes were not included in the study due to an unforeseen campus closure caused by the covid-19 pandemic. the departments included in the study were criminal justice, dance, engineering technology, computer information systems, tourism and hospitality management, youth education, sociology, and philosophy. within these departments, 186 participants volunteered to take part in the study. upon consenting to participate in the research, participants were randomly assigned to participate in either a “gun control” group or “death penalty” group. moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 45 due to random assignment, half of the participants (n = 93) were in the gun control group and half (n = 92) were in the death penalty group. the average ages, gender, and race were consistent across both groups. students’ ages ranged from 18 to 44. the students’ average age was 21 years old. a little more than half were female, and about three-quarters were white (see tables 1.a & 1.b). table 1.a gun control group demographics gender number percent race number percent male 39 41.9% white 69 74.2% female 52 55.9% black/african american 12 12.9% other 2 2.2% hispanic/latino 9 9.7% asian 3 3.2% table 1.b death penalty group demographics gender number percent race number percent male 41 44.6% white 64 69.6% female 50 54.3% black/african american 17 18.5% other 1 1.1% hispanic/latino 6 6.5% asian 4 4.3% american indian/alaskan native 1 1.1% one participant who indicated that he was a communist on both social and economic policy was removed from the study due to the inability of communist ideology to fit easily into the liberal/conservative spectrum. procedure gun control group participants were given a demographic questionnaire that included a two-item measure of political ideology (“when it comes to social policy, do you consider yourself liberal or conservative?” and “when it comes to economic policy, do you consider yourself liberal or conservative?”). response items for both questions were scaled 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative). responses provided were combined to create a political ideology scale (a = .92) ranging from 2 to 14 with higher scores indicating greater conservatism (m = 7.63, sd = 3.13). participants who scored 2-6 were categorized as liberal, those who scored 7-9 were categorized as moderate, and those who scored 10-14 were categorized as conservative. after providing demographic information, participants read a brief article and scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2021 responded to a questionnaire measuring their support for gun control measures. participants were randomly assigned to receive one of three article conditions. the first condition, liberal foundations condition, contained an article in favor of reducing gun control measures, which was framed using a combination of care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations (i.e., the presence of a firearm can provide vulnerable communities with reliable deterrence from harm). the second condition, conservative foundations condition, also contained an article in favor of reducing gun control measures but was framed using a combination of ingroup/loyalty, and authority/respect foundations (i.e., we should respect the authority of our founding fathers and remain loyal to the constitution). articles were constructed using words from the moral foundations dictionary (graham, haidt, et. al., 2009) that were associated with the foundation being employed (e.g., care/harm: suffer, security, peace; fairness/reciprocity: honest, reasonable, unjust; ingroup/loyalty: betrayal, nation, patriotism; authority/respect: obey, status, leaders). a third condition, control condition, was randomly assigned to read a non-political article on the history of skiing. each article was approximately 300 words in length. after reading the article, participants were asked to respond to a four-item questionnaire measuring their attitudes towards gun control measures (e.g., “to what extent do you agree with raising taxes on firearms and ammunition?”, “to what extent do you agree with expanding background checks on gun sales?”). participants responded to these questions on a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). scores obtained from this questionnaire were combined to create a support for gun control composite (a = .85) ranging from 4 to 28, with higher scores indicating stronger opposition to gun control measures. death penalty group just as in the gun control group, participants were given a demographic questionnaire that included a two-item measure of political ideology (“when it comes to social policy, do you consider yourself liberal or conservative?” and “when it comes to economic policy, do you consider yourself liberal or conservative?”). both questions were answered on a scale from 1 (very liberal) to 7 (very conservative). answers provided were combined to create a political ideology scale (a = .8) ranging from 2 to 14 with higher scores indicating greater conservatism (m = 7.73, sd = 2.87). participants who scored 2-6 were categorized as liberal, those who scored 7-9 were categorized as moderate, and those who scored 10-14 were categorized as conservative. as before, participants read a brief article and responded to a questionnaire measuring their support for the death penalty. participants were randomly assigned to receive one of three conditions. the first condition, liberal foundations condition, contained an moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 47 article in favor of reducing the death penalty, which was framed using a combination of care/harm and fairness/reciprocity foundations (i.e., the death penalty is cruel and unjust). the second condition, conservative foundations condition, also contained an article in favor of reducing the death penalty but was framed using a combination of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations (i.e., the death penalty poses a threat to the integrity of the criminal justice system and its ability to maintain order). articles were again constructed using words from the moral foundations dictionary (graham, haidt, et. al., 2009). a third condition, control condition, was randomly assigned to read a non-political article on the history of skiing. each article was approximately 300 words in length. after reading the article, participants were asked to respond to a three-item questionnaire measuring their attitudes towards the death penalty (e.g., “how acceptable is it for the death penalty to be legal by lethal injection?”). participants responded to these questions on a scale from 1 (perfectly acceptable) to 7 (totally unacceptable). scores obtained from this questionnaire were combined to create a support for the death penalty composite (a = .87) ranging from 3 to 21, with higher scores indicating stronger opposition to the death penalty. results gun control group the data were analyzed using a 3 x 3 factorial anova. the first independent variable was political ideology (categorized as liberal, moderate, or conservative based on the previously mentioned criteria). of the 93 respondents, 35 (37.6%) were categorized as liberal, 31 (33.3%) were categorized as moderate, and 27 (29%) were categorized as conservative. the second independent variable was article condition (control condition, liberal foundations condition, or conservative foundations condition). the dependent variable was the average score on the support for gun control composite (higher scores indicating greater opposition to gun control measures). the main effect for political ideology was significant, f(2, 84) = 18.11, mse = 25.76, p = .000. the mean for the liberal participants was the lowest at 7.75 (sd = 3.62). the mean for the moderate participants increased to 12.35 (sd = 4.5). the mean for the conservative participants was the highest at 15.67 (sd = 6.45). overall, opposition to gun control measures among liberals, moderates, and conservatives indicated that higher conservatism is associated with more opposition to gun control measures. the main effect for article condition was not significant, f(2, 84) = .075, mse = 25.76, p = .928. the mean for the control condition was 11.33 (sd = 6.51). relative to the control condition, the mean for the liberal foundations condition was slightly lower at 10.93 (sd = 5.25). the conservative foundations condition indicated a slight increase scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2021 relative to the control condition with a mean of 12.21 (sd = 6.04). overall, opposition to gun control measures among the three conditions suggested that the conservative foundations condition was the most persuasive and the liberal foundations condition was the least persuasive. however, the differences between the three were negligible. the main effect for political ideology x article condition interaction was not significant, f(4, 84) = 1.03, mse = 25.76, p = .395. among liberal respondents in the control condition, the mean was 6.64 (sd = 3.17). among liberal respondents in the liberal foundations condition, level of opposition showed a slight increase with a mean of 7.17 (sd = 3.21). the highest increase in opposition among liberal respondents was seen in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 8.83 (sd = 4.28). among moderate respondents in the control condition the mean was 13.38 (sd = 5.5). among moderate respondents in the liberal foundations condition, level of opposition showed a slight decrease with a mean of 12.8 (sd = 3.64). an even larger decrease in opposition was found among moderate respondents in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 10.13 (sd = 3.64). among conservative respondents in the control condition, the mean was 15.5 (sd = 8.55). among conservative respondents in the liberal foundations condition, opposition decreased slightly with a mean of 14.25 (sd = 5.85). level of opposition was highest among conservative respondents in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 16.62 (sd = 6.12). the data are illustrated in graph 1. graph 1 gun control attitudes graph 1 gun control attitudes liberal foundations condition control condition conservative foundations condition liberal participants moderate participants conservative participants 7.17 12.8 14.25 6.64 13.38 15.5 8.83 10.13 16.62 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 o pp os iti on to g un c on tr ol conservative foundations condition moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 49 death penalty group the data were analyzed using a 3 x 3 factorial anova. the first independent variable was political ideology (categorized as liberal, moderate, or conservative based on the previously mentioned criteria). of the 92 respondents, 25 (27.2%) were categorized as liberal, 46 (50%) were categorized as moderate, and 21 (22.8%) were categorized as conservative. the second independent variable was article condition (control condition, liberal foundations condition, or conservative foundations condition). the dependent variable was the average score on the support for death penalty composite (higher scores indicating greater opposition to the death penalty). the main effect for political ideology was significant, f(2, 83) = 5.55, mse = 24.38, p = .005. the mean for the liberal participants was the highest at 16.88 (sd = 3.9). the mean for the moderate participants decreased to 15.04 (sd = 4.63). the mean for the conservative participants was the lowest at 11.81 (sd = 6.27). overall, opposition to the death penalty among liberals, moderates, and conservatives indicated that higher conservatism is associated with less opposition to the death penalty. the main effect for article condition was not significant, f(2, 83) = .81., mse = 24.38, p = .449. the mean for the control condition (m = 14.14, sd = 4.19) and the liberal foundations condition (m = 14.78, sd = 6.4) were similar. the mean for the conservative condition showed a slight increase at 15.41 (sd = 4.57). overall, opposition to the death penalty between the three conditions suggested that the liberal foundations condition had little to no persuasive power, while the conservative foundations condition had slightly more persuasive power. again, the differences between the three were negligible. the main effect for political ideology x article condition interaction was not significant, f(4, 83) = .83, mse = 24.38, p = .512. among liberal respondents in the control condition, the mean was 15.5 (sd = 3.55). among liberal respondents in the liberal foundations condition, level of opposition showed an increase with a mean of 17.25 (sd = 4.65). a similar increase was found among liberal respondents in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 17.78 (sd = 3.56). among moderate respondents in the control condition, the mean was 15.58 (sd = 3.26). among moderate respondents in the liberal foundations condition, level of opposition showed a slight decrease with a mean of 15.24 (sd = 6.15). a slightly larger decrease in opposition was found among moderate respondents in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 14.47 (sd = 3.83). among conservative respondents in the control condition, the mean was 10.63 (sd = 4.31). conservative respondents in the liberal foundations condition displayed a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2021 similar level of opposition with a mean of 10.86 (sd = 7.69). level of opposition was considerably higher among conservative respondents in the conservative foundations condition with a mean of 14.5 (sd = 6.95). the data are illustrated in graph 2. graph 2 death penalty attitudes discussion the hypothesis of this study was “arguments which are grounded in the moral foundations that align with one’s political ideology will be more persuasive than arguments that are grounded in moral foundations that do not align with one’s political ideology.” the purpose of the two political issues (gun control and death penalty) was to test the persuasiveness of reframed arguments in decreasing support for a political issue that already has a high degree of support. the underlying assumption with this design is that on average, liberals have a high degree of support for gun control measures relative to moderates and conservatives and that conservatives have a high degree of support for the death penalty relative to moderates and liberals. although the sample size in this study was limited due to an unforeseen campus closure caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the consistency of results across both groups emphasizes the reliability of the data. gun control group the analysis of the degree of support for gun control measures by political category confirmed that all three political categories were significantly different in their support for gun control measures and that higher conservatism predicts higher opposition graph 2 death penalty attitudes liberal foundations condition control condition conservative foundations condition liberal participants moderate participants conservative participants 17.25 15.24 10.86 15.5 15.58 10.63 17.78 14.47 14.5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 o pp os iti on to th e d ea th p en al ty conservative foundations condition moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 51 to gun control. simply put, the significant main effect for political ideology confirmed the underlying assumption that liberals support gun control measures to a greater degree than do moderates and that moderates support gun control measures to a greater degree than do conservatives. the main effect for condition was not expected to be significant because any given condition was expected to have a different effect depending on the political ideology of the respondent. for example, the conservative foundations condition was expected to increase opposition to gun control measures for conservative respondents, but for liberal respondents, the same condition was expected to have little or no effect. similarly, the liberal foundations condition was expected to increase opposition to gun control measures for liberal respondents, but for conservative respondents, the same condition was expected to have little or no effect. therefore, any given condition was not expected to vary in one direction uniformly throughout all three groups. although the overall sample size for the gun control group was n = 93, participants were divided into three subgroups (liberal, moderate, and conservative). moreover, each subgroup was again divided into three more subgroups (liberal foundations condition, control condition, and conservative foundations condition). this resulted in nine subgroups within the larger gun control group. as a result, each subgroup only consisted of, on average, 10.33 participants. this small sample size within each of the comparison groups could serve as an explanation as to why the main effect for political ideology x article condition was not significant. however, the mean comparisons between the groups strongly imply that the data is leaning towards an identifiable pattern. for liberal participants, an argument grounded in liberal moral foundations was effective in increasing opposition to gun control measures. however, an argument grounded in conservative moral foundations was also effective in increasing opposition to gun control measures. moreover, the argument grounded in conservative moral foundations was more persuasive than the argument that was grounded in liberal moral foundations. therefore, results imply that, for liberals, opposition to gun control measures will increase regardless of the framing of the argument. further, arguments that were framed in conservative moral foundations were most persuasive for liberals. for moderate participants, an argument grounded in liberal moral foundations was not effective in increasing opposition to gun control measures. interestingly, not only was the argument ineffective, but results indicate that it had a slight reverse effect. participants who read this article slightly increased their support for gun control measures relative to the control group. for moderate participants who received the argument grounded in conservative moral foundations, results showed a magnified trend in the same direction. that scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2021 is, participants who read this article increased their support for gun control measures relative to the control group, and they did this to a much higher degree than the participants who read the argument grounded in liberal moral foundations. taken together, results imply that for moderate participants neither frame is persuasive in increasing opposition to gun control. additionally, arguments with a conservative moral frame tended have a reverse effect for moderates, resulting in increased support for gun control. for conservative participants, an argument grounded in liberal moral foundations was not effective in increasing opposition to gun control measures. results imply that this argument had the reverse effect (i.e., increased support for gun control measures). however, an argument grounded in conservative moral foundations was effective in increasing opposition to gun control measures. therefore, results imply that, for conservatives, only arguments which are grounded in conservative moral foundations will be persuasive. death penalty group the analysis of the degree of support for the death penalty by political category confirmed that all three political categories were significantly different in their support for the death penalty and that higher liberalism predicts higher opposition to the death penalty. simply put, the significant main effect for political ideology confirmed the underlying assumption that conservatives support the death penalty to a greater degree than do moderates and that moderates support the death penalty to a greater degree than do liberals. as previously discussed, the main effect for condition was not expected to be significant because any given condition was expected to have a different effect depending on the political ideology of the respondent. therefore, any given condition was not expected to vary in one direction uniformly throughout all three groups. further, the sample size for the death penalty group was approximately the same as the gun control group (n = 92). therefore, the small sample size within each of the comparison groups might again serve as an explanation as to why the main effect for political ideology x article condition was not significant. however, the mean comparisons between the respondents in the death penalty group strongly mirrored the data found in the gun control group. this provides further support for the implication that the data is leaning towards a consistent pattern. for liberal participants in the death penalty group, results showed the same pattern as they did in the gun control group. both liberal-framed arguments and conservative-framed arguments were effective in increasing opposition to the death penalty. although opposition increased slightly more for participants who received the conservative foundations condition, both arguments were almost equal in their persuasive power. moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 53 results again imply that opposition will increase regardless of the framing of the argument. for moderate participants, results again showed the same pattern as they did in the gun control group. neither the liberal frame nor the conservative frame was effective in persuading moderate participants to increase their opposition to the death penalty. participants again showed a slight reverse effect for both arguments with the larger effect being attributed to the conservative foundations condition. for conservative participants, results showed a similar but more distinct trend compared to the gun control group. an argument grounded in liberal moral foundations was not effective in increasing opposition to the death penalty. however, an argument grounded in conservative moral foundations was considerably effective in increasing opposition to the death penalty. therefore, results are consistent with those found in the gun control group; conservatives are only persuaded by arguments that are grounded in conservative moral foundations. overall, the mean comparisons between the conservative respondents in both groups indicate partial support for the hypothesis. however, the mean comparisons between the liberal respondents do not support my hypothesis. these results partially conflict with feinberg & willer (2015), which found moral reframing to be effective for both liberals and conservatives. furthermore, the data obtained from the moderate respondents provide an additional layer of complexity to the process of moral reframing that was previously unavailable. liberal participants’ openness to both the liberal foundations argument and the conservative foundations argument could indicate that the liberal participants in the study consider a wider spectrum of moral foundations than was originally assumed. the social environment in which the participants have learned to make moral judgements could lead to an explanation as to why liberals seemingly consider this wider spectrum of moral foundations. because participants in the survey were recruited from a large state university in a majority conservative state in the southern united states, there is a high likelihood that most of the participants in the study were born and raised in a majority conservative society. if the liberal participants in this study had been socialized into a society in which most members are conservative, then this would facilitate higher exposure to conservative moral foundations. in contrast, if the conservative participants in this study had been socialized into a society in which most members are conservative, then this would lead to lower exposure to liberal moral foundations. taken together, this would lead to the findings displayed in this study. future research on moral reframing should examine the persuasive power of scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 54 spring 2021 morally reframed arguments between liberals who have been socialized in conservative majority states and liberals who have been socialized in liberal majority states. for example, future studies could examine the moral reframing technique on liberals in vermont (one of the most liberal states) and liberals in wyoming (one of the most conservative states). in general, liberals in the united states tend to endorse issues such as same-sex marriage and universal healthcare (feinberg & willer, 2015). if the social environment in which the participants have learned to make moral judgements does indeed impact their ability to consider a wider spectrum of moral foundations, then liberal participants who were born and raised in vermont should be persuaded to decrease their support for political issues (such as same sex marriage or universal healthcare) only by arguments that are grounded in liberal moral foundations. in contrast, liberal participants who were born and raised in wyoming should be persuaded to decrease their support for political issues (such as same sex marriage or universal healthcare) by arguments grounded in either liberal moral foundations or conservative moral foundations. this outcome would be expected because liberals in vermont can be assumed to have a low exposure to conservative moral foundations due to the liberal social environment on both the state level and the individual level. in contrast, the outcome with the participants in wyoming would be expected because liberals in wyoming can be assumed to have a high exposure to both liberal moral foundations and conservative moral foundations due the combination of a conservative social environment on the state level and a liberal social environment on the individual level. keeping with the same theory of socialization, a similar line of research should be carried out for conservatives in liberal majority states versus conservatives in conservative majority states. for example, future studies could examine the moral reframing technique on conservatives in vermont (one of the most liberal states) and conservatives in wyoming (one of the most conservative states). in general, conservatives in the united states tend to endorse issues such as increasing military spending and making english the official language of the united states (feinberg & willer, 2015). given these general trends, conservative participants who were born and raised in wyoming should be persuaded to decrease their support for political issues (such as increasing military spending and making english the official language of the united states) only by arguments that are grounded in conservative moral foundations. in contrast, conservative participants who were born and raised in vermont should be persuaded to decrease their support for political issues (such as increasing military spending and making english the official language of the united states) by arguments grounded in either conservative moral foundations or liberal moral foundations. this outcome would be expected because conservatives in wyomoral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 55 ming can be assumed to have a low exposure to liberal moral foundations due to the conservative social environment on both the state level and the individual level. in contrast, the outcome with the participants in vermont would be expected because conservatives in vermont can be assumed to have a high exposure to both liberal moral foundations and conservative moral foundations due the combination of a liberal social environment on the state level and a conservative social environment on the individual level. studies such as these could provide valuable insight into the degree to which moral foundations are a product of the social environment as opposed to a biologically innate pattern of behavior. although previous research on moral reframing contributes to an understanding of the divide between liberals and conservatives, this is the first study to examine moderate participants as a third category, separate from the other two. examining moderates as a distinct category provides information that was previously imperceptible in other studies. in both the gun control group and the death penalty group, results implied that moderate participants were not persuaded by either argument. moreover, moderates were the only group in the study for which neither argument was persuasive. the reason for the lack of susceptibility to morally-reframed arguments among moderates might have to do with the emotional nature of the arguments used in the study. according to haidt (2012), the five moral foundations are triggered by an innate feeling or emotion that then leads to a moral judgment. therefore, arguments that employ the moral foundations are emotional arguments. it could be the case that the more extreme one is in their political views, the more susceptible they are to arguments with emotional appeal. if this were the case, then one would expect individuals with moderate political views to be less susceptible to arguments with emotional appeal. given that moderate participants do not appear to be persuaded by arguments with emotional appeal, future research should examine the persuasive power of fact-based arguments on politically moderate participants. this could provide further insight into the processes by which individuals make political moral judgements depending on the space that they 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(2019). moral foundations and cognitive ability. results from a japanese sample. personality and individual differences, 149, 3136. kohlberg, l. (1969). stage and sequence: the cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. rand mcnally. moral reframing: a perspective-taking approach to political arguments middle tennessee state university 57 krcmar, m., & cingel, d. p. (2016). moral foundations theory and moral reasoning in video game play: using real-life morality in a game context. journal of broadcasting & electronic media, 60(1), 87-103. lu, j. (1985). piaget’s theory of stages in cognitive development. information on psychological sciences, 3, 7-13. milesi, p., sussenbach, p., bohner, g., & megias, j. l. (2019). the interplay of modern myths about sexual agression and moral foudnations in the blaming of rape victims. european jounal of social psychology, 50(1), 111-123. piaget, j. (1932). the moral judgement of the child. taylor and francis. winterich, k. p., zhang, y., & mittal, v. (2012). how political identity and charity positioning increase donations: insights from moral foundations theory. international journal of research in marketing, 29(4), 346-354. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2021 article2 13 article2 14 article2 15 article2 16 article2 17 article2 18 article2 19 article2 20 article2 21 article2 22 article2 23 article2 24 article2 25 article2 26 article2 27 article2 28 article2 29 article2 30 article2 31 article2 32 middle tennessee state university 56 state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols elizabeth anne jordan, msn, rn abstract managing nutrition in critically ill patients is an important intervention to promote healing. adequate nutrition decreases rates of infections and pressure ulcers, improves prognosis for recovery, and decreases mortality. the purpose of this literature review is to determine the current state of the science in regards to evidence-based protocols for the administration and management of enteral nutrition (en-tube feeding) in critically ill patients. is the use of a nursing-driven protocol for enteral feeding in critically ill patients effective in improving patient outcomes compared with not utilizing a protocol? ten studies with enteral nutrition protocols for adult, critically ill patients were included for review. study characteristics and themes are identified. early initiation of en and adequate titration to goal are important for achieving the maximum nutritional advantage. the highest benefit is also derived from identifying and delivering an individualized caloric and/ or protein goal. interprofessional collaboration remains paramount, and an en protocol increases standardization of practice. a nurse-driven protocol may yield higher compliance and greater effectiveness than a protocol that is not nurse-driven. lastly, gaps in knowledge, future research opportunities, and applications to nursing administration, research, education, and practice are discussed. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research nutrition and malnutrition both have significant impacts on critically ill patients. critical illness itself has physiologic impacts that affect nutritional status. therefore, managing nutrition in critically ill patients is an important intervention to promote healing. physiologic effect of illness the body’s stress response to illness increases the basal metabolic rate as well as the catabolism of protein and lipids (colaço & nascimento, 2014; ellis, 2015; friesecke, schwabe, stecher, & abel, 2014). furthermore, hospitalized patients usually have decreased caloric intake. the resulting negative energy balance causes loss of body mass, increased risk for infection, metabolic derangements, organ dysfunction, and increased morbidity and mortality. malnutrition and undernutrition some patients may have baseline malnutrition, while others’ condition deteriorates during hospitalization (damratowski & goetz, 2016; gerrish, laker, taylor, kennedy, & mcdonnell, 2016). kuslapuu, jõgela, starkopf, and blaser (2015) estimate that patients develop nearly a 6,000 kilocalorie deficit within the first week of admission to the intensive care unit (icu). this may be due to the limited nutrition management education imparted to medical providers and nurses (soguel, revelly, schaller, longchamp, & berger, 2012). alternatively, caloric needs may simply be underestimated during hospitalization (ellis, 2015). malnutrition and undernutrition have detrimental effects on the body’s ability to recover from critical illness. both have been shown to decrease immune response and wound healing thereby increasing the rate of infection and pressure ulcers, time on mechanical ventilation, hospital length of stay, as well as morbidity and mortality (colaço & nascimento, 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; gerrish et al., 2016). non-use of the gut, in particular, fosters intestinal permeability of bacteria and enhances the risk for sepsis (friesecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014). the in-hospital mortality rate of sepsis is approximately 10 percent, which is greater than that of an st-segment elevation myocardial infarction, more commonly known as a heart attack (singer et al., 2016). as an important aside, all of these effects increase hospital costs. guerra et al. (2014) found that undernutrition increases hospitalization costs by 19 to 29 percent. 57 spring 2018 benefits of nutrition nutritional care has previously been considered merely a supportive function rather than therapeutic (jarden & sutton, 2014). however, the benefits of nutrition are numerous. adequate nutrition allows for the reduction of the effects of physiologic stress and cellular injury, as well as decreased rate of infections and pressure ulcers due to improved immunity and increased tissue healing (colaço & nascimento, 2014; ellis, 2015; friesecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; taylor, brody, denmark, southard, & byham-gray, 2014). overall, these equate to improved prognosis for recovery, higher quality of life, and decreased mortality. protein specifically promotes injury repair and energy maintenance (colaço & nascimento, 2014). enteral nutrition decreases the inflammatory response and maintains intestinal function, integrity, and motility (friesecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014). purpose multiple evidence-based guidelines exist for nutritional management in critically ill patients, such as those published by the american society for parenteral and enteral nutrition (aspen), the european society for parenteral and enteral nutrition (espen), the canadian critical care clinical practice guidelines committee, and the society of critical care medicine (sccm) (colaço & nascimento, 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). however, actual practice does not always align with the recommended guidelines (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; friesecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014). multiple studies have been conducted to develop and test the effects of a protocol for nutritional care in critically ill patients (compton, bojarski, siegmund, & van der giet, 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu, jõgela, starkopf, & blaser, 2015; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). what is known is that adequate nutrition is important to the physiologic response to critical illness and, conversely, that malnutrition is detrimental to healing and recovery. what is not known is whether the implementation of a protocol that guides enteral nutrition support is effective in improving the outcomes of critically ill patients. furthermore, it is state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols middle tennessee state university 58 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research unknown whether a nurse-driven protocol is more or less effective than a protocol not managed by nurses. the purpose of this literature review is to determine the current state of the science in regards to evidence-based protocols for the administration and management of enteral nutrition in critically ill patients. specifically, is the use of a nursing-driven protocol for enteral feeding in critically ill patients effective in improving patient outcomes compared with not utilizing a protocol? framework the framework guiding this review is patricia benner’s clinical wisdom for critical care nursing. parts of benner’s focus are clinical judgment and knowledge. she identified 31 competencies of nursing practice and seven domains of influence. later, benner identified nine domains specific to critical care nursing. specifically, one of these domains is “diagnosing and managing life-sustaining physiologic functions in unstable patients” (masters, 2013, p. 54). the use of a protocol for enteral feeding aligns with this concept. the critical care domains were further used to develop six aspects of clinical judgment and skilled behavior, such as reasoning-in-transition (practical, ongoing, clinical reasoning), skilled know-how (skill and intelligence), response-based practice (adaptation of interventions to changing needs), and agency (one’s ability to influence a situation), among others. methods studies were identified by searching the cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature (cinahl) plus database. all searches were limited to articles published since 2011. the initial search for “nursing protocols,” limited to peer-reviewed research in english, yielded 182 results. a couple of studies were identified, but this search was not appropriately specific to enteral nutrition. a search for “enteral nutrition” yielded too many results for review (n = 3,122), while “enteral nutrition and nursing protocol” produced only 12. “enteral nutrition and nursing” yielded 368 results; the additional parameters of peer-reviewed research published in english limited the results to 96. studies with enteral nutrition protocols for adult, critically ill patients were included. studies without a protocol and those pertaining to pediatric or disease-specific populations were excluded. studies were also excluded if the study 59 spring 2018 population was medical-surgical or in the community, even if a nutritional protocol was presented. eight studies were identified through the cinahl plus database searches. additional review of those articles’ reference lists produced two more studies meeting the inclusion criteria. unfortunately, only two of the ten studies presented a protocol clearly described as nurse-driven (frisecke et al., 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015). furthermore, one of these nurse-driven protocols was developed out of the current study and not actually tested in the current study (kuslapuu et al., 2015). a follow-up study was going to be conducted on the benefit of the protocol. the authors did not respond to a request for the status and results of the second study. the effect on this literature review is very limited data from that particular publication. results study characteristics research method. one of the studies was qualitative (damratowski & goetz, 2016). one study was mixed methods (reeves et al., 2012). the remaining eight were quantitative (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; taylor et al., 2014). framework. seven of the studies did not indicate a theoretical framework (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). each of the remaining three identified a different framework that guided the research. ellis (2015) utilized the iowa model of evidence-based practice to promote quality. jarden and sutton (2014) followed the plan-do-study-act (pdsa) quality improvement model. lastly, kelly’s (2014) research was guided by larrabee’s model for change of evidence-based practice. research design. two studies conducted prospective, randomized control trials (heyland et al., 2013; reeves et al., 2012). the qualitative portion of the mixed methods study was conducted with structured interviews (reeves et al., 2012). one study was a prospective observational design (kuslapuu et al., 2015). the remaining state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols middle tennessee state university 60 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research seven studies, including the qualitative one, utilized a preand post-implementation design (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). sample. per the inclusion criteria, all of the quantitative studies examined critically ill patients admitted to the icu (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). a few studies focused specifically on mechanically ventilated patients (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; heyland et al., 2013; taylor et al., 2014). the qualitative study sample was comprised of icu nurses (damratowski & goetz, 2016). themes time to initiation. all but one of the studies addressed the topic of “early” initiation of enteral nutrition (en) for maximum benefit (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). however, as several authors discussed, the recommended timeframe for initiation varied between the studies, generally ranging from within 24 to 48 hours (ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; taylor et al., 2014). ellis (2015) even cited literature that identified within 48 to 72 hours as an acceptable timeframe for initiation. others identified early initiation as within 24 hours (frisecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). notably, the event that starts the time also varies, from icu admission, last oral intake, and time of intubation (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; kelly, 2014). three studies demonstrated decreased time to initiation of en with the implementation of the en protocol. one study demonstrated a decrease in start time from day one after intubation to day zero, the day of intubation (compton et al., 2014). this is the only study that counted days instead of hours. ellis (2015) found that 83 percent of patients received en within 48 hours of intubation, an increase from pre-implementation. friesecke et al. (2014) also observed an increase to 64 percent in the number of patients receiving en within 24 hours of admission, with an average of within 28 hours of admission. three other studies observed no significant change in the time to initiation 61 spring 2018 of en with the implementation of an en protocol (jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). no studies demonstrated an increase in time to initiation of en. in the new, untested protocol, kuslapuu et al. (2015) directed en to begin within six hours of icu admission. only one other study demonstrated consistent initiation in less than 12 hours (reeves et al., 2012). kelly (2014) observed an average time to initiation of approximately 12 hours. caloric goal and delivery. almost all of the studies discussed the intent to deliver a caloric and/or protein goal from en (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). again, however, there was variation between the studies in terms of what percentage of the goal is appropriate. for example, damratowski and goetz (2016) identified that patients will experience nutritional compromise if they receive less than 65 percent of their required daily calories. conversely, ellis (2015) asserted that delivery of more than 70 percent of the recommended calories via en may produce an increased rate of complications, therefore the intake goal was 60 percent. most other studies aimed for patients to receive equal to or greater than 80 percent of their caloric goal with en (damratowski & goetz, 2016; heyland et al., 2013; kelly, 2014; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). as far as the effect of the en protocol on delivery of the caloric goal, 78 percent of patients reached the 60 percent goal in the study by ellis (2015), which was an improvement from pre-implementation. sixty percent of the patients in the study by reeves et al. (2012) achieved 82 percent of their calorie and protein goals; this was an improvement with the protocol. in the study by heyland et al. (2013), patients received 47 percent and 44 percent of their target protein and calories, respectively. although this seems low compared to the goal of 80 percent, these figures demonstrated an improvement with implementation of the protocol. taylor et al. (2014) implemented a revised version of the protocol by heyland et al. (2013) and improved the calorie and protein delivery to 89 percent. three studies had not identified a target but reported the number of patients who reached their en goal. seventy-four percent of patients in the study state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols middle tennessee state university 62 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research by compton et al. (2014) reached their goal, and, notably, this was unchanged from prior to implementation to the en protocol. patients in another study received about 60 percent of the prescribed en (frisecke et al., 2014). eighty percent of the patients in the study by jarden and sutton (2014) reached their target rate. importantly, this was measured by the target rate rather than the caloric or protein content. lastly, few studies addressed how the nutritional goal was identified. several studies identified that the target was calculated for each individual patient (damratowski & goetz, 2016; friesecke et al., 2014; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). only two of these identified specific values (damratowski & goetz, 2016; taylor et al., 2014). heyland et al. (2013) asserts that no standard for en prescription exists. time to goal. some of the studies examined the timeframe required for patients to receive en at the goal rate (compton et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; reeves et al., 2012). this is an important consideration because even if en is initiated early, the starting rate is often low, such as 20 to 40 milliliters (ml) per hour or 50 ml every three hours (compton et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012). patients will not receive adequate nutrition if the rate is increased to the target rate too slowly or not at all (heyland et al., 2013). for this reason, the algorithm developed by heyland et al. (2013) focused on a daily, volume-based target rather than an hourly, rate-based target. similarly, the protocol utilized by jarden and sutton (2014) aimed to promote rapid titration of the en. with implementation of the en protocol, compton et al. (2014) achieved target delivery rate in approximately 6 days and 2 days for gastric and jejunal routes, respectively, which were both improved from before use of the protocol. similarly, jarden and sutton (2014) observed decreased timeframes to achievement of the target rate. with the rapid titration protocol, target rate was reached at an average of 34 hours from admission and an average of 10 hours from initiation of en. the study by kelly (2014) established a goal for the target rate to be reached within 48 hours. one hundred percent of patients achieved this with use of the protocol, with an average time of 18.5 hours, which was an improvement prior to the use of the protocol. reeves et al. (2012) demonstrated achievement of the goal rate at approximately 12 hours. 63 spring 2018 management of gastric residual volume. significant variations in the definition and management of gastric residual volume (grv) were identified (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). the volume for grv is defined anywhere from 200 ml to 500 ml. the response to the grv also varies, from holding, stopping, or decreasing the en rate to considering gastric motility agents. two algorithms were developed specifically to standardize the management of grv (damratowski & goetz, 2016; kelly, 2014). complications. complications of en, such as gastric intolerance, regurgitation, emesis, aspiration, vomiting, and diarrhea, were measured in five of the studies (compton et al., 2014; damratowski & goetz, 2016; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). two of the studies did not report the findings (compton et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013). most researchers found no statistically significant change in the occurrence of en complications with the implementation of a protocol (damratowski & goetz, 2016; jarden & sutton, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). specifically, damratowski and goetz (2016) identified that increasing the grv threshold to 500 ml does not affect the rate of aspiration and regurgitation as long the head of the bed is elevated to 30 degrees. only taylor et al. (2014) observed an increase in the rate of a complication, specifically diarrhea, in patients receiving en with the volume-based protocol. patient outcomes. patient demographics were reported in six of the studies (compton et al., 2014; frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). unfortunately, patient outcomes were not measured in a majority of the studies (damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012). those that did measure clinical outcomes observed no significant changes after the implementation of an en protocol, including heyland et al. (2013). compton et al. (2014) noticed an increase in mortality rate, but reported that it was not statistically significant. similarly, taylor et al. (2014) observed an increased length of stay, but reported that the strength of the finding lessened when the deceased patients were removed. frisecke et al. (2014) and taylor et al. (2014) found that mortality was not state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols middle tennessee state university 64 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research significantly affected by the implementation of an en protocol. neither did taylor et al. (2014) observe a change in patients’ time requiring mechanical ventilation. other en considerations. various other important topics were discussed in the articles but not with as much prevalence. for example, two groups of authors mentioned the need to consult dietary specialists, even with the use of an en protocol (damratowski & goetz, 2016; taylor et al., 2014). only one author addressed the selection of en type (reeves et al., 2012). two studies considered the supplemental use of parenteral nutrition with en (compton et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013). the administration of continuous versus bolus feeds is an important matter to address with en (ellis, 2015; taylor et al., 2014). another significant topic is tube placement in the stomach or small intestine (compton et al., 2014; frisecke et al., 2014; kuslapuu et al., 2015; reeves et al., 2012). lastly, managing feeding interruptions is important for adequate delivery (heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). compliance. compliance with the protocol was monitored in half the studies (frisecke et al., 2014; heyland et al., 2013; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). surprisingly, kelly (2014) aimed to have a compliance rate of only 50 percent, and met this goal at 67 percent. jarden and sutton (2014) reported increased compliance with nursing management of the protocol. taylor et al. (2014) observed 90 percent compliance with the protocol during the study period but observed a decline to 80 percent after the initiative ceased, suggesting lack of sustainability. standardization. numerous quantitative data has been presented, and accurate comparison between studies is difficult to ascertain. importantly, however, several studies reported that implementation of the en protocol produced noticeable standardization of practice in en delivery and care (damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; kelly, 2014; reeves et al., 2012). discussion study characteristics framework. a majority of the studies did not indicate the theoretical framework that guided the research. however, just because a framework was not clearly stated does not mean that one was not used. for example, the management 65 spring 2018 of physiologic processes in unstable patients, such as in benner’s clinical wisdom for critical care nursing, could be an implied framework for many of the studies. the explicit identification of a framework, however, would have allowed for greater applicability of the results to practice and theory (mcewen, 2011). research design. a majority of the studies utilized a preand post-implementation research design. while this is a credible, quasi-experimental design, advantages and drawbacks exist (polit & beck, 2011). the advantages are that the design is practical and does not require randomization. the primary disadvantage is that the lack of a control group limits the validity of the results. the possibility exists that the preand post-implementation groups are not comparable enough to attribute the comparisons and differences to the intervention alone. results standardization? several studies demonstrated that the use of an en protocol enhanced the standardization of practice. thus, an en protocol provides standardization against itself. however, lack of standardization between protocols was evident. numerous elements of practice related to en are included in each protocol, increasing the opportunity for variability. each element must be individually defined, such as appropriate timeframe for “early” initiation of en, a method for determining nutritional prescription and goals, ideal percentage of the goal to be delivered, and measurement and response to grv. with any variation of these metrics between protocols, the results may not be generalizable. generalizability. the lack of standardization among en protocols may have contributed to the variability in results between studies. three researchers observed a decreased time to initiation of en with the implementation of an en protocol (compton et al., 2014; ellis, 2015; friesecke et al., 2014). three other studies, however, demonstrated no change (jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). four studies demonstrated that the implementation of an en protocol increased the percentage of patients who received their target calories and/or protein (ellis, 2015; reeves et al., 2012; heyland et al., 2013; taylor et al., 2014). however, these results may or may not be comparable because the target timeframes and nutritional goals were different between the studies. inconsistency between sample inclusion criteria also affects one’s ability state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols middle tennessee state university 66 to draw and generalize conclusions. for example, although the revised protocol by taylor et al. (2014) demonstrated improved delivery of total protein and calories over the original study by heyland et al. (2013), the sample population inclusion criteria were different, making the results difficult to compare. both studies included patients who were mechanically ventilated on admission or within 6 hours of admission. however, heyland et al. (2013) only included patients who were mechanically ventilated for greater than 72 hours and whose nutrition had been initiated after admission. conversely, taylor et al. (2014), only included patients whose length of stay was at least 7 days and who had demonstrated en tolerance, as evidenced by en administered for at least 72 hours after reaching the target en goal. the rate of complications was the most consistent finding among the studies in that most researchers found no significant change in the occurrence of en complications with the use of an en protocol. only one study observed an increase of a relatively minor complication (taylor et al., 2014). protocol compliance. protocols serve numerous purposes that include guiding rapid decision making, providing guidance in overcoming barriers, and promoting standardization (reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). a protocol is not developed with the intent of partial implementation. without compliance, the protocol is rendered ineffective towards its purposes. furthermore, lack of compliance skews measurable results and significantly limits sustainability. however, what is a reasonable target for the compliance rate? how is compliance measured and enforced? the answer to the latter question is to examine barriers to compliance. most likely, processes and systems issues are to blame, not individuals’ efforts and intentions. areas of non-compliance may be identified through regular chart audits. process improvement tools can then be utilized to identify gaps, develop checklists, and improve adherence. in this way, protocol development and enforcement is an ongoing, quality improvement process. role of nursing despite the initial impression that only two of the studies considered the en protocols to be nursing-driven, several authors acknowledged in their discusscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 67 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 68 state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols sions that nurses hold a significant role in the implementation of the protocol in practice (damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015; frisecke et al., 2014; jarden & sutton, 2014; kelly, 2014; reeves et al., 2012; taylor et al., 2014). nurses are often the first clinicians to assess nutritional status and identify potential malnutrition (gerrish et al., 2016). nurses are often then responsible for initiating, monitoring, and advancing en as well as managing any complications (colaço & nascimento, 2014; taylor et al., 2014). during the administration of en, nurses have the ability to minimize interruptions, allowing patients to receive maximum nutrition (damratowski & goetz, 2016; ellis, 2015). after all, the benefits of nutrition are not achieved if the en is not adequately delivered. for all these reasons, nurses must be familiar with en guidelines (damratowski & goetz, 2016). conclusions identification of themes this literature review has identified numerous, important themes relating to the administration of en and the implementation of an en protocol. defining and implementing both early initiation of en and adequate titration to goal are important for achieving the maximum nutritional advantage. the highest benefit is also derived from identifying and delivering an individualized caloric and/or protein goal. interprofessional collaboration remains paramount such that any barriers to multidisciplinary communication must be addressed. physicians, nurses, and dietetic professionals must work together to determine and deliver the most effective prescription, type, route, and rate of en. an en protocol increases standardization of practice in relation to the aforementioned themes as well as the management of grv, complications, and potentially for managing feeding interruptions. because of the significant effects of nursing care on nearly all aspects of the management and delivery of en, a nurse-driven protocol may yield higher compliance and greater effectiveness than a protocol that is not nurse-driven. above all, current practice should align with best practice. limitations in addition to the challenges of standardization and generalizability already scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 69 spring 2018 discussed, the greatest limitation to answering the clinical question was that patient outcomes were not measured in a majority of the studies. further research is needed to determine the benefit of an en protocol on clinical outcomes. gaps in knowledge the most apparent gap in knowledge is the identification of standardized guidelines for en administration. because of the variability in practice, each element of en practice could seemingly have a protocol, algorithm, or decision tree of its own. for example, one algorithm could guide the initiation and advancement of en while another directs the measurement and management of grv. on the one hand, this could promote standardization if the elements are individualized. on the other hand, this would likely be too cumbersome for practical use. future research future research should focus on the measurement of patient outcomes in addition to utilization of the same en protocol across practice settings to determine its effect. as complications and outcomes are measured, any negative trends deserve careful investigation. the existing clinical practice guidelines should be implemented into practice, although further research appears necessary for continued validation and standardization. recommendations nursing administration nurse administrators, who guide the culture of an organization, should seek to foster a culture of safety and evidence-based practice. the latter requires a multi-faceted approach of clearly defined expectations, education and resource allocation, shared governance, and supportive, engaged leadership (fitzsimons & cooper, 2012). the identification of current practice, comparison to best practice, and implementation of changes to produce alignment between the two must occur throughout the facility. in some situations, this may occur via a top-down approach. however, in an environment that supports innovation and shared governance, many ideas for practice improvement will originate from a bottom-up approach. administrators must recognize the valuable contributions of frontline staff and encourage their initiative and involvement. furthermore, nursing administration must support not only the implementation of evidence-based practice, but also the development middle tennessee state university 70 state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols and dissemination of evidence-based practice through research and education. of note, these suggestions apply to all areas of practice, not just the delivery of en to critically ill patients. nursing research research begins with an identified problem or a clinical question (polit & beck, 2011). for example, data tracking and trending may reveal specific areas of opportunity. a clinical question may originate from a professional at any level in the organization. further research may then be conducted to validate prior findings and develop new evidence. in relation to an en protocol, research may trigger the development, use, or improvement of a protocol. ultimately, nursing research must focus on continuous, quality improvement of practice. for example, regarding time to initiation of en, what are the delays? how can they be mitigated? what are the processes and procedures that cause interruptions in en administration? how can they be lessened? does continuous versus bolus feeding affect the total protein and calories delivered? unlike many of the studies utilized in this literature review, future nursing research should follow a theoretical framework in order to give meaning to the findings. once the research is completed, the findings must be disseminated. nursing education education is extremely important for nurses at all levels of their experience. whether novice or expert, education translates into knowledge, which translates into practice change (taylor et al., 2014). nurse educators must focus not only on disseminating information on best practice as it is identified, but also on empowering nurses to implement practice improvements. in terms of the en protocol, this translates into ongoing education for the use of the protocol. this is particularly important when the protocol is first introduced. the technical aspects of the protocol will be easy to instruct. the more difficult aspect will be engaging nurses in the need for a practice change, as described in lewin’s theory of planned change (shirey, 2013). once the change has been implemented and use of the protocol becomes the norm, ongoing education will be necessary to ensure knowledge and compliance. compliance is driven by more than mere knowledge. additional factors such scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 71 spring 2018 as attitude, sense of personal responsibility, and psychological safety must be considered (de oliveira dourado, da costa barros, diogo de vasconcelos, & da silva santos, 2017; sholomovich & magnezi, 2017). nursing practice the literature review has identified numerous en applications to nursing practice because nurses are at the forefront of en administration, perhaps even more so with the use of a nurse-driven protocol. tying the conclusions of the literature review back to the theoretical framework of patricia benner’s clinical wisdom for critical care nursing will not only expand the theory but also enhance understanding of nursing practice. use of an en protocol does not remove critical thinking from nursing practice. rather, nurses must continue to demonstrate critical thinking and clinical judgment to manage the changing clinical picture of a patient receiving en. benner’s theory refers to these as reasoning-in-transition and response-based practice. in other words, nursing practice requires clinical decision-making in a changing environment. continuing the use of benner’s terms, application of the en protocol further requires skilled know-how and self-agency. nurses must possess the knowledge to implement the protocol and recognize their ability to impact patient outcomes either positively or negatively. middle tennessee state university 72 state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols references colaço, a.d. & nascimento, e. r. p. 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(2011). nursing research: generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice, 9th edition. philadelphia, pa: wolters kluwer health, lippincott williams, & wilkins. reeves, a., white, h., sosnowski, k., leveritt, m., desbrow, b., & jones, m. (2012). multidisciplinary evaluation of a critical care enteral feeding algorithm. nutrition &dietetics, 69(4), 242-249. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-0080.2012.01598.x shirey, m. r. (2013). lewin’s theory of planned change as a strategic resource. journal of nursing administration, 43(2), 69-72. sholomovich, l. & magnezi, r. (2017). tell me how pleased you are with your workplace, and i will tell you how often you wash your hands. american journal of infection control, 45(6), 677-681. singer, m., deutschman, c. s., seymour, c. w., shankar-hari, m., annane, d., bauer, m., … & angus, d. c. (2016). the third international consensus definitions for sepsis and septic shock (sepsis-3). the journal of the american medical association, 315(8), 801-810. doi: 10.1001/jama.2016.0287 soguel, l., revelly, j. p., schaller, m. d., longchamp, c., & berger, m. (2012). energy deficit and length of hospital stay can be reduced by a two-step quality improvement of nutrition therapy: the intensive care unit dietician can make a difference. critical care medicine, 40(2), 412-419. doi: 10.1097/ ccm.0b013e31822f0ad7 middle tennessee state university 74 state of the science: enteral nutrition protocols taylor, b., brody, r., denmark, r., southard, r., & byham-gray, l. (2014). improving enteral delivery through the adoption of the “feed early enteral diet adequately for maximum effect (feed me)” protocol in a surgical trauma icu. nutrition in clinical practice, 29(5), 639-648. doi: 10.1177/0884533614539705 middle tennessee state university 34 survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public katelyn elizabeth brooks abstract despite the innovations and emergence of digital and social media technologies, the influential agenda-setting theory developed by max mccombs and donald shaw in 1972 has remained relatively unchanged. many analysts still operate under the assumption that the media agenda has a greater influence on the public agenda. with the rise of social media, however, the possibility for reverse agenda-setting needs to be more seriously considered, especially in light of recent events surrounding the trump university lawsuit, the 2016 presidential election, and the relative success of the #nodapl protests. because of modern technological capabilities in social media, the basic premise of agenda-setting theory is no longer accurate. this paper serves as a critique of existing theoretical models of agenda-setting by analyzing recent developments in social media. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the assumption of agenda-setting theory that media influences the public agenda has become an outdated and inaccurate theory because of innovation within social media platforms. the majority of americans use social networking platforms, enabling them to post whatever thought comes to mind for friends, family, and strangers alike to view (perrin, 2015). two main types of media sources are social media and traditional news media. traditional news media, typically synonymous with cable news programs, are both older and less interactive than social media platforms found exclusively through internet-accessible devices. social media platforms have been made available to use at the tip of nearly everyone’s fingers through an influx of smartphones (smith, 2015). many traditional news sources have adapted to the smartphone by creating different applications (apps) for users to download. however, downloading separate news-source apps can be inconvenient to users due to their device’s storage capacity limits. limited storage and the versatile nature of smartphones lead users to seek that same storage-saving versatility in their apps and are twice as likely to use search engines and aggregators for news consumption (media insight project, 2014). unlike traditional media, social media platforms have capitalized on this, which is why, as of 2016, 62 percent of american adults receive much of their news from social media platforms (gottfried & shearer, 2016). in order to adapt to the convenience and efficiency of search engines and aggregators, social media platforms, like facebook, twitter, and snapchat have developed “trending stories.” snapchat, for example, has introduced “snap-stories,” which display news stories and historical events such as the 2016 presidential election and “live story” videos collected from the front lines in iraq (flynn, 2016). while traditional news mediums have attempted to adapt to the proliferation of digital media, they find that they are less capable of acting as gatekeepers for news information (nielson & sambrook, 2016). social media, compared to traditional news, has greater influence on the spread of information because it offers direct involvement with current issues (mitchell, gottfried, barthel & shearer, 2016; vu, 2014). recent examples of the public overpowering and forcing the media to redirect focus via social media includes traditional news networks’ attention given to the settlement of the fraud case against trump university (bbc news, nov. 2016), the 2016 presidential election 35 spring 2018 coverage (confessore & yourish, 2016), and protests to halt construction of the dakota access pipeline (rott & martin, 2016). because of increased civic engagement through social media, the premise of a media-influenced public agenda is no longer an accurate representation of american society. whereas communication theorists once argued that mass media set the public agenda, social media consistently proves that this is no longer the case. this paper serves as a critique of existing theoretical models of agenda-setting through recent developments in social media. developments in agenda-setting theory agenda-setting theory is consistently held as one of the most studied theories of mass communication since its inception with the 1972 chapel hill study by max mccombs and donald shaw (lycarião & sampaio, 2016). the basic premise of agenda-setting theory is that mass media influences a topic’s salience for the public. according to mccombs and shaw, the media “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (mccombs & shaw, 1972, p. 177). in the chapel hill study, mccombs and shaw provided evidence supporting the strong correlation between public and media agendas, concluding that the public agenda was more likely to adopt pronounced issues in the media as a reaction. the assumption that the public agenda is more likely to adopt issues from the media agenda was best exemplified through the watergate scandal in 1972. news sources were integral to keeping the public informed as the scandal unfolded, particularly the washington post’s journalists bob woodward and carl bernstein, whose investigative journalism left a lasting impact on the journalism industry (giuffo, 2001). by publishing updates on the watergate scandal, the washington post influenced the public agenda. after analyzing events like the watergate scandal, mccombs and shaw determined that every media sensation followed a similar pattern. they developed a formula that accurately depicted the relationship between media and public agenda: repeated reporting by media sources ➞ public reaction “public reaction” does not mean public agreement (mccombs & shaw, 1972). as seen in the watergate scandal, 57 percent of the public thought that nixon should survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public middle tennessee state university 36 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research be removed from office while 24 percent approved of him even as he resigned on august 8, 1974 (kohut, 2014). mccombs and shaw argued that media influences what is discussed, not how it is discussed or the various conclusions the public will infer about the events. media, however, is constantly evolving. at the time of the chapel hill study, television was controlled by only three channels; researchers reviewed the two largest of the three news broadcasts on different channels owned by different companies, as well as multiple newspapers and news magazines (mccombs & shaw, 1972). in comparison, modern technological capabilities allow for more than three channels to broadcast news and entertainment. according to the united states’ federal communications commission, as of november 2016 there are 1,781 full service television stations, as well as the daily creation of new internet websites devoted to both broad and specialized news topics. additionally, most media outlets are now available to people in the palm of their hands through handheld smartphones. these inventions and innovations were impossibly far-off to mccombs and shaw whose initial study helped developed agenda-setting theory. nevertheless, agenda-setting theory was never intended to be static; the theory is designed to be flexible. mccombs, shaw, and weaver (2014) have recently discussed need for orientation (nfo) and agendamelding as two new directions that can be explored relevant to agenda-setting theory. nfo is nearly as old as mccombs and shaw’s chapel hill study and was first introduced in 1973 by mccombs and weaver (mccombs & weaver, 1973). nfo is defined as “a combination of relevance and uncertainty” (mccombs, et al., 2014, p. 784), and posits that traditional news media ought to include information that is relevant and understood by a particular audience (mccombs & weaver, 1973). nfo states that to successfully dictate the public agenda, media must take the public’s context into consideration. without taking the public’s context into consideration, the information the media provides will be largely irrelevant (mccombs & weaver, 1973). for example, very few individuals in a suburban neighborhood in indiana are likely to care about food standards in portugal regardless of how often the media discusses them. unfortunately, there is little research on nfo and its interaction within agenda-setting theory. recent research includes matthes’ 37 spring 2018 scale, which is based on three dimensions of nfo: “nfo towards an issue; nfo towards specific aspects or frames of an issue; and nfo in regard to journalistic evaluations” (2006, p. 429). matthes’ scale differs from the earlier accepted two dimensions (relevance and uncertainty) by focusing more on relevance, facts of the issue, and the reporting of the issue and facts (matthes, 2016; chernov, valenzuela, & mccombs, 2011). matthes’ scale has since been validated in an experimental comparison of matthes’ three dimensions and earlier two dimensions (chernov, valenzuela, & mccombs, 2011). by accounting for how an issue is reported, matthes’ scale acknowledges the importance of the media source as it pertains to traditional media, but it does not explicitly account for messages shared through social media by friends and family or those not included in journalistic evaluations. despite the shift in dimensions, the primary concept remains that the media must provide information relevant to the public they are targeting. similarly, agendamelding reveals how closely correlated and aligned the public and media agendas are (mccombs, shaw & weaver, 2014), and is one of the most recent advances in agenda-setting theory. for the media to be successful in dictating the public agenda, “the correlation between media and public needs to have some reasonable level of agreement” (mccombs, shaw & weaver, 2014, p. 794). if the media can predict the audience’s degree of interest in public issues, then it could tailor its message, which would create a reverse agenda-setting effect. there are two major axes of agendamelding: vertical and horizontal. vertical media agenda-setting is that of the civic communities—i.e., it represents all members of those communities. horizontal media agenda-setting, on the other hand, represents personal communities; it gravitates towards personal interests. for example, 1930s nazi germany had a high correlation between public media (vertical axis) and personal media (horizontal axis) due to the firm restrictions on media that punished deviation (mccombs, shaw & weaver, 2014). according to mccombs, shaw, and weaver (2014), agendamelding can be condensed into a formula that blends civic community agendas, personal community agendas, and individual interests, experience, and beliefs: agenda community attraction (aca) = vertical media agenda setting correlation (squared) survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public middle tennessee state university 38 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research + horizontal media agenda setting (squared) + personal preferences the vertical media agenda-setting is the preliminary correlation for the social system correlation being measured. the horizontal media agenda-setting measures the correlation between individuals and more personalized media sources. horizontal media is impossible to measure because of its breadth of possible sources, but it can be estimated by determining what is not accounted for by vertical media. if both vertical and horizontal media correlations were 1.00, researchers could perfectly predict the salience of issues to the public. unfortunately, a perfect correlation is untenable since it is difficult to predict public interest (mccombs, shaw & weaver, 2014). more recently, researchers have been exploring the impact digital platforms have had across sub-disciplines of communication and increasingly in setting public agendas (morgan, shanahan & signorielli, 2015; hyun & moon, 2016; jeffres, 2015; lycarião & sampaio, 2016). specifically, lycarião and sampaio (2016) have attempted to reimagine agenda-setting theory as an interactional and cyclical process because of the recent impact and influence of digital communication. based on results from the 1972 chapel hill study, researchers believed that the media influenced the public agenda more often than the public influenced the media agenda (wu & coleman, 2009). today, however, hashtags, memes, videos, and pictures that are instantly sharable and find their way into the mainstream media can go viral and receive coverage on par with “real” news. in 2011, jaewon yang and jure leskovec tracked social media data (tweets, blog posts, and news media articles), and their “results hint that the adoption of quoted phrases tends to be much quicker and driven by a small number of large influential sites” (yang & leskovec, 2011, p. 185). thus, if an artifact is easily sharable, it has a greater potential to go viral. although agenda-setting theory has evolved since the chapel hill study by developing and expanding with the introduction of nfo and agendamelding, its premise has remained relatively unchanged. many analysts still operate under the assumption that the media agenda has a greater influence over the public agenda. the possibility of reverse agenda-setting is not denied by researchers but has not been adequately investigated. because of modern technological capabilities in social media, the basic premise of agenda-setting theory is no longer accurate. thus, 39 spring 2018 researchers should revisit agenda-setting theory to determine the extent of the shift of influence between the media and public. development in media because media technology is constantly changing and evolving, the chapel hill study is no longer an accurate reflection of modern news consumption. within the past 10 years, more and more people receive news information second-hand through social media platforms on a smartphone application. according to the pew research center, at least 64 percent of american adults owned a smartphone in 2015 (smith, 2015). additionally, of those adults, younger adults (ages 18 to 29), those with low household incomes and low levels of educational attainment, and non-whites are more likely to have a higher rate of dependence on their smartphone (smith, 2015). smartphone companies quickly adapted existing social media platforms like facebook onto their operating systems, thus solidifying the smartphone as a tool of connectivity and communication. additionally, according to a separate gallup poll in 2015, 44 percent of americans upgrade their phones approximately every two years when their cellphone contract expires, while 54 percent of people upgrade their phone when it stops working or becomes obsolete (swift, 2015). the technological boom turned the luxury item of a personal computer into a commonplace object which grew to connect the world digitally. unlike traditional media, social media platforms are not stable entities. myspace was launched in august of 2003 and was most popular between 2005 and 2008, but it was surpassed by facebook within a year after facebook launched publicly in 2006 (albanesius, 2009). to stay relevant, social media platforms must avoid stagnation. since 2012, facebook has updated its code twice a day to be as efficient as possible (protalinski, 2012). after its boom in popularity from 2008-2009, facebook has added video and text chat, live video streaming, a “marketplace” for users to sell unwanted items, and different “reactions” beyond just “liking” the post. platforms such as myspace and google+ are not as successful as facebook because they did not adapt quickly enough, whereas facebook has continued to grow in popularity because of its willingness to reinvent itself (albanesius, 2009; cantil, 2016). social media platforms must continue to adapt to the ever-evolving audience and user base to avoid becoming irrelevant like myspace or google+. survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public middle tennessee state university 40 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research facebook’s level of continued success is currently unprecedented. other social media platforms, however, have begun competing with facebook and with each other. examples of the evolution of social media technology can be seen in the constant introduction of new social media platforms. the first recognized social media site was six degrees, introduced in 1997. six degrees failed due to inadequate internet infrastructure, poor access to an internet connection, and an unreliable user-base. (boyd & ellison, 2007). similarly, in 2001, ryze—one of the earliest versions of online resume and job application websites—experienced early modest success because it was marketed toward business professionals rather than purely social relationships (boyd & ellison, 2007). linkedin, however, became more successful than ryze because of additional features that benefitted companies who used the linkedin platform (boyd & ellison). similarly, although myspace still exists and maintains users, it fell from prominence despite several re-design attempts (albanesius, 2009). in contrast, facebook was launched in 2004, made public in 2006, and has remained the most important major social networking platform (gottfried & shearer, 2016). facebook has maintained its user base for nearly a decade because it has avoided stagnation and obsolescence through constant platform updates. following facebook’s lead, there has been an explosion of new social media platforms, including instagram, snapchat, and twitter. the rise and fall of media platforms, however, also affects traditional media. traditional media has had to survive by remaining relevant to its existing audience, making itself available through emerging digital platforms, and by adapting to new and younger audiences whose primary form of media consumption occurs through the fluctuation of the social media landscape (nielson & sambrook, 2016). the inevitable adapt-or-die climate for media platforms can be explained through the concept of technological convergence. although researchers have traditionally used technological determinism to explain shifts in technology, technological convergence provides a more nuanced and accurate explanation of the processes technology and media undergo as they adapt to new audiences. for example, according to technological determinism, new media sources are created, mature, and then evolve to survive, while preexisting forms of media must adapt to the emergence of new forms (lehman-wilzig & cohen-avigdor, 2004). the natural 41 spring 2018 life-cycle of inventive and innovated media is comparable to biological functions, such as evolution (lehman-wilzig & cohen-avigdor, 2004). a new species (i.e., media invention/innovation) arrives and either competes for resources (i.e., the audience) or fills an empty ecological niche. technological convergence, however, complicates the evolutionary analogy by analyzing the changes the new and old media would undergo while competing and/or filling a niche (lehman-wilzig & cohen-avigdor, 2004). on a broader scale, this phenomenon is observable in the creation of interdisciplinary industries such as information and communication technology (hacklin & wallin, 2013). technological convergence argues that new media does not simply replace the preexisting media, but by virtue of its adaptations, it forces older forms to change. more traditional media sources, while having the advantage of being regarded as news-bearers, are not immune to becoming irrelevant as seen through audience consumption according to recent research studies (mitchell, gottfried, barthel & shearer, 2016; gottfried & shearer, 2016; nielson & sambrook, 2016). since the mass production of televisions, individuals have adopted a preference for learning news through a screen such as a television or a computer (mitchell, et al., 2016). according to the american press institute, as of 2014 the overwhelming majority of americans prefer to consume their news directly from news organizations (92 percent) and through television (87 percent). however, when the same poll was replicated in 2016, preference for receiving news through television fell to 57 percent (mitchell, et al., 2016). upon further analysis of 2016 data, there are significant discrepancies of source preference correlated with age. preference for traditional news platforms (television and print newspapers) is strongest in older audience members while online platforms are strongest with younger audience members (mitchell et al., 2016). more specifically within online news, social media has become increasingly more popular as an avenue for news consumption. in 2016, 62 percent of american adults received news via social media, an increase from a similar 2012 study which reported only 49 percent (gottfried & shearer, 2016). facebook is the most prominent social media site, reaching nearly 67 percent of u.s. adults, as well as the leader in social media news with about two-thirds of users getting their news via facebook (gottfried & shearer, 2016). market researchers predict that survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public middle tennessee state university 42 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research online news sources, will eventually surpass traditional news sources similar to how television surpassed print news sources (nielson & sambrook, 2016). as a result, the power of traditional media to function as news gatekeepers or agenda setters is waning with the consistent rise of new and evolving social media platforms. one reason social media platforms have drastically altered media, especially news, is that users are directly engaged with each other regardless of distance (mitchell, gottfried, barthel & shearer, 2016). they are no longer passive audience members simply reading or watching news being reported. while most adults still commonly share news by word of mouth, sharing news digitally becomes more frequent the easier it can be shared (mitchell, et al., 2016). users control the spread of news via their own social media page, which enables every user to act as a commentator. in other words, social media users become news reporters because of the nature of social media communication. currently, traditional news sources are in the beginning stages of recognizing and adapting to the shift of social media acting as gatekeepers of news by developing their own social media pages across various digital platforms (nielson & sambrook, 2016). a further development in the way social media affects traditional media outlets is the creation of news sources from digital platforms. these types of news sources can be categorized as digital pure players that focus primarily on building an audience to distribute through platforms like facebook and youtube (nielson & sambrook, 2016). examples of digital pure players include occupy democrats (nunberg, 2011) and tomi lahren (wendling, 2016). the newsworthiness of digital pure players stems directly from the fact that they exist exclusively on digital platforms. modern technology has created a digital landscape that would have been unimaginable to the agenda-setting theory creators in 1972. researchers, therefore, must account for the new possibilities created by new media platforms and evaluate their consequences in light of the theoretical status quo of agenda-setting theory. implications of developments because of social media’s ability to involve the public, traditional media is no longer able to set or control the public agenda because the audience now influences aggregators and algorithms1 (vu, 2014). civic engagement, for example, 1 social media relies on aggregators and algorithms that display content personalized for the user based on how the user interacts with prior content. figure 1: from google trends on december 16, 2016 43 spring 2018 has increased because users can easily post and respond to online petitions, calls for action, and virtual gatherings to show solidarity and to protest (yu, 2016). the lack of gatekeeping and increased civic engagement can be seen recently in three specific instances in ascending order of importance: the unsuccessful subconscious overshadowing of the trump university court settlement, the direction of presidential campaign issues, and the involvement in protests of the dakota access pipeline. on november 18, 2016, president-elect donald trump settled the fraud case against trump university for $25 million, which was reported by bbc news (bbc news, nov. 2016). that evening, vice president-elect mike pence attended a showing of hamilton: an american musical. following the performance, the actor playing aaron burr, brandon victor dixon, delivered a message to pence calling for the future trump administration to “uphold our american values and to work on behalf of all of us” (see mele & healy, 2016). the next day, on november 19, news stations covered donald trump’s tweets about the speech to mike pence, where he claimed that pence was “harassed” by the cast; then on november 20, trump tweeted that the cast and producers “should immediately apologize to mike pence for their terrible behavior” (bbc news, nov. 2016; mele & healy, 2016). despite the popularity of the hamilton incident, figure 1 demonstrates that the “trump university settlement” was searched using google2 more often than “hamilton cast to mike pence” at their respective peaks on november 19 and 20: 2 google, inc. provides information on the relative frequency of terms searched on google search engine. individuals can go to https://www.google.com/ trends/ and enter any term(s) into the “explore topics” search bar and the frequency relative to its peak and duration of google searches of the specific term(s), punctuation and capitalization included, will be created in either a line or cartesian graph depending on the amount of terms searched. survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public middle tennessee state university 44 in addition to a general google search, fox news and cnn coverage of both events were also examined because of their documented partisan biases (weatherly, petros & christopherson, 2007). when searching the fox news results using “trump university settlement site:foxnews.com” on google, 571 results appear (see appendix). in contrast, when searching the fox news results using “hamilton cast site:foxnews.com” on google, 3,560 results appear (see appendix). a similar disparity occurs on cnn’s website: 1,620 results appear for “trump university settlement site:cnn.com,” while 3,590 results appear for “hamilton cast site:cnn. com” (see appendix). while not as prominent on cnn, both conservative and liberal biased media appear to have endeavored to overshadow the trump university fraud case, thus attempting to influence the public agenda. despite fox news’s and cnn’s attempt to set the public agenda regarding the presidential election, the controversy surrounding the trump university fraud settlement was searched more because it was trending on social media (bbc news, nov. 2016; holt, 2016). in this instance, the premise of a media-controlled agenda failed. although the media did not actively attempt to withhold information, the incident supports the notion that traditional media no longer has a monopoly on setting public agendas since digital media allows for a broader dissemination of information. the media failing to influence the public agenda is not an anomaly anymore. throughout the presidential election, donald trump received a nearly endless amount of free attention because of his twitter account (confessore & yourish, 2016). trump used twitter as a platform and it received daily coverage. his twitter posts received mention in both the republican primary and presidential debates (see federal news service, 2016 for transcript). donald trump effectively set the election agenda through social media. his constant use of buzz words like “crooked hillary” and “make america great again” would receive more favorites and retweets on average than standard campaign rhetoric (mitchell, holcomb, & weisel, 2016). because of his effective use of twitter, trump controlled the media agenda, which attempted to control the public agenda. building on trump’s aggressive rhetoric toward hillary, news outlets devoted 19 percent of clinton’s coverage to varying controversies. overall, no less than 7 percent of total weekly coverage focused solely on varying facets of email scandal allegations. trump’s media coverage scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 45 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 46 survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public allotted only 15 percent of coverage to controversies including but not limited to the trump foundation, unreleased tax returns, avoiding federal taxes, system rigging allegations, and sexual misconduct (patterson, 2016). when examining social media sentiment in july 2016, from a sample size of 28,131 trump mentions, 8,113 (28.84 percent) were negative as opposed to clinton’s sample of 25,186 mentions which resulted in 5,721 (22.71 percent) negative sentiments (demers, 2016). synthesizing his forbes article, demers notes that while the media tried to push an agenda that devoted more time to clinton controversies, the public focused more on trump’s shortcomings (demers, 2016). this resulted from increased social media usage, providing almost everyone from presidential candidates to interested citizens a platform to voice their own opinions as well as engage with opposing views on a larger scale rather than interpersonally discuss agreements or disagreements based on media opinion. the #nodapl movement is the most important example of the three recent events because it displays the growing influence of reverse agenda-setting. the dakota access pipeline project is an attempt to build a pipeline approximately 1,172 miles to connect and transport crude oil from bakken and three forks production areas in north dakota to refineries in patoka, illinois. the project was announced publicly on june 25, 2014, and landowners along the intended pipeline route were provided informational hearings between august 2014 and january 2015. construction began early 2016 and was halted on december 4, 2016 on executive order by president obama, but construction resumed january 24, 2017 under executive order by president trump. the largest reported controversies surrounding the project involved potential environmental hazards and infringement on sacred native american territory (bbc news, aug. 2016). protests of the pipeline began with the construction, largely to protect native american sovereignty, specifically of local sioux tribes (martin, 2016). sacred stone camp was established in april 2016 by a standing rock sioux elder within the standing rock indian reservation as an act of protest. it was not until september 2016 that mainstream media began to provide significantly more coverage due to bulldozing of documented historic and sacred land and the violent retaliations of protestors by site security and militarized police spreading across social media platforms (manning, 2016; silva, 2016; bbc news, aug. 2016). the increase in public attention is further corroborated when examining google web search trends of “#nodapl” (the most commonly recognized reference for the dakota access pipeline protest). figure 2 shows that #nodapl’s initial peak lasted between september 4-10: scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 47 spring 2018 beyond just searching for #nodapl information, individuals unable to journey to sacred stone camp took part in protests via social media, specifically facebook. as an act of solidarity, facebook users encouraged one another to “check in” at standing rock indian reservation (kennedy, 2016). during the “check in” protest, #nodapl reached its highest salience as shown in figure 3: #nodapl did not obtain national attention until it began to trend on social media platforms, which inevitably helped set the agenda for traditional media. as a result, the reverse-agenda setting success of #nodapl demonstrates the potential influence social media will continue to exhibit as digital technologies improve and become more prevalent within society. middle tennessee state university 48 survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public conclusion as recent events have shown, agenda-setting theory as it currently exists requires important modifications. the trump university settlement versus hamilton cast and the 2016 presidential election media coverage displayed that the media was unsuccessful in directing the public’s attention to and from certain issues. similarly, the #nodapl movement displayed social media’s power to influence the media’s agenda. these three events are not unique or isolated from each other; they happened within the same year and had a significant impact on public discourse. like traditional media sources, media studies that rely on agenda-setting theory should evolve alongside the changing media landscape. the popularity and ubiquity of social media has reached unprecedented levels of influence, and it perpetually modifies itself to remain interesting and relevant to users (albanesius, 2009). because of these innovations in media and technology, the processes of determining and delivering news to the public by traditional news outlets are permanently altered and are subjected to future innovations and adaptations. thus, the assumption that traditional media is more influential in setting the public agenda is outdated and should be revised to more accurately represent the dynamism new media innovations have on news consumption. references albanesius, c. 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(2016). the relationship between passive and active non-political social media use and political expression on facebook and twitter. computers in human behavior, 58, 413-420. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 53 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 54 survival of the fittest: social media’s influence on the relationship between traditional media and the public appendix screenshots of compared search terms from fox news and cnn all screenshots in figure 4 were retrieved on december 16, 2016. i obtained these by typing the quoted phrases into google search engine and documented the results. i used the terms “trump university settlement” and “hamilton cast” as broad subject terms to have access to all relevant news articles and broadcast clips from specified sources. i limited the site each time by “site:” to only search on the news networks’ official sites. middle tennessee state university 108 incarcerated and pregnant: how societal attitudes affect the sentencing and treatment of pregnant inmates in rural tennessee mary de la torre abstract this ethnographic case study examines how southern society’s views on motherhood and criminal punishment when held by correctional staff and judges influence the sentencing and treatment of female inmates who are pregnant while incarcerated. the research was conducted at a county jail in rural tennessee. semi-structured interviews were conducted with a male and a female correctional officer, the jail administrator, the jail’s nurse, a judge from the county, and three inmates. the interviews were then transcribed and analyzed for dominant themes. nearly all the respondents held more traditional views on criminal punishment and motherhood. in addition, these views on motherhood, not the views on criminal punishment, had an impact on the sentencing of the pregnant inmates and how these inmate mothers were viewed by the staff. the inmates also appeared to internalize these views and to blame themselves for their incarceration. however, the inmates reported their prenatal care was good, so it did not appear to affect how they were treated. this study does have limitations, though, such as its small sample, the fact that housing pregnant inmates was a relatively new issue for this specific jail, and that the inmates’ responses may have been influenced by the presence of a prison authority. it is also just a snapshot of this small, rural area at this time, and therefore the findings cannot be generalized to other areas. however, this research is important because it suggests that certain societal attitudes in small, rural, southern areas when held by correctional staff and judges can influence pregnant inmates’ sentences and how they are viewed by the staff. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research over the past few decades, women have been one of the fastest growing populations under correctional supervision. between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women rose by nearly 700 percent. there was a total of 26,378 female inmates in 1980 and the total rose to 215,332 female inmates in 2014 (the sentencing project, 2015). specifically, in local jails, the female inmate population increased from 68,100 to 100,940 between 1999 and 2013, an increase of nearly 48 percent (minton, ginder, brumbaugh, smiley-mcdonald, and rohlof, 2015). the increase in the number of female inmates has led to another problem: the increase of inmates who are also mothers. two-thirds of incarcerated women have minor children (gilad and gat, 2013, p. 372); it is estimated that annually there may be anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 pregnant women in the nation’s jails and prisons (dignam and adashi, 2014, p. 14). this increase in incarcerated and pregnant women presents many challenges that our correctional system and even society at large are often not suited to face, such as additional medical costs, an increase of children living with aging grandparents or in foster care, and problems with battling stigma and constructing identity related to mothering and motherhood. literature review demographics of incarcerated mothers for the most part, incarcerated women belong to minority racial groups. many of these women have a low socioeconomic status, limited education, and are often under 40 years old. they have higher rates of substance abuse and mental health disorders than incarcerated men. they are also likely to have a history of abuse, specifically child abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse and domestic violence (laughlin, arrigo, blevins, and coston, 2008; vainik, 2008; kennedy, 2012; barnes and stringer, 2014). also, nearly 53 percent of female inmates in 2015 were incarcerated for property or drug crimes (carson and anderson, 2016). incarcerated mothers share many of the same demographics as the general female inmate population. however, incarcerated mothers are more likely than other prisoners to be incarcerated for a non-violent drug or property crime. in addition, incarcerated mothers tend to have multiple children, with the majority having two to three children. often, these mothers live with their children as the child’s primary caregiver before being incarcerated: estimates indicate that 64.3 percent of state-level incarcerated 109 spring 2018 mothers lived with their children prior to arrest, and 31 percent of those mothers lived alone with their children prior to arrest (laughlin et al., 2008; kennedy, 2012). the challenges of mothering while incarcerated being an incarcerated mother presents many challenges. one of the most researched challenges is how incarcerated women construct their identity as a “mother.” in this study, the majority of the research is interview-based, and findings revealed that even though the women were incarcerated, they still viewed themselves as mothers. some respondents simply reflect an understanding that they are “bad” mothers and feel guilt or shame over their actions. however, most incarcerated mothers try to find new ways to construct their identity as a mother (enos, 2001; ferraro and moe, 2003; barnes and stringer, 2013; couvrette, brochu, and plourde, 2016; aiello and mcqueeney, 2016; easterling and feldmeyer, 2017). maintaining contact with children, having a good relationship with the child’s caregiver, and making plans to reunite with their children after release were important ways to construct a “good” mother identity (enos, 2001; ferraro and moe, 2003; barnes and stringer, 2014). in addition, couvrette, brochu, and plourde (2016) found in their interviews with substance-abusing, incarcerated mothers that they had created a new identity of the “deviant good mother.” though most of the women felt that “good” mothers do not use drugs, some felt that they could still be a “good” mother and use substances such as alcohol and drugs. some even reported that their substance use made them more relaxed and open to their children. enos (2001) found that incarcerated mothers believe substance use did not interfere with their ability to be a mother, and that crimes such as shoplifting or fraud were ways to gain resources for their children. aiello and mcqueeney (2016) reveal that incarcerated mothers also construct their identities by embracing and distancing themselves from stigma. to distance themselves, they separate their criminal acts from their identities of being a mother. in another attempt to distance themselves from the stigma, they used “defensive othering” to deflect the stigma onto other incarcerated mothers. this allowed them to claim that they were “better” at mothering than other incarcerated mothers, which is similar to what enos (2001) found in her study. finally, easterling and feldmeyer (2017) focused their research specifically on white inmate mothers in a rural area in kentucky and found that living in a rural area may amplify incarcerated and pregnant middle tennessee state university 110 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research one’s “spoiled identity.” since rural areas are smaller, when an individual becomes incarcerated, it can be widely known; therefore, incarcerated mothers are likely to be recognized and faced with informal sanctions and stigmas from their local communities. another challenge faced by incarcerated mothers is arranging care for their children. after becoming incarcerated, mothers have to arrange care for their children, especially if they were the primary caregiver. often, they arrange for their children to live with friends or family members, specifically grandparents (enos, 2001; mignon and ransford, 2012; kennedy, 2012). enos (2001) found that incarcerated mothers express concern over whether or not caregivers were suitable, and some inmate mothers even report that the caretakers are hostile towards them and work to limit the mother’s contact with their child. caregiver hostility can make it hard for incarcerated mothers to keep in contact with their children. maintaining contact with children has been found to be an important way to maintain one’s identity as a mother. the most common ways to keep in contact are writing letters and making phone calls. however, hostile caretakers, lack of money for phone calls or stamps, long travel times to facilities, and lack of interest from the children can all prevent women from keeping in contact with their children (enos, 2001; flavin, 2009; mignon and ransford, 2012). maintaining custody of their children can be a special challenge for incarcerated mothers. the adoption and safe families act (asfa) of 1997 required termination of parental rights (tpr) proceedings to be brought forth if “the child has been in foster care for fifteen of the most recent twenty-two months” or “the court has determined that the child is ‘an abandoned infant.’” (lee, genty, and laver, 2010) after reviewing case files, lee et al. (2010) found that “tpr was granted in 81.5 percent of the cases involving parents incarcerated due to drug-related offenses” and “tpr was granted in 92.9 percent of the cases in which the mother was incarcerated” (p. 81). pregnant inmates also face unique challenges: often, pregnant inmates are at an increased risk for a complicated pregnancy. histories of health problems related to substance abuse, stds, and psychiatric disorders are particularly impactful on their pregnancy. low birth weight is more of a problem amongst babies born to 111 spring 2018 pregnant inmates than babies born to mothers living in the community (mertens, 2001; parker, 2005; sufrin, kolbi-molinas and roth, 2015). this is especially true for babies born to pregnant inmates who are in their 30s (hollander, 2005). pregnant inmates also need specialized care such as prenatal care or nutritional diets. however, they do not always receive this care, as there are no laws requiring it, and even in states that require incarcerated mothers to receive prenatal care, the care is not always adequate (vainik, 2008; parker, 2015). addressing the challenges of mothering while incarcerated recently, there has been more research on the programs and policies that can address the difficulties incarcerated mothers face. one program receiving attention is prison nurseries. prison nurseries are programs that allow incarcerated mothers to live with their newborn babies for a set amount of time, on average 12 to 18 months, and the program is designed to strengthen the bond between mother and child. the nurseries are located in a separate area, away from the general prison population. typically, mothers eligible for this program are those who have given birth while incarcerated, have committed a non-violent crime, and have a relatively short sentence. research has shown that these programs can help both the baby and the mother because it allows them time to bond and become attached, which can be important for the baby’s development. additionally, the program improves the mothers’ mental health and lowers their recidivism rates (gilad and gat, 2013; elmalak, 2015). as of 2015, there were nine prison nurseries operating in california, illinois, indiana, ohio, nebraska, new york, south dakota, washington, and west virginia (elmalak, 2015). prison nurseries also allow inmates to spend time with their newborn babies before being separated, which can be very important for their mental and emotional health. forced separation from their babies after giving birth can be damaging for some inmates. in a study by chambers (2009), incarcerated mothers forcibly separated from their babies reported that they felt positive emotions up until the birth. after the birth, they reported feelings of loss and that a piece of them was missing. however, they tried to maintain a connection with the child even while he or she was not physically there by focusing on the positive emotions and experiences with their baby and thinking about the reunion they would someday have incarcerated and pregnant middle tennessee state university 112 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research with them. however, there is backlash against prison nurseries: opposing arguments suggest that prison is not a stable environment to raise a child and that when the child is taken away, it could be detrimental to the mother’s mental health. moreover, nursery programs are not applicable to children born while the mother was not incarcerated (gilad and gat, 2013; elmalak, 2015). campbell and carlson (2012) interviewed correctional administrators in eight states that had prison nurseries and 20 states that did not. the authors found that of the correctional administrators in states that did not have a prison nursery program, receptiveness to the idea varied. seventy-five percent of correctional administrators in the south were unreceptive to the idea of prison nursery programs. the correctional administrators from the northeast and west were generally more favorable of the idea. parenting classes have also been shown to help pregnant inmates. in their three-year evaluation of the turning points parenting curriculum at a correctional facility in missouri, urban and burton (2015) found that the program was effective in improving the mothers’ parenting knowledge and their parenting confidence. loper and tuerk (2011) gave an eight-session parenting class to incarcerated mothers that focused on parenting stress and improving communication with children and caregivers. while there was a significant dropout rate, they found that the mothers who participated in the program “reported reduced parenting stress, improved alliance with home caregivers, increased letter-writing, and reduction of mental distress symptoms” (p. 89). there are also programs specifically designed for pregnant inmates such as the doula birth support program (schroeder and bell, 2005) or the women and infants at risk program which focuses on pregnant inmates who have substance abuse problems (siefert and pimlott, 2001). southern societal views on motherhood and punishment a significant part of the research on incarcerated mothers focuses on correctional facilities in the north and western parts of the united states (siefert and pimlott, 2001; mignon and ransford, 2012; aiello and mcqueeney, 2016). southern prisons are not often found in the research, but they do represent an important region of the country because incarceration rates are higher in the southern u.s. in 2015, the average incarceration rate per 100,000 u.s. residents age 18 and older was 860. however, southern states including georgia, alabama, arkansas, louisiana, 113 spring 2018 and mississippi had an incarceration rate of over 1,000, and states like kentucky, tennessee, and florida had incarceration rates in the 900 range (kaeble and glaze, 2016). in addition, the bureau of justice reported that southern states, including the district of columbia, accounted for 50% of the local jail inmate population (minton et al., 2015). moreover, the south has been found to have a distinct culture that is often more traditional in its views on a number of subject such as crime and punishment. hurlbert (1989) analyzed general social survey data to determine if southerners held distinct, more traditional attitudes about certain subjects such as the use and approval of violence and force, politics, women, race, and moral/ religious obligations. southerners were more likely to hold more traditional, conservative views in regards to religion, politics, and racial issues. however, views on the use of violence and force, and views on women in the workplace were found to be somewhat less distinct when compared between southerners and non-southerners. in regard to women’s gender roles, rice and coates (2005) found that while attitudes about women’s gender roles have become more egalitarian over time, southerners were still somewhat more traditional in their view of women’s gender roles than non-southerners. in addition, people living in rural areas were found to be more conservative on these views than people living in urban areas. however, while views about women and politics or women in the workplace may vary, motherhood is viewed in a similar way in both the south and the non-south. fulfilling one’s role as a mother is seen as an important part of a woman’s identity. “good” mothers are caring, loving, and nurturing to their children. “good” mothers are selfless, sacrificing everything they have for their children, and put their children’s needs and wants above their own. they are also the primary caretaker of their children and they are always available for their children, both emotionally and physically. finally, they refrain from actions that are associated with “bad” mothers, such as criminal activity, putting work above one’s children, or not meeting their children’s needs and wants (roberts, 1995; enos, 2001; ferraro and moe, 2003; aiello and mcqueeney, 2016). yet, this definition of a “good” mother is shaped around the experiences of white, heterosexual, married, and economically advantaged women. women with low socioeconomic status, women of color, uneducated women, single women, et cetera tend to fall into the category of a incarcerated and pregnant middle tennessee state university 114 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “bad” mother because they do not meet the standards of what a “good” mother is (roberts, 1995; ferraro and moe, 2003; flavin, 2009; kennedy, 2012). incarcerated mothers tend to fall into many of the categories associated with “bad” mothers, and this negative categorization can adversely affect their punishments. mothers who commit crimes have broken both the law and the societal norms of good mothering. mothers who commit crimes and belong to dominant group categories are believed to be more rehabilitative. thus, these women are more likely to get lenient punishments that allow them to stay with their children, who are used as a form of social control. by contrast, mothers who commit crimes and do not fall into dominant group categories are more likely to receive harsher punishments. they are viewed as selfish, dangerous, unfit to be a mother, and less likely to be rehabilitative. therefore, instead of receiving a punishment that allows for mothering options, women who are not members of dominant groups are more likely to end up incarcerated without the option to mother their children (roberts, 1995; kennedy, 2012). the present study the present study is a qualitative case study. though it is not a true ethnography, it is ethnographic in nature because it examines how traditional southern societal views when held by members of a small, rural criminal justice system including correctional officers, jail administrators, nurses, and judges influence the sentencing and treatment of female inmates who are pregnant while incarcerated. it focuses mainly on southern society’s views on motherhood and criminal punishment. the purpose of the present study is to address gaps in previous research on incarcerated pregnant women. interviews with correctional officers, jail administrators, nurses, and judges, rather than only inmates, are used to illustrate how southern societal views on motherhood and criminal punishment affect the sentencing and treatment of women who are pregnant while incarcerated. moreover, this study focuses on a facility in the rural south, an area where there have been few studies on incarcerated pregnant women. methods research site this research was conducted at a county jail in rural tennessee. as of the 2010 115 spring 2018 census, this county had a population of less than 20,000, and roughly 98 percent of the population identified as white. around 10 percent of the population held a bachelor’s degree or higher with nearly 75 percent of the population reporting being a high school graduate or higher. it was estimated that about 20-30 percent of the population lived in poverty (united states census bureau, 2016). respondents the sample consisted of two inmates who were pregnant at the time of the interview, one inmate who had been pregnant during her incarceration and had recently given birth, the jail administrator, a female correctional officer, a male correctional officer, the jail’s nurse, and a judge from the county. it is relevant to interview these selected members of the criminal justice system because they are important in making decisions and policies that affect the lives of inmates who are pregnant at the time of incarceration. the judge is responsible for the sentencing decisions, the jail administrator is responsible for creating institutional policies and running the jail, the nurse provides the inmates with medical care, and the correctional officers are constantly in contact with the inmates and are responsible for carrying out the institutional policies. it was relevant to interview the inmates because they could provide insight into how they viewed their punishment versus how these members of the criminal justice system viewed their punishment, and they could provide insight into the treatment they received from these various criminal justice employees. housing pregnant inmates was a somewhat new issue for this jail, so specific programs for pregnant inmates were not yet in place. in addition, there were no parenting classes, or nursery programs. therefore, i was unable to research further if southern societal attitudes had an influence on programs at the jail. all the respondents were white and had lived in the southeast for nearly their whole lives. most of the respondents described themselves as working or middle class. for education, most of the correctional staff had some college education while the inmates had their ged or were working on it. what is most important to note is that the correctional staff and the inmates had similar demographics. the judge, however, was older than most of the correctional staff and the inmates, had more education, and had been working in the criminal justice system for a longer time. as a noted limitation, this study had a very small sample, and the sample was incarcerated and pregnant middle tennessee state university 116 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research not very diverse. in addition, this study only looks at one small, rural area. therefore, it is not representative of the larger society nor is it generalizable to other areas; however, that was not the goal of this study. procedures permission was obtained from both the university and the jail to do this study. semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. the interviews were voluntary, and the respondents received no compensation for agreeing to be interviewed. all respondents had to sign a written informed consent form before being interviewed or recorded. no one refused to be interviewed or recorded. it is possible that inmate responses may have been affected by the presence of an authority figure in the room. for example, when the inmates were being interviewed, the jail administrator was also in the room, and it may have affected their responses. they tended to look at her before answering questions about the facility or the staff, and even though she encouraged them to be honest, her presence may have affected their responses. the interviews ranged from 10-25 minutes long and were audio-recorded. notes were also taken during the interview. the interviews were then transcribed and read over in order to identify dominant themes. significant statements were selected from each of the interview transcripts. similar statements were then grouped into categories and read over again to find dominant themes. the respondents were informed that they would not be identified by name in order to keep their responses confidential. therefore, in describing their responses, initials were assigned as identifiers for inmates. the initials do not correspond to respondents’ real names. results after reviewing and analyzing the interviews, a few dominant themes emerged. each is discussed below. traditional views on motherhood one of the dominant themes was that the views on motherhood held by the respondents were very similar to the traditional, dominant views on motherhood. there was a strong emphasis on being selfless, loving and caring for one’s child, and being responsible for the child and providing for it. inmate a.b. described being a “good” mother as “being there, taking care of it, not being in jail.” when asked if 117 spring 2018 she felt jail hindered her ability to mother, she replied, “it does because the child’s not with you, but other than that no. you can still give your child love in jail.” however, while she felt that one could still love her child while in jail, she did appear to recognize that being in jail was not associated with being a “good” mother. inmate three held similar ideas of what a “good” mother was. she stated, “i guess to be a good mom you. . . you love your kids. you take care of them, you know. just do whatever it is that they need.” inmate c.d. did not really elaborate on what being a “good” mother meant to her, but she did state, “a lot of times you don’t know what being a mom is until you have to do something like this.” the correctional staff and judge held similar views on what makes a “good” mother. the female correctional officer stated, “my view of being a mother is being loving, nurturing, keeping a child safe, keeping stability with a child, and just teaching it the right thing about life, and loving it.” the male correctional officer described “good” mothering as “being there till they’re 18, feeding ’em, clothing ’em, bathing ’em, making sure they have the things that they need.” the jail administrator and the nurse emphasized that motherhood was about being selfless and putting your child first. the nurse even stated, “i could not imagine putting myself first, let alone carrying a baby, and knowing [that i was using drugs].” finally, after speaking about his own mother, the judge stated that a mother was someone who nurtures others. these definitions of what a “good” mother is falls in line with our society’s idealized vison of motherhood. there are many women, though, who cannot live up this idea of what a good mother should be because this vision of motherhood is based on the experiences of mothers who belong to dominant groups in society. however, this has become the standard for all mothers, regardless of their differences. the role of choice another dominant theme was the role of choice, which was heavily emphasized. inmates were responsible for the choices that lead to them going to jail, and because of their choices, they did not know what being a mother really was like. when talking about her thoughts on women being pregnant and incarcerated, the jail administrator replied, “i don’t understand how someone can be so selfish.” incarcerated and pregnant middle tennessee state university 118 she later explained that one of the inmates could possibly get out before her baby was born, and when discussing this, she noted, “and that late in the pregnancy i know—i mean not a hundred percent but given her history—that she’ll go back to using.” she also described an incident where one of the inmates felt the baby kick and thought she had broken a rib. the jail administrator attributed this to the inmate’s drug use. she stated, “i’m going to assume that with their history that they abused with the other pregnancies, so they don’t know what actually being pregnant feels like.” the nurse shared similar ideas. she said, “obviously as soon as they do jail time, they’re gonna go right back out to do the same things.” she even noted that, while she had never experienced an addiction, “if i was to get a charge . . . i would learn my lesson now to one, stop drugs, or, two, get a hysterectomy, or my tubes tied.” this seemed to imply that she felt the women were not stopping their drug use out of choice rather than because of their addiction. the female correctional officer was blunt with her answers. she replied, “it’s their choice when they chose to do that drug and were pregnant with that child.” she also stated that these women “don’t know how to be mothers.” she then discussed an incident where she was talking with one of the pregnant inmates, and when the inmate stated that she loved her children, the female correctional officer replied back that if the inmate loved her child, then why was she “feeding it meth?” she said that the inmate had no response to that question. the male correctional officer also noted that choice played a role, but his answers were less blunt than those of the female correctional officer. he stated, “i guess it’s just what you’re doing is what brings you to jail . . . ’cause obviously if they were doing the right things, they probably wouldn’t be here anyway.” in addition, while he did state that he was not sure the babies would receive everything they needed if the women were not in jail, he did not explicitly state that these women did not know how to be mothers. finally, the judge stated that many, but not all, people addicted to drugs tended to care more about their addiction than other things. however, he did recognize that other factors may be contributing to the addiction instead of just choice. even the inmates themselves stated that it was their fault they were in the situation they were in. when asked about what she thought of her sentence, inmate a.b. stated, “it’s my own fault too, so i can’t really say that it’s not fair when it is.” inmate scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 119 spring 2018 middle tennessee state university 120 incarcerated and pregnant e.f. noted, “well, i don’t like it, but it’s my own fault i’m here.” this way of thinking falls in line with our society’s emphasis on individualism. instead of being products of their environment, people are seen as masters of their fate. instead of looking at their circumstances or their environment, the correctional staff in particular were quick to blame the inmates. while it is true that they chose to take the drugs, the correctional staff failed to consider any underlying problems that may be contributing to that decision. these women are economically disadvantaged, have little education, and live in a poor, rural area where there are not many opportunities. in addition, one of the inmates stated that she had depression and anxiety, so mental health issues may be an influencing factor. the judge was the only one who noted the possibility of underlying mental health issues as a source of these women’s drugs use. he stated, “a lot of the folks i see in court are self-medicating some underlying mental health issue, mamas included.” in addition, this reinforcement of individualistic ideas and ideas that the inmates are not fit to be mothers may be internalized by the inmates. they stated that they felt it was their own fault for being in jail, and inmate a.b. and inmate e.f. even reported that they felt looked down upon, though they did not state who they felt stigmatized by. harsher view on sentences overall, the inmates felt that the sentences were fair, while the correctional staff felt that they needed to be somewhat harsher, though there was mention of a need for rehabilitation. two of the inmates had been sentenced, and they felt that considering all the circumstances, their sentences were “fair.” one of the inmates even described her sentence as “god’s way of telling me to sit still and listen” and that she “needed this.” the jail administrator stated, “sometimes i feel [the sentence] isn’t harsh enough.” she went on to discuss one of the inmates who had violated her probation. her sentence was to serve the remainder of her previous 11 months and 29 days sentence, and she could possibly be released before her baby was born. the jail administrator did not think this was harsh enough, because the inmate had been a repeat drug offender and used while she was pregnant. when asked whether she felt the punitive sentences for pregnant inmates were sufficient, the female correctional officer replied, “just put it this way, they scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 121 spring 2018 wouldn’t want me to be the judge. because i would lay them down probably longer than he does.” however, she also felt that some kind of rehabilitation was needed. she said, “let’s get some help to get them ready for society, to get their minds reset, their hearts reset, a work ethic programmed.” the nurse also felt sentences should be stricter, and specifically mentioned how one of the inmates had been a repeat drug user even while pregnant. when talking about sentences, the male correctional officer noted that “some’s fair and some’s not near enough,” and that even though inmates were human, he felt that inmates, in general, had too many privileges, such as television. the judge did not call for stricter or lesser punishments. he recognized that the system did have flaws, but he called our criminal justice system “the fairest.” he also noted that sentences could be beneficial “at some level,” but being in jail or even being in rebab did not always fix the underlying problems. traditional attitudinal views toward criminal punishment and the tough-oncrime emphasis often found in the south could explain why most of the correctional staff felt that sentences should be harsher and why there was less emphasis on rehabilitation. however, as seen from the jail administrator’s comments, the nurse’s comments, and the female correctional officer’s comments, this view of sentences needing to be harsher appears to be related more to the fact that the inmates did drugs while they were pregnant instead of simply that they did drugs. these women not only broke the law, but by using drugs while pregnant, they also broke societal norms of what a “good” mother should do. using drugs while pregnant was seen as a selfish decision that unnecessarily endangered the child. this appears to be considered an even more serious offense than drug use alone, and thus, they deserved harsher punishments. for example, when she was asked about her view on criminal punishment in general, the nurse stated that she had a “harder time on dealing with the child abuse problems that they have and the drug abuse [and] trying to get them on the right path as opposed to them coming and being a repeat offender in jail.” caring for the child the care the pregnant inmates received at this facility included obstetrician (ob) appointments, prenatal vitamins, milk with each meal, an extra mat for comfort, a snack of a peanut butter sandwich, a banana, and a milk before bedtime, and emergency care if needed. the care and treatment that the pregnant inmates middle tennessee state university 122 incarcerated and pregnant received was described by inmate a.b. as “real good.” inmate c.d. also felt that she received good care and was treated fairly by the staff. however, inmate e.f. indicated they were “treated like inmates.” the correctional staff all felt that the pregnant inmates received really good care, even stating that it was probably better than they would have received outside of jail. the male correctional officer stated, “i think they probably get better medical attention here than they do on the streets if they were, you know, doing for their selves.” even the judge felt that being in jail was “the only real plausible possibility they have of staying clean during the course of their pregnancy, of getting the healthcare that they need during the course of their pregnancy, and of having a child that’s born without the impact and long-term, potentially, effects of being a drug addicted baby when it’s born.” it almost seemed like the correctional staff and the judge felt they were doing the pregnant inmates a favor by keeping them there. however, it appeared that this care was given more to benefit the child instead of the mother. while it also helps keep the mother healthy, the extra snack and milk, the vitamins, and the ob appointments all relate to the health and wellbeing of the child. although the inmates are viewed as unfit mothers, this does not appear to affect the care they receive, despite the fact that the care is intended more for the child than the mother. child’s interests > the mother’s interests another dominant theme found was that the child’s interests were greater and more important than the mother’s interests. there seemed to be an emphasis on protecting the child and making sure the child was healthy. for the female correctional officer, “it’s about that child that’s growing inside of them that they’re wrecking. it didn’t even ask to be there. it doesn’t have a choice, so somebody has got to take care of those babies.” the female correctional officer considered children to be a “gift from god,” and she felt that by incarcerating the pregnant inmates “they’re saving the child’s life so that child can be healthy.” she also recommended taking some reactive approaches to protecting the children. since the mothers were seen as unfit to have their children and the foster care system moved them around too much, the female correctional officer recommended building an orphanage and having “good people” run it. the jail administrator also felt that the child should come first. she said she was “very protective of children,” and she felt that an scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 123 spring 2018 inmate’s baby would be safer if the inmate stayed in jail until she had it. while she recommended parenting classes to help the mothers, the emphasis seemed to be on protecting the child and its interests. the nurse stated, “if you come here pregnant, it is probably better to stay here to finish out your pregnancy than to send them back out and continue doing the drug abuse and have a nas [neonatal abstinence syndrome] baby.” she even spoke about a preventative measure to protect unborn children: the local health department had teamed with the jail to provide birth control rods to inmates who wanted one. good for three years, this prevented the mother from potentially having another child in jail. the male correctional officer also felt that jail was the best place for pregnant drug users. he said, “that kid is probably gonna [sic] be born addicted and may or may not make it if she wasn’t in here. i’m not saying that that’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. i think it’s the best thing for them.” the judge stated that he considered the impact that releasing the mother would have on the unborn child, and he felt that even though housing pregnant inmates increased costs, it was worth it if it helped the mother and the child. the child was seen as innocent and the respondents felt that its interests should come before the mothers. the correctional staff and the judge felt like they were supposed to be protectors of this child since the mother was unfit to. although there was some mention of actions that could be taken to help the mother like parenting classes or birth control, there was more of an emphasis of making sure the child was safe, healthy, and protected as seen from the quotes above. with the mother being considered unfit and a “bad” mother by societal standards, it was up to “good people” like the correctional staff and judge to ensure that the baby was cared for and protected from its mother’s addiction. social location finally, there was a contrast found between the male respondents (the judge and male correctional officer) and the female respondents (the jail administrator, the nurse, and the female correctional officer). the male respondents tended to be more distant and less critical. they did not condone the actions of the inmates, but they were not as harsh as the female respondents in their criticisms of the inmates and the inmates’ actions. the judge, for example, tried to weigh all sides in his responses middle tennessee state university 124 incarcerated and pregnant and explain both his thoughts as well as other possible explanations. the male correctional officer even stated, “we don’t care that they’re pregnant and they’re in jail and ‘oh, she’s a bad mom.’ i mean the kid can’t help it, and like i said, people make mistakes. i mean they’re still human.” he also tended to use phrases like “i guess” or stated that not everyone agreed with him, or that something may or may not be the right thing to do. the female correctional staff respondents tended to be more blunt and harsher in their responses than the male respondents. they also appeared to be more critical of the pregnant inmate’s actions, such as when they stated it was the inmate’s choice and that they were not as fit to be mothers and when they stated that they believed the punishments should be harsher, specifically for the inmates who have repeatedly tested positive for drugs while pregnant. also, they were more invested in the lives of the pregnant inmates and their children than the male respondents. the female correctional officer felt that she was a “counselor” and a “mother figure” to the female inmates. the jail administrator stated that she was “very protective” of children, and she was worried about what would happen to the baby if the inmate was to get released before it was born. the jail nurse was very emotional in her response about women who were incarcerated and pregnant, because her adopted daughter was born to an addicted mother. she wished that the inmates would “concentrate on being pregnant instead of drugs.” the reason for these differences between the male respondents and the female correctional staff respondents may be due to their social location. the female correctional staff respondents have a social location that is more similar to the inmates’ social locations. first, all the female respondents were mothers. they may feel stronger about the inmate’s actions because they have children of their own, and they would not want their children to be exposed to drugs like the inmates’ children. in addition, the female respondents are white, have similar socioeconomic backgrounds, and have grown up in the southeast all their lives, similar to the female inmates. they also interact more with the female inmates than the judge or the male correctional officer. they have a more developed relationship with the pregnant inmates which may have influenced their responses. in addition, they have conflicting roles. the female correctional staff have a professional side that has to be tough scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 125 spring 2018 and stoic and neutral, but they also have a mothering side that is concerned about the babies of these pregnant inmates. however, even though they may feel stronger about this issue, it does not affect how they treat the inmates, and they said they would not want to treat them any differently. conclusion overall, there were more traditional views on criminal punishment and motherhood were found among nearly all the respondents. in addition, the views on motherhood appeared to have an impact on the sentencing of the pregnant inmates and how these inmates were looked at by the staff. though they had more traditional views on criminal punishment, these did not seem to have much of an effect on the sentences or how the inmates were viewed. however, these views on motherhood did not appear to negatively affect how they were treated by the staff because all three of the inmates reported that the care they received was “good.” these views also appeared to be internalized by the women and had an impact on their identity because they blamed themselves and even reported feeling stigmatized. this research is significant because it suggests that certain societal attitudes, when held by correctional staff and judges, can influence pregnant inmates’ sentences and how they are viewed by the staff. however, as stated already, these societal attitudes do not appear to have a “negative” impact on the mothers’ treatment, but this may have been because the child’s interests were considered more important than the mothers.’ what is especially interesting are the background similarities between the inmate mothers and the female correctional staff, and the stark differences in the constructions of drug-using, pregnant inmates as “bad mothers.” given the reliance on “choice” as the only explanation for women’s drug use while pregnant, structural factors that constrained their choices were not considered. from the female correctional staffs’ perspectives, if they could be “good” non-drug using mothers, then any women like them could and should be able to do so. this suggests that attitudes toward inmate mothers (and perhaps fathers) hinder the offering of parental programming and rehabilitation goals/efforts. to address the limitations of this study, future studies could include more research sites including county jails and state prisons in other southern states. it could also look at both the rural south and the urban south to see if different middle tennessee state university 126 incarcerated and pregnant attitudes are prevalent that may affect the study. in addition, to make the study more representative, a larger sample could be gathered from each research site and include respondents who are more diverse in race, socioeconomic status, education level, and other factors. it is possible that with a larger, diverse sample collected from the urban south, future studies would produce different findings due to the possibility of the less traditional societal views being found in these areas and among a more diverse group of people. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student 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(2008). “the reproductive and parental rights of incarcerated mothers.” family court review, 46, 670-687. retrieved from http://www.lexisnexis.com the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 73 the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime allison haslett abstract this paper explores the islamic state’s form of government as a political-religious totalitarian regime. this new classification is derived from an in-depth analysis of the state’s revolutionary transformation from a group of radicalized sunni muslims into an entirely unique, organized, and global terrorist organization with a totalitarian foundation. the state utilizes common totalitarian tropes in its agenda and ideology, practice of total control, recruitment, destruction of history, and symbolism. furthermore, analysis and translation of the ideological view of the writings by political theorists dostoevsky, hoffer, and arendt expand on these tropes, providing additional support for the state’s classification as a political-religious totalitarian regime. because of the islamic state’s status as a global threat, both defining and understanding this new classification are essential; however, in order to know how to address this threat, it must first be understood. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2021 over the past ten years, the media has been dominated by discussion surrounding the islamic state of iraq and syria (isis) as a revolutionary radical islamic force that presents a global threat to democracy. while not completely incorrect, this depiction fails to present a comprehensive perspective by excluding the mass movement, religious indoctrination, and political ideology of isis or, as it is now known, the islamic state. the state is unique in its ability to unify religion and politics to establish a strong totalitarian state, making clear the emergence of a new type of government—the political-religious totalitarian regime. in order to evaluate the current practices and predict the future movements of any political regime, one must first look to the foundation from which it emerged. for the islamic state, this involves a centuries old conflict between shia and sunni muslims. the shia-sunni divide occurred after the death of the prophet muhammad in 632 a.d. when dispute arose over who should be his successor (salamah, 1991). the sunnis held that muhammad did not have a rightful heir, so the next leader should be elected. the sunnis chose abu bakr to succeed muhammad (salamah, 1991). the shia differed, believing that only allah can choose the leader so all successors must be descendants of muhammad’s family (salamah, 1991). this religious, ideological divide was the primary reason for hostility towards the leaders put forth by each group, and with the instilment of a shia leader in iraq, the disenfranchised sunnis felt “denied any role in the new iraq” (griffin, 2016, p. 1). as a result of being systematically “dismissed from their jobs in the armed forces, intelligence agencies and broad sectors of the civilian administration,” nearly half a million sunnis were left with nothing (griffin, 2016, p. 1). many of the rejected sunnis were trained for combat and began to seek retribution, aiming to restore the balance of power all while unknowingly creating the foundation for a future, radicalized mass movement (gerges, 2018). the formation of the islamic state was marked by constant evolution through the divergence from various terrorist cells. the pivotal separation that directly led to the creation of the islamic state was guided by jordanian-born radical islamist abu musab al-zarqawi when he decided to leave the osama bin laden directed al-qaeda terrorist group (auerbach, n.d.). zarqawi fled to iraq from afghanistan, where he intended to create a new organization that followed the lines of radicalized sunni islam primarily opposed to shia muslims (auerbach, n.d.). the group unified themselves under the name, aqi or al-qaeda in iraq (auerbach, n.d.) soon after, zarqawi was killed in a united states directed airstrike in 2006, yet his group lived on, rebranded as the islamic state of iraq (isi). the isi continued to primarily target shia muslims until the “antigovernment demonstrations and uprisings” known as arab spring began in the 2010s the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 75 (arab spring, 2020, p. 1). these uprisings were in response to “economic stresses, societal changes, and entrenched[,] corrupt[,] and repressive rule” (arab spring, 2020, p. 1). in 2011, syrian president bashar al-assad resorted to violent measures in order to suppress the citizen uprising; however, the isi joined the uprising, supporting the revolutionaries and declaring a new name change, identifying themselves as the islamic state of iraq and syria (isis) (auerbach, n.d.; gerges, 2016). in 2014, the new isis leader, abu bakr al-baghdadi, declared the regions of northern iraq and eastern syria to be a caliphate, a state based upon islamic law, abbreviating the name to islamic state (is) (auerbach, n.d.). naming himself caliph—the leader of the state—baghdadi asserted that all muslim communities should recognize the regime as the “one true islamic state,” using violence to demonstrate what would happen to those who directly opposed or failed to conform to the ideologies of the caliphate (auerbach, n.d., p. 3). the islamic state as a totalitarian regime agenda and ideology all government operations, regardless of whether they are totalitarian, authoritarian, tyrannical, or democratic in nature, have agendas and specific ideologies. the roots of the islamic state lay in islam and the concept of jihadi-salafism. this 21st-century branch of sunni islamic political thought emphasizes the activism of the muslim brotherhood, which stresses the “development of an islamic social order” in the form of a caliphate (brookings institution, 2015, 6:50-7:30; the oxford dictionary of islam, 2003, p. 306). today, the islamic state embraces the most violent, extreme traits of jihadi-salafism (brookings institution, 2015). throughout history, some regimes have held nationalist ideals, while other have taken on a more globalist perspective. mussolini’s italy displayed an extremist view of nationalism with a fascist government and an exaggerated importance on nationalist symbols (warnes, 2019). under this form of government, absolute submission to the state is demanded, and individuals are prohibited from questioning their leader (warnes, 2019). therefore, the focus is on the individuals within the state and not on invasion of ethiopia. on the other hand, nazi germany took a globalist approach. likewise, the state demanded absolute loyalty, but expansion was the ultimate goal. while nationalism and globalism are fundamentally different, they are not entirely independent of one another. the islamic state embodied a unique combination of both a nationalist and globalist approach. al-qaeda leader osama bin laden believed in the “far enemy” of the united states and the western world, but islamic state founder zarqawi believed in the “near enemy” of arab regimes. ultimately, the idea of the “real enemy” resulted in the main reason why zarqawi split from al-qaeda (griffin, 2016, p. 9). according to griffin scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2021 (2016), the us invasion of iraq was theoretically: an opportunity to engage the near and the far enemy simultaneously, so ending any doctrinal dispute between the two leaders, but al-zarqawi’s campaign of assassinations, kidnappings and bomb attacks against civilians conflicted with al qaeda’s strict non-aggression pact with non-sunni actors. . . (13) zarqawi wanted first to conquer the arab world, displaying a form of religious nationalism, and then shift focus towards establishing a global caliphate, maintaining an international “total war” (marsico, 2016, p. 30; gerges, 2018, p. 91). total war in order for zarqawi to accomplish establishing a worldwide caliphate, there first needed to be “religious and ethnic cleansings” primarily of the yazidis, kurds, and shia in the arab region because of their devout opposition to the radical sunni islam embodied in the islamic state (gerges, 2018, p. 91). the quest to establish a “pure islamic state” was not home to a single, designated enemy; rather, everyone and anyone could be ruled an enemy (griffin, 2016, p. 16). from the perspective of the caliph, the state came first, and the “fifth column” needed to be eliminated (marsico, 2016, p. 17). in the plot against america, roth (2014) delves into the idea of a “fifth column,” which is a group of people who align with the beliefs of an enemy, undermining the objectives of their nation, meaning anyone who opposed the state, either publicly or privately, is a threat to the nation, an idea that the islamic state transformed from the world of theory into reality. therefore, the state would not hesitate to remove those who stood in its way. often, extremists did not simply target oppositional military personnel; they “threatened, persecuted, and killed ordinary civilians” as part of their “total war” (gerges, 2018; marsico, 2016, p. 36). maintaining control the islamic state utilized various methods to maintain control. first, the state met the basic needs of its followers, creating false feelings of safety and security, which is further explained by dostoevsky’s (1879-1880/1994) theory of miracle, mystery, and authority. second, the state maintained recruitment by appealing to outcasts of society (hoffer, 1951). finally, the use of intimidation practices such as public humiliation and/or execution allowed the state to ensure compliance (mello, 2018). theory of miracle, mystery, and authority according to dostoevsky (1879-1880/1994), successful control by a regime extends beyond military force and simple fear. following dostoevsky’s (1879-1880/1994) theory of miracle, mystery, and authority from “the grand inquisitor,” the state must oversee the well-being of its loyalists in order to maintain control. in this theory, dostoevsky (1879-1880/1994) holds that, if a state provides miracles (food) and mystery the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 77 (entertainment), people are more likely to be willing subjects to absolute authority; people would rather be amused and satisfied subjects of the state than be free and starving. this is further upheld by hoffer (1951) who explains that humankind is drawn to mass movements because of the solidarity held among combatants. in the true believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements, hoffer (1951) delves into the psychology of the appeal of mass movement politics. he claims that it is the “undesirables” of society who are likely to be recruited by a mass movement (hoffer, 1951). these individuals are searching for something beyond themselves. mass movement leaders target those who believe that there is something wrong in their life due to the status quo of society, who are poor and see this as an opportunity for advancement, who desire a new avenue of self-expression, and who are selfish or unselfish (hoffer, 1951). in whole, these people groups view a mass movement as a way to disassociate from personal responsibility (hoffer, 1951). while vastly different groups with varying circumstances, they are all in search of something, and the mass movement provides an answer, as seen in the theory of miracle, mystery, and authority (dostoevsky, 1879-1880/1994; hoffer, 1951). like dostoevsky and hoffer, arendt (1994) agrees that mass movements often target lonely, isolated people. in origins of totalitarianism, she presents her explanation of how control is achieved and maintained, arguing that the primary goal of a totalitarian leader is to control the thinking of their citizens and subjects. under this form of government, absolute unity is essential, and the state will brag about crimes and grotesque accomplishments to maintain order and loyalty, essentially scaring its subjects into submission (arendt, 1994). furthermore, a totalitarian regime will always find new opposition, even if it is innocent people, as this ensures preservation through continual conflict and conquering (arendt, 1994). while dostoevsky and arendt have some slightly different perspectives on how a totalitarian regime is created and maintained, they both maintain the idea of complete control through blatant manipulation, a concept mastered by the islamic state. turning the theoretical ponderings of dostoevsky, hoffer, and arendt into real-world application, the islamic state has displayed miracles through the artificial image of being a provider by offering “internal security” and “food and medical treatment” (naji, 2003, p. 42). the state’s idea of “educational outreach” aimed to reinforce the idea that by “complying with the islamic state, individuals will be liberated” because “following [the state’s] rules provides residents…with security stability, and financial resources” unavailable otherwise (mello, 2018, p. 149). additionally, the islamic state provided entertainment through broadcasted violent propaganda, satisfying humankind’s craving scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2021 for mystery and spectacle (dostoevsky, 1879-1880/1994). finally, the islamic state recognized and exploited a need for unity in their recruitment by advertising the state as a unified home for the disenfranchised individuals of the world (arendt, 1994; dostoevsky, 1879-1880/1994; hoffer, 1951). this application of the miracle, mystery, and authority theory is further emphasized by the radicalized religious ideology of the state. religious extremism and policing the islamic state achieved and maintained absolute authority in the same basic pattern as regimes past; however, at the core of the state is radicalized religion. under a system of islamic extremism, the caliph exercises “total religious and political authority over his subjects’ lives,” and his power supersedes even basic human rights (marsico, 2016, p. 9). utilizing both the establishment of an institution and implementing “strategies of survival,” the islamic state strove to transform the middle east into its “ideological image” through the formation of a caliphate (mello, 2018, p. 147; auerbach, n.d., p. 2). while the islamic state does not utilize secret police, a common practice among totalitarian regimes, it does utilize religious ideological indoctrination levied by a religious police force that enforces “everyday social practices that reflect the islamic state’s version of salafism” (mello, 2018, p. 149). under stalin’s russia, there was systematic surveillance, arrest, and interrogation of political enemies of the state as seen in the infamous show trials (koestler, 1941). the islamic state mirrors this method in its public “trial and execution” of military prisoners (mello, 2018). recruitment at the core of any thriving organization is a successful recruiting process. the state’s recruitment methods reveal three additional aspects of the islamic state that took it beyond a mere radical islamic movement and aligned it with the typical attributes of a totalitarian regime. specifically, the state’s use of social media, sectarianism and the takfiri doctrine, and impatience has set it apart. social media the islamic state was innovative regarding the use of media to record, propagate, and broadcast violence (mello, 2018). the video productions are “designed to attract viewers” while simultaneously instilling fear (mello, 2018, p. 141). just as hitler revolutionized film and news-based propaganda in world war ii, the islamic state utilized social media to broadcast propaganda based upon the idea that crude violence creates a “shock and awe” factor that reinforces “an image of power and invincibility” of the state (mello, 2018, p. 143). the exploitation of public executions was about “restoring, in the eyes of those who witness the punishment of the body of the condemned, the awesome power of the state” and reinforcing the ever present “power of political authority” (mello, 2018, p. 144). the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 79 the violent propaganda, delivered unilaterally through the expansive reach of social media, served to terrorize enemies while simultaneously impressing potential recruits on a global scale by presenting the organization as a “powerful vanguard movement capable of delivering victory and salvation” to its faithful ones (gerges, 2018, pp. 91, 93). the disenfranchised individuals who joined did not abhor its brutality; rather, it is what attracted them. both muslims and non-muslims living in western countries join extremist groups like the state because it provides them with a sense of “tight-knit community with a potent identity” (gerges, 2018, p. 93). additionally, the goal of erecting a global caliphate provides recruits with a “sense of serving a sacred mission” providing the idea that they are a part of something much bigger than themselves (gerges, 2018, p. 93). sectarianism and the takfiri doctrine in addition to broadcasted violent propaganda, the islamic state resurrected the concept of sectarianism, which is civil war among two or more factions of the islamic faith that actively seek “to remake borders (and by extension the state system) throughout the entire middle east and beyond” (mello, 2018, p. 139; the oxford dictionary of islam, 2003, pp. 282). the state justified their actions through a broad application of the takfiri doctrine which rationalized the “sanctioning [of ] violence against leaders of islamic states who [were] deemed insufficiently religious” (the oxford dictionary of islam, 2003, p. 312). thus, the sectarian war was systematically aimed to target other non-muslim religious groups and force conversion or death more than any other islamic extremist organization (mello, 2018). the idea of a sectarian war was linked to impatience. the state leaders were discontent with the current historical timeline and wanted to quicken the “return of islamic greatness” or salafist jihadism through more “open and widespread action” in the form of warfare (mello, 2018, p. 141). religion and global mobilization the state utilized the age of the internet and employed a strategy, similar to that described by hoffer, of selling a better future through belittling the present by villainizing the status quo to recruit foreign militants (hoffer, 1951). the combination of a broadcasted sectarian war and the desire to fast forward time to a fully established global caliphate accelerated this need for combatants. followers of the islamic state displayed “value-related rationality more than goal-oriented,” showing that the ideology of the state was “steeped in a messianic, end-of-days version of sunni islam that manifested itself without parallel in middle east history” (mello, 2018, p. 40). they held a futuristic ideology believing that they could accelerate the “final confrontation that [would] restore islamic greatness” (mello, 2018, p. 140). this shows how the islamic state was able to convert religious appeal into a tangible, politically-based recruitment strategy. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2021 although the state recruited from across the globe, the majority came from the countries of tunisia, saudi arabia, russia, turkey, and jordan (auerbach, n.d.). at the most powerful point in its history, the islamic state maintained approximately 40,000 combatants in syria and iraq, 25,000 of which were foreign militants (auerbach, n.d.). it was the state’s violence that allowed it to “forge a new collective identity premised on the power of sunni muslims to remake the middle east, to rid the region of western and heretical influences, and to restore the islamic middle east to its once great heights” (mello, 2018, p. 153). this further explains why their recruitment was unprecedented and why their methods vary widely in comparison to former, radical islamic movements (mello, 2018). the promise of political greatness, tied with religious fervor, is irresistible to disenfranchised youth across the globe. the islamic state’s use of religion enhanced the potency of its ideology, allowing unrivaled mobilization of its masses. destruction of history along with intense, global propaganda, the islamic state followed other trademark totalitarian moves throughout its operation. the state attempted to destroy history, and it was successful on occasion. they targeted historical sites of non-sunni heritage, destroying anything resembling idol worship no matter if it be christian, jewish, shia, etc. in nature (gerges, 2018). it can be argued that this advanced the ideological war; by eliminating monuments of the past, the state focused attention to its vision of the future—a global caliphate. symbols the islamic state utilized symbols, which are a key element of fascism used to promote unity. one of these symbols is the state’s flag. the writing on the upper portion of the black banner stated the shahada, or the declaration of faith, saying, “there is no god but god, muhammad is the messenger of god” (marsico, 2016, p. 31)—a fundamentally religious phrase was thus transformed into a political weapon. the shahada is found on multiple flags throughout islamic nations, and many muslims have objected to the idea that this phrase represents radical jihadist movement (marsico, 2016). however, the symbolism has been so effective that even opponents of the state recognize the transformation of the shahada into a symbol for their enemies, much as the swastika was transformed from a hindu symbol of peace into a nazi symbol of hatred (goldmeier, 2018). another symbol of the islamic state is the orange jumpsuit, which symbolizes the state’s resistance of western intervention in the islamic lands (richey & edwards, 2019). in western culture, the orange jumpsuit is a common representation of incarceration, but to the state, it symbolizes the “humiliation and dehumanization. . . [which is] forced on [their] prisoners to visually display the group’s control over them” (richey & the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 81 edwards, 2019, p. 168). the uniform is most notably featured in the propaganda videos produced by the state (richey & edwards, 2019). therefore, to the western world, the once forgettable orange jumpsuit has now become synonymous with the idea of religious extremism and executions. the islamic state as a political-religious totalitarian regime how did one man from al-qaeda begin a movement that was 40,000 strong in barely 10 years (marsico, 2016)? the answer lies in the creation of a political-religious totalitarian regime. traditional totalitarian motifs such as propaganda and sectarianism appeared, but the incorporation of religion into political symbolism, police control, and core ideology established an unprecedented power base for the islamic state. the islamic state’s evolution into a dominant force was so effective that the world deemed a military response was necessary to stem the tide of the growing regime. the islamic state continued to increase its territorial domain until 2016 when international opponents were able to stall the growth and even reclaim large sections of land (gerges, 2018). by 2018, the group had “lost control of virtually all its former holding,” leading the united states to claim that the state had been vanquished, “but most experts warned that it remains a dangerous force capable of significant terrorist violence” (gerges, 2018, pp. 3-4; browne, 2018). in all, this claim of victory was idealistic and inherently flawed. rationally speaking, a movement based in religious ideology can never truly be extinguished because the “leader” of the faction is believed by followers to be all powerful and therefore cannot be defeated. in fact, former leader al-baghdadi asserted that the state will “remain, as long as [they] have a vein pumping or an eye blinking. . . it remains, and [they] will not compromise nor give up. . . until [they] die” (marsico, 2016, p. 28). as explained by the pentagon, islamic state fighters still remain, and the state “is well positioned to rebuild and work on enabling its physical caliphate to re-emerge” (browne, 2018). furthermore, recent events confirm the idea that the state will not be stopped (arraf & hassan, 2021). as of january 2021, the united states is still combating islamic state insurgents despite the fact that the state now has no physical territory (arraf & hassan, 2021). with the help of iraqi intelligence and military support, the american forces conducted an airstrike, killing a prominent islamic state leader and nine other combatants, in retaliation for the isis attack on a market in baghdad in 2019 that resulted in 32 casualties and injured over 100 people (arraf & hassan, 2021; diaz & fordham, 2021). after claiming responsibility for the attack, the state reemphasized their target—shiite muslims and the iraqi forces that stood in their way—confirming, yet again, that the islamic state’s religious political totalitarian ideals have and will remain (arraf & hassan, 2021). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2021 conclusion the islamic state was a revolutionary form of totalitarianism. it maintained the basic totalitarian foundation by mobilizing a disenfranchised population, establishing a supreme ideology, disseminating violent propaganda, controlling citizens through fear, creating unifying symbols, and destroying history. however, isis was unique in the incorporation of religion at a state level. the state did not ideologically align with a known totalitarian regime such as communist stalinist russia or fascist nazi germany. instead, the state merged religious dogma and state control together to create a political-religious totalitarian regime that was not bound by physical borders. it held the same demands as a traditional totalitarian state, but it did so through a political-religious lens, shifting the focus of loyalty from a limited, mortal leader to loyalty to an omniscient, immortal higher power. bullets can kill a man, bombs can kill a government, but religious zeal does not fall quite so easily. the islamic state: a political-religious totalitarian regime middle tennessee state university 83 references arab spring. 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(2016). islamic state: rewriting history. pluto press. hoffer, e. (1951). the true believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements. harper & row. koestler, a. (1941). darkness at noon. the macmillan company. marsico, k. (2016). isis. abdo publishing. mello, b. (2018). the islamic state: violence and ideology in a post-colonial revolutionary regime. international political sociology, 12, 139-155. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2021 naji, a. b. (2003). the management of savagery: the most critical state through which the umma will pass (mccants, w., trans.). john m. olin institute for strategic studies. richey, p. g., & edwards, m. (2019). it’s more than orange: isis’s appropriation of orange prison jumpsuits as rhetorical resistance. in m. krona, & r. pennington (eds.), the media world of isis (pp. 167-184). indiana university press. https:// doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr7f8hp salamah, a. a. (1991). shia & sunni perspective on islam. abul-qasim publication house. the oxford dictionary of islam. (2003). oxford university press. warnes, k. (2019). nationalism. salem press encyclopedia. https://ezproxy.mtsu. edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&an=89677596&site=eds-live&scope=site 2021 scientia book file 79 2021 scientia book file 80 2021 scientia book file 81 2021 scientia book file 82 2021 scientia book file 83 2021 scientia book file 84 2021 scientia book file 85 2021 scientia book file 86 2021 scientia book file 87 2021 scientia book file 88 2021 scientia book file 89 2021 scientia book file 90 iii letter from the editor in chief when undergraduate, graduate, and recently graduated scholars scour calls for papers, pursuing broader audiences for their work, they are often met with the requirement that their work fit a particular theme. themes can unite people with shared concerns, in turn connecting scholars who can collaborate on future research and reassuring individual scholars that their work is a part of a larger conversation. while theming has its benefits, some researchers find the most fitting forums for their research are unconstrained by themes. scientia et humanitas conventionally forgoes theming its volumes, a choice that increases the possibility of amplifying vastly diverse concerns. this choice also allows our submitters, students and recent graduates who often have arsenals full of interesting projects that have not yet wandered far from campus, relative freedom to choose the work they submit. volume 13 exemplifies how, when those with the power to uplift scholarly voices designate thematically-unconstrained spaces, both those voices and their audiences are benefited by a collection of impressive, timely work. i have had the honor of spending nearly a year assembling and managing editorial staff, corresponding with submitters, copyediting the manuscript, and arranging the layout of this volume. to the scholars who offered our team twenty-nine intriguing submissions, thanks are certainly in order. while we are proud to present the twelve that we have selected for publication, we also hope that our feedback supports the works we have not selected in reaching future audiences. this volume is roughly organized by discipline, and we start with two articles in the area of natural sciences. in “deconstructing the moral animal stigma,” sav buist invites other scientists to re-evaluate their frameworks for understanding non-human animals’ capacity for empathy and emotion. next, elizabeth kowalczyk tests a potential treatment for a common viral infection in “investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3.” six articles based in the humanities come next. kat kolby’s “discovering nothing to create anything” demonstrates that the philosopher gorgias’s framework of logos can be more fully appreciated and understood when examined in concert with game studies. then, through close reading of homer’s iliad, hayley rhodes wittenberg invites readers to acknowledge a romantic dimension of the relationship between achilles and patroclus in “he whom i loved as dearly as my own life.” additionally, in her article “‘everybody you tell will be haunted too,’” harley mercadal highlights the melding of gothic and modernist tropes in the work of american author mildred haun. those interested in popular culture or children’s media might take interest in the next three articles. caroline laplue investigates an incongruent reception of the novel and film versions of the princess and the goblin in “‘seldom like yesterday.’” i am pleased to share my own article, “sagwa, the chinese iv siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language,” in which i examine language use in the premier episodes of two animated programs from the beginning of the twenty-first century. sarah hicks, in “representation in raya and the last dragon,” considers this 2021 film in the context of disney’s complicated track-record with representing genders, sexualities, and races. the volume ends with four articles that apply historical or social scientific lenses to highlight important people or cultural phenomena. first, in “subversive habits,” sarah e. wolfe calls for an understanding of medieval and early modern nuns as complex individuals who transcend stereotypes. next, lis sodl’s “integration and education” uncovers ways that literature including constance fenimore woolson’s “rodman the keeper” and w.e.b. dubois’s the souls of black folk exemplify shifts in american identity after the civil war. inspired by conversations regarding covid-19 restrictions in the early 2020s, carol a. stuart revisits documented responses to an earlier pandemic in “closures, masks, and quarantines.” finally, parvez rahaman synthesizes his own primary research– interviews with those who encountered mahatma gandhi– with secondary research on gandhi and conceptions of memory in “the retrieving memories of gandhi’s peace-mission.” for the opportunity to facilitate the publication process for these articles, i extend thanks to several faculty mentors at middle tennessee state university. i first have dr. stephen severn, chair of the english department, to thank for recommending me for the editor in chief position before i had even imagined myself in the role. immense thanks are also due to dr. philip e. phillips, associate dean of the mtsu honors college, and ms. marsha powers, retired coordinator of special projects and publications. i am grateful for the immense agency these two mentors have entrusted in me, for their time and attention when questions arose, and for the opportunity to meet and work with ms. powers during her final semester in the role. during the copy editing phase, honors college dean john r. vile and strategic communication specialist ms. robin e. lee have also offered invaluable advice. my editorial staff members also deserve abundant thanks for their close reading, thoughtful feedback, and intentional recommendations regarding which work should be featured this year. samira grayson, lis sodl, angela benninghoff, kat kolby, parvez rahaman, elizabeth polson, and emaa elrayah offered their own specialized knowledge and demonstrated flexibility to evaluate pieces beyond the fields that typically constitute their scholarly homes. we are grateful for dr. matt elrod-erickson, who graciously offered his support as a guest reviewer at a time when we sought expert advice in the field of genetics. i have developed as an editor by encountering my collaborators’ varied approaches to scrutinizing and supporting the work of our submitters. thank you all for the chance to play a role in sharing twelve insightful works of v scholarship with a broader audience. i invite you, while enjoying this volume, to celebrate and support unthemed spaces like this one, as they invite unexpected, important work. aubrey keller editor in chief middle tennessee state university 85 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice jessica merrill abstract the narratives that are disseminated by various parties who are members and tools of the dominant culture serve to conceal not only the voices of the marginalized but also the treachery of those who take advantage of them while inflating the conscience of those who hope to satisfy a moral obligation to help the poor. this essay will explore the different voices in indra sinha’s animal ’s people. this novel utilizes the narrative voice in a unique manner, allowing a disabled, impoverished young boy named animal to tell the story of his life of oppression, suffering, and marginalization through a series of tapes addressed to what he refers to as “the eyes.” sinha allows animal to speak for himself, but, in doing so, animal highlights other dominant narrative trends, including the visual and auditory power of the mass media in communicating the position of the poor, the white saviors’ interpretation of and response to what they see and hear of the poor, and how these contribute to the corporate interests’ ability to remain invisible and thus avoid responsibility for their actions. sinha uses characters such as elli, a white american doctor, who comes to khaufpur to open a clinic, jarnalis, an australian journalist, who leaves a set of tapes for animal to record his story on his own time, and the big kampani lawyers, who hide the parties actually responsible for the disaster the novel describes. i will postulate that the connections between mass media representations, white savior responses, and the resulting benefits to corporate interests are the narratives that should be scrutinized so that the narrative authority can be given back to those with lived experience. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2021 the problems that arise when attempting to convey the stories that describe the experiences of the marginalized, particularly those marginalized by their extreme poverty due to limits placed upon their access to resources, are complicated problems that are often dispelled with far too simple solutions. the poor are typically viewed and expressed as helpless, hopeless, and in need of intervention whether by institutions or individual persons who occupy positions of privilege. this directed attitude is particularly prevalent in areas occupied by people who possess a wealth of natural resources, yet practice lax safety and labor laws, making them easily exploited by dominant systems. an exploration into the various narrative tactics employed by those in positions of privilege is a topic that has been addressed by various schools of literary criticism, yet very little scholarship connects the various voices together to create a complete picture of how the stories of the subaltern are told by the institutionalized systems that subdue them. throughout this essay, the marginalized will be referred to frequently as the “subaltern” or the “subaltern voice,” the definition of which is drawn from the arguments postulated by gayatri chakravorty spivak in her essay “can the subaltern speak?” in which she defines subaltern as follows: “where social lines of mobility, being elsewhere, do not permit the formation of a recognizable basis of action” (spivak 476). essentially, spivak defines the subaltern as those whose identity is consumed only by their status as “less than.” the narratives that are created and disseminated by various parties who are members and tools of the dominant culture serve to conceal the voices and humanity of the subaltern and also the treachery of those who take advantage of the subaltern while inflating the consciences of those who hope to satisfy a moral obligation to help the poor that they have, at some point, adopted. i find that the dominant narrative voice that speaks for the wider culture consists of three prongs: the mass media, which claims to give accurate depictions of the conditions of the marginalized; the white saviors, who respond to the atrocities they witness through mass media consumption by going to marginalized areas and offering the assistance they believe to be best for the people there; and the corporate interests, who fuel the media representations, prop up the white saviors as distractions from actual conditions, and utilize the muddled narrative to create for themselves a level of invisibility that allows them to exploit in anonymity. this three-pronged approach is highlighted and challenged by animal ’s people as indra sinha not only demonstrates these narrative tendencies through his novel’s character representations of each prong, but also takes the narrative authority away from these characters, instead giving it to the most subaltern character in the story. this narrative technique seeks to illuminate the flaws in the mass representations of subaltern people and to shift the authority of the story back to those who have middle tennessee state university 87 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice actually experienced the suffering rather than those who seek to exploit it. animal ’s people by indra sinha contains characters who represent each prong of the dominant narrative, but what makes the novel unique is that sinha does not allow any of these actors to speak for themselves; he instead gives the narrative authority to one of the lowest members of the society, a young boy named animal. this boy, as a result of a poison gas disaster, is left with a twisted back, orphaned, and forced to walk on all fours, earning him the name and assumed identity of animal. animal is crass and unrefined, and fully owns his status as more animal than man. he agrees to tell his story to an australian journalist, called jarnalis, via a series of tapes, but insists that the stories be told how he wants with no rules from the journalist. chunaram, who brokers the deal between jarnalis and animal, tells animal how jarnalis responded to hearing the first of animal’s tapes: “last night he had your tape translated. today he comes saying he has never found such honesty as that filth of yours… i told him you are an orphan of that night, you grew up in a crazy franci situation, you used to live on the streets like a dog, you are a unique case” (sinha 7). animal is wary of the journalist and wary of those who will hear the tapes, but he attempts to speak directly to those who would usually not only consume the dominant narratives but also have historically controlled the narrative and, therefore, the responses and treatment of the subaltern. with this understanding of his listeners, he states: “you are reading my words, you are that person (encouraged by jarnalis). i’ve no name for you so i will call you eyes. my job is to talk, yours is to listen. so now listen” (14). animal is reluctant to work with jarnalis and speak to these eyes as he finds that most who come to write about his city, and then those who read about his city, do nothing to actually help the people there. yet, animal eventually decides that working with jarnalis is important not because it might change his situation, but because by taking the narrator position, he can at least hold some authority over his own story: “this story has been locked up in me, it’s struggling to be free, i can feel it coming, words want to fly out from between my teeth like a flock of birds making a break for it… there are many versions going round, every newspaper has a different story, not one knows the truth” (11, 12). animal recognizes the role that jarnalis and other members of the media such as himself play in taking ownership of animal’s story. he has no illusion of being able to change the way in which they respond to him, but he craves the freedom of allowing his voice to become a part of the narrative, in an attempt to convey a different truth. the bhopal disaster of 1984, which is the backdrop for animal ’s people, was a tremendous gas explosion that occurred between december 2 and december 3 in the early morning hours, while most of the plant’s management and safety officers were at home scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2021 asleep. the plant, which was an american owned pesticide plant, was located in bhopal madhya pradesh india, and was operated by union carbide, which was eventually bought out by dow jones industrial (“bhopal disaster”). this gas leak exposed over 500,000 people to methyl isocyanate, a chemical used in world war i for chemical warfare commonly known as mic (“bhopal disaster”). this particular chemical was not as stable as the chemicals generally used in common pesticide plants, but a recent drought had caused farming in the area to suffer, thus impacting pesticide sales. taking advantage of low regulatory power in the indian government, and more lax safety laws, the company decided to use the less stable chemical and, thus, put the surrounding areas at risk to the highly unstable compound of chemicals (“bhopal disaster”). though not intentional, the disaster was also no accident, but rather was the result of negligence on the part of the corporation that had located itself in a particular area merely for access to cheap land and materials with a lack of adequate oversight from local government. the aftermath of the disaster was devastating; the immediate death toll was counted as 2,259, though that number is somewhat disputed and difficult to prove. within two weeks, the death toll rose from the reported over 2,000 to over 8,000, with the chronic effects of the gas on those who survived being largely immeasurable (“bhopal disaster”). union carbide was largely believed responsible, but they faced few repercussions. in 1989, union carbide paid $470 million to settle litigation, but the site itself was not cleaned until 1998, following a merger with mcleod russel ltd (razorfoundation). the ceo of union carbide, warren anderson suffered no consequences for his leadership role, and in 2010 seven indian officials were sentenced to two years in prison as well as $2,000 fines for their negligence in enforcing regulatory oversight (razorfoundation). such a mass event led to swift coverage from the media; not only was the explosion one of the worst industrial disasters in history, but it also occurred during the month of december, which is, generally, a particularly “slow” month for news (wilkins 18). much of the resulting coverage highlights animal’s indication that the media tells these stories from positions of power and, in their telling, dis-empower those who are the actual victims. the first prong of the dominant narrative moved swiftly in response to the disaster. it was heavily covered by the media in places like the united states and was predominantly propped up as a cautionary tale about the dangers of industrialization, chemicals, and corporate neglect, and an emotive tale about the plight of the poor, the helplessness of the “third world,” and the overall sense of hopelessness in any attempt to modernize the worlds of the marginalized without the intervention of large, often irresponsible, corporate interests from the west. in his article, “media coverage of the bhopal disaster: middle tennessee state university 89 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice a cultural myth in the making,” lee wilkins explores the ways in which this disaster was covered by the mass media as a case study for the way in which mass media rarely succeeds in telling the stories of the subaltern in an ethical manner. wilkins highlights, particularly, the way in which the media coverage so heavily covered the presence of gas rather than people, as if gas is an autonomous evil separate of the corporations, which are run by individuals, who failed in containing the gas and protecting the people within its path: “of the forty-one stories analyzed, only thirteen did not include some sort of visual image of gas, either as an actual gas cloud or something like a smoke stack which the average person would probably associate with gas. in the remaining stories, there were 115 separate images of gas” (22). wilkins’s extensive research on the media portrayals of the bhopal disaster focused heavily on what the media actually portrayed and how it not only impacted responses, but also allowed the actual players to conceal themselves. his algorithm filtered through the stories and generated the following statistics: union carbide as a corporation (11%) and american business executives, including union carbide corporate officials (11%) were the two entities that were most frequently portrayed as powerful actors in media reports. in 44% of the stories, americans, either as lawyers, corporate executives or corporations, were portrayed as the single most powerful actors on the scene. indians were portrayed as powerful actors only 28% of the time and the bulk of that coverage was provided to indian government officials… individuals, particularly indians, who were not officials of their own government were not portrayed as capable of influencing events. instead they became masses of victims. (18) the trend of the media coverage was to depict frightening images of uncontrollable gas and smoke as well as to conceal the individuals profiting from the plant by referring to them merely as executives or officials, by referencing their lawyers, and by constantly resorting back to the idea of corporate rather than individual power—all while portraying the victims as merely helpless bystanders worthy only of pity. wilkins ultimately concludes: the message of theory seems to be that we might better regard media content as a unique cultural form, a ‘media culture’ fashioned according to its own conventions and codes and forming a more or less independent element in the social reality rather than a message about that social security. thus, even where media acts as a carrier for other institutions, they tend to alter substance, to conform to the demands of ‘media culture’. (4) essentially, wilkins finds that the mass media crafts and delivers its own verscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2021 sions of reality that ultimately benefit the corporate interests that it claims to be illuminating. media representations of the bhopal disaster certainly depicted the corporations as being at fault, but they refused to engage with the humanity of the situation instead allowing the corporations to hide behind the gas. again, animal recognizes this in jarnalis, and it is what motivates him to seize control of the narrative. when he learns that jarnalis has already decided what sort of book he will write before even hearing animal’s actual story, he raves: jarnalis should not be allowed to tell my story. comes here struttintouchg like some sisterfuck movie star. what? does he think he’s the first outsider ever to visit this fucking city? people bend to touch his feet, sir, please sir, your help sir, sir my son, sir my wife, sir my wretched life. oh how the prick loves this! sultan among slaves he’s, listens with what lofty pity, pretends to give a fuck but the truth is he’ll go away and forget them, every last one. for his sort we are not really people. we don’t have names. we flit in crowds at the corner of his eye. extras we’re, in his movie. (sinha 9) jarnalis represents the media tendency to craft the stories of the subaltern in ways that benefit themselves or their viewers. these journalists, creators of the media, believe themselves to be above the victims of tragedy, benevolent sympathizers who ultimately profit off the sensational stories of suffering. though the journalists tell their stories with feigned pity, animal understands and highlights the ineffectiveness of pity by demanding the eyes listen to him, rather than jarnalis and his proposed book. the mass media is often the primary transmitter of subaltern stories in terms of great events that impact them. there is, however, a closer representation. the second prong of the three-prong narrative belongs to the white saviors who respond to such media representations and then disseminate the emotive version of events. white saviors can be driven by a variety of intentions, some of which are seemingly pure, others of which are blatantly for their own benefit. in his article “humanitarianism, testimony, and the white savior industrial complex: what is the what versus kony 2012,” sean bex explores the idea of narrative authority in reference to subaltern stories through the voice of a white savior who communicates through a video, kony 2012, that claims to seek justice for the subaltern in uganda. bex cautions both authors and readers creating and consuming media that depicts narratives of the subaltern to ensure that they understand the narrative voice and the effects that it has upon the reading and understanding of any representation. kony 2012 is highly criticized by bex, as it is the story of child soldiers in uganda and their fight to escape the warlord kony as he wages a devastating civil war by utilizing the poor children of uganda. this video tells the story of an american activist, middle tennessee state university 91 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice jason russell, who visits and forms a relationship with recovering child soldier, jacob acaye. the purpose of the video is to mobilize activists in an effort to bring joseph kony to justice. however, though the intentions may be pure, bex is wary of russell’s telling as it is focused predominantly on his own reactions to the atrocities that he sees, rather than allowing those who have actually experienced them firsthand to speak for themselves. russell frequently compares himself to acaye and weeps as he tries to imagine his own children experiencing what acaye has experienced. though a powerful narrative technique, bex argues such depictions do not actually serve the subaltern but rather inflate the consciences of those who want to be helpers: kony 2012 portrays a western activist who not only over identifies with the traumatic situation of a recovering child soldier but appropriates his victimhood in the portrayal of his plight in invisible children’s humanitarian campaign. as a result, the video leads the viewer to establish an empathetic relationship with the western humanitarian agent rather than the african victim, consigning the latter to the position of a silenced and ultimately unknown object of patronizing sympathy. (bex 33) the work, though potentially pure in intention, does not allow the subaltern to speak from a position of authority, but rather subjugates them to a position of helplessness, fortunate to be pitied by characters such as russell. sinha created a character much like russell in elli, the american doctor who comes to khaufpur to open a clinic with the intention of providing much needed, proper medical care to the people there, but who has little understanding of the actual people of khaufpur. elli, though pure in intention, is used by sinha as an example of western activists similar to russell who respond to media representations of marginalized suffering and believe that they can offer some level of solution. however, unlike russell in kony 2012, elli is not offered any platform to tell her own story, give her own motivations, or explain her true intentions for coming to khaufpur. in fact, a large narrative arc throughout the novel centers on animal and his friends merely trying to decide if they believe she works for the kampani or not. elli possesses a deep sense of moral obligation and a need to make a difference in the world. she is uncomfortable with living a life that does not make some sort of impact, and she believes her skills as a doctor perfectly position her to be the most helpful in places like khaufpur. the boycott of elli’s clinic is not merely confusing to her, but also infuriating. she grows increasingly angry through the text as the boycott continues and as she is prevented from offering the help she so desperately wants to give. she believes that because she can offer a service, she speaks the language, and she owns some traditional scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2021 dress that she should be accepted: ‘well you can tell me’ elli suddenly says in hindi. such a silence there’s. even old hanif turns and sends his sightless eyes searching for her… ‘i’m the doctor you were talking about,’ says elli. ‘i’m the one who opened the clinic that everyone’s afraid of. i’m not a monster, i’m not from the moon and i hate the kampani as much as you do’. (sinha 181) in this exchange she is pleading with locals to accept her, to welcome her, and to utilize her services. the eyes, or the unnamed and unknown readers to whom animal dictates his story, are, no doubt, confused as to why the people will not accept her help and grow frustrated with the suspicion that animal and his friends have of her. however, as the story continues, animal begins to explain why elli and those like her are not helpful, why they are of little, if any, benefit to the subaltern, and why they cannot be effective in their missions: ‘what really disgusts me is that we people seem so wretched to you outsiders that you look at us with that so-soft expression, speak to us with that so-pious tone in your voice.’ she asks very seriously, ‘don’t people here deserve respect?’ ‘it is not respect, is it? i can read feelings. people like you are fascinated by places like this.’ (184) animal and his people do not want the pity and soft, pious looks from the white saviors of privileged positions. they desire understanding and tangible change. animal and elli argue about what it will take for her to be effective in khaufpur and what it will take for the people to accept and trust her. elli states in comparing herself to local activist zafar, “i too am there for them, they will get to know me” (185) which launches animal into a rage: ‘you haven’t a hope. you are a good-hearted doctress but nothing do you fucking understand. tell me please what is that?’ i’ve pointed at her wrist. ‘my watch?’ ‘yes, your watch what do you need it for?’ ‘to tell the time of course’… elli, i don’t need a watch because i know what time it is. it’s now o’clock… in the kingdom of the poor, time doesn’t exist. elli, if you had no watch, your stomach will churn and growl and say, hey elli, it’s food time, hey it’s still food time, hey don’t you hear me, it’s food time. what happens if you can’t afford food? when you can’t remember the last time you ate something?… hope dies in places like this, because hope lives in the future and there’s no future here, how can you think about tomorrow when all your strength is used up trying to get through today?’ (185) for elli, the people of khaufpur are people just like her; they just need help, they need middle tennessee state university 93 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice resources. elli fails to understand the universal differences between them. even a concept as seemingly universal as time is not the same between the poor and the privileged. she is hopelessly confused by the way in which the subaltern think and exist. sinha uses elli so aggressively to highlight this white savior trope, that it must play some role in the purpose of his allowing animal to tell the story. elli does not exist in the novel simply as just another character in the cast of interesting characters. she is sinha’s commentary on white savior figures. animal exposes her directly for exactly what she is and how miserably she fails in her mission. the white saviors respond to media representations of these poor, helpless people and believe themselves capable of making some sort of difference in their stories, without ever considering the differences in their principles, concepts, and ideologies. white saviors such as russell in kony 2012 and elli both believe themselves above the subaltern and cannot understand how their intervention in their lives would not immediately be welcomed and applauded. bandyopadhyay in the essay “volunteer tourism and “white man’s burden’: globalization of suffering, the white savior complex, religion and modernity” describes such characters in terms of “volunteer tourism,” which is closely married to the idea of the white savior. bandyopadhyay says “volunteer tourism” as: … a development strategy leading to sustainable development and centering the convergence of natural resource qualities, locals and the visitor that all benefit from tourism activity. every year thousands of young adults from the global north flock to the global south in the name of “helping” the less fortunate by teaching in schools, building orphanages, saving turtles or nurturing street children… charitable work helps young people assert their identity in a world of fragmenting meanings and semiotic confusion. (330) the actions of such white saviors and activists may seem to cause minimal harm; many might argue that no harm is caused, merely no good is actually accomplished. but the implication from bandyopadhyay is that these white saviors, humanitarian missions do in fact cause a subtle harm in that they allow the industries of the west to operate and create profit, largely unnoticed. elli does not necessarily bring any specific harm in the novel; however, i find it is critical to examine how elli serves as a distraction and how the people of khaufpur zero in on her as a potential enemy, not because she is, but because she has provided a visible, tangible face onto which they can direct their anger. the kampani is unknown. the big bosses are never named, but are instead represented only by their lawyers. elli, and white saviors like herself, detract from the visibility of the kampani or corporate interests as they become the faces and voices of the privileged, rather than those who are scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2021 doing the most serious harm. they do this by allowing the focus to be removed from the exploitation and instead placed on the supposed good being done by the white saviors intervening. white saviors take the mass media’s hazy representations of atrocities that cause helplessness and hopelessness and turn them into stories of hope and redemption. they twist the narrative to no longer focus on the suffering, but to instead focus on the good that they believe they can do. again, the subalterns being helped are kept from any position of power as they passively accept the help forced upon them, and again, the individuals responsible for the suffering of the subalterns are removed from the narrative, as the white saviors fight no-name corporations, ideas like greed and negligence, rather than directly addressing the individuals responsible for the decisions that lead to the creation and maintaining of the subaltern groups. for elli, the goal is to fix animal’s back, not to understand animal, his place in his community, or his needs as a full person. she is focused only on the potential narrative of redeeming him from his position as animal. the third prong is somewhat unique compared to the first two. the narrative of the corporate interests is set apart from those of the white saviors and the mass media in that instead of operating out of a potentially well-intentioned but highly misguided desire to offer their own understanding of the subaltern as if they are speaking for them, corporate interests seek only to dis-empower, disenfranchise, and create for themselves a level of invisibility by which they can conceal their exploitation and continue to increase their profits. the metaphor of the eyes comes most clearly into focus when discussing the kampani bosses at which point the themes of invisibility that sinha is addressing moves from a hint to a roar. when the lawyers finally arrive in khaufpur to discuss the litigation, they arrive in secret: the kampani lawyers arrive in khaufpur with no warning. timecheck sees them first. four amrikans, leaving the collector’s office, getting into a car. ‘they met senior persons,’ timecheck tells us, ‘their leader is a big fellow dressed peculiar.’ well, no one knows what this might mean but alarming information is soon flying in thick and fast. this afternoon the amrikans will meet zahreel khan, tomorrow the cm… ‘what kind of deal?’ someone asks. ‘what kind? with politicians there’s only one kind. out of court, into pocket. what else?’ (sinha 260) while the lawyers are in khaufpur, they stay in a hotel that does not allow access to the poor, they are seen only when entering and exiting buildings, and the people of the disaster are never granted access to their meetings. they are present, but they are not visible. the lack of transparency allows them to make deals in secret, shirk their responsibility, and continue their dis-empowerment of the people by making deals that appease officials middle tennessee state university 95 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice but ultimately benefit them and not the people of khaufpur. they still control the events. though animal is still narrating the story, these particular events highlight his position of dis-empowerment by reminding the eyes that despite his position as narrative authority, his authority does not extend to this realm. he cannot say what happens behind those closed doors because he is not allowed behind them. his authority as narrator is severely limited by the invisibility of the kampani. by allowing animal to narrate the story, it would appear as if sinha has given the subaltern back their power, but the invisibility of the kampani reminds the eyes that merely giving animal narrative authority in no way creates for him a position of true power. animal’s telling of the story is simply an attempt to bring attention to the invisibility that the privileged enjoy, but it offers no actual solution; his position as narrator does not grant him access to the kampani. most literary scholarship on sinha’s novel focuses heavily on the narrative technique of allowing animal to speak for himself and his people. some, though, disagree on whether or not sinha is effective. for example, in his article “animal’s eyes: spectacular invisibility and the terms of recognition in indra sinha’s animal ’s people,” andrew mahlstedt argues in favor of sinha’s narrative techniques that “dominant narratives of poverty in the global south exacerbate the invisibility of the marginalized poor, blinding observers to all but a spectacle of abject destitution. paying attention to narrative and the question of visibility in the context of recent globalization, animal ’s people represents dis-empowerment without dis-empowering” (mahlstedt 60). by contrast, brigitte rath in her essay “’his words only?’ indra sinha’s pseudotranslation animal’s people as hallucinations of a subaltern voice” argues that sinha’s techniques are completely ineffective because she is unable to filter out the privileged author’s words from animal’s own words. she postulates that sinha’s character ,animal, cannot speak for the subaltern because he is a creation of sinha and sinha is not a subaltern. she references interviews that sinha gave when explaining his narrative techniques, in which he states: “animal came to life in my mind and immediately began talking to me. he insisted on taking over the narrative, and rather rudely told me to get out of the way. it took me a long time to learn to trust him, but gradually i came to love that beastly boy” (sinha, “interview”). rath points out that animal’s voice is in no way consistent and therefore more reflective of sinha’s attempt at speaking in a genuine subaltern voice, rather than a true subaltern voice. she cites numerous examples of praise for sinha’s creation of animal that serves as evidence for the heavy emphasis most scholarship has placed on the importance of giving the subaltern their own voice. but to what purpose? neither rath in her criticism nor mahlstead in his praise offer a concrete purpose to either the effective or ineffective use of animal’s scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2021 voice or the interpretation of the eyes. what tangible purpose is served by ensuring that animal’s voice is true and unadulterated? animal’s voice as a narrative technique is not sinha’s primary concern, but rather he uses his voice to let the eyes see the more complicated institutionalized restrictions placed upon the subaltern that prevent them from ever gaining any sense of empowerment. animal is only given the opportunity to tell his story because a journalist is interested. he creates for himself some position of respect within his own community by being the one to get to know the american white savior doctor whom they mistake for a face of the corporation responsible for their suffering. yet, despite his narrative authority, animal never receives justice, and the kampani bosses are never actually visible or held fully responsible, just as union carbide never faced the full weight of the law. animal’s final note to the eyes makes it clear that his telling of his story is not a solution for suffering: “eyes, i’m done. khuda hafez. go well. remember me. all things pass, but the poor remain. we are the people of the apokalis. tomorrow there will be more of us” (sinha 366). the purpose of animal’s control of the narrative is not to facilitate a resolution to the suffering, nor to reverse the damage done by the dominant narratives, but rather to draw attention to them. the purpose of allowing animal, the subaltern narrator, to maintain his position of authority throughout the text is to make this invisible narrative of oppression visible and to allow the eyes to see and understand the voices of the subaltern. middle tennessee state university 97 narrative authority: the intersection of mass media, white saviors, corporate interests, and the subaltern voice works cited bandyopadhyay, ranjan. “volunteer tourism and ‘the white man’s burden’: globalization of suffering, white savior complex, religion and modernity.” journal of sustainable tourism, vol: 27, no. 3, 327-343. bex, sean. “humanitarianism, testimony, and the white savior industrial complex: what is the what versus kony 2012.” cultural critique, vol. 92, 2016, 32-56. mahlstedt, andrew. “animal’s eyes: spectacular invisibility and the terms of recognition in indra sinha’s ‘animal’s people.’”mosaic: an interdisciplinary critical journal, vol. 46, no. 3, 2013, pp. 59–74. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/44030341. rath, brigitte. “‘his words only?” indra sinha’s pseudotranslation animal’s people as hallucinations of a subaltern voice.” aaa – arbeiten aus anglistik und amerikanistik, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, 161–183. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/43025856. wilkins, lee. “media coverage of the bhopal disaster: a cultural myth in the making” international journal of mass emergencies and disasters, vol. 4, no. 1, 1986, 7-33. “bhopal disaster: where were you.” directed by anonymous, world wide entertainment, 2011. alexander street, https://video-alexanderstreet-com.ezproxy.mtsu. edu/watch/bhopal-disaster. sinha, indra. interview. book group info, apr. 2005, www.bookgroup.info/041205/interview.php?id=33. razorfoundation. “bhopal disaster bbc the yes men.” youtube, uploaded by razorfoundation, 2 jan. 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=liwlvbro9ei&t=29s. sinha, indra. animal ’s people. new york, simon & schuster, 2009. spivak, gayatri c. can the subaltern speak? basingstoke: macmillan, 1988. 2021 scientia book file 91 2021 scientia book file 92 2021 scientia book file 93 2021 scientia book file 94 2021 scientia book file 95 2021 scientia book file 96 2021 scientia book file 97 2021 scientia book file 98 2021 scientia book file 99 2021 scientia book file 100 2021 scientia book file 101 2021 scientia book file 102 2021 scientia book file 103 faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 103 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2014 skilton, m., maple-brown, l., kapellas, k., celermajer, d., bartold, m., brown, a.,...jamieson, l. (2011). the effect of a periodontal intervention on cardiovascular risk markers in indigenous australians with periodontal disease: the periocardio study. biomed central public health, 11:729, 1-8. sridhar, r., byakod, g., pudakalkatti, p., patil, r. (2009). a study to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis, cardiovascular disease and serum lipid levels. international journal of dental hygiene, 7(2), 144-150. doi:10.1111/j.1601-5037.2008.00318.x xu, f., lu, b. (2011). prospective association of periodontal disease with cardiovascular and allcause mortality: nhanes iii follow-up study. athersclerosis, 218, 536-542. doi:10.1016/j. athersclerosis.2011.07.091 faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international joseph cooper abstract the development of faith-based missionary aviation is a post-world war ii phenomenon. the war effort demonstrated the value, utility, and global reach of aviation to remote, underdeveloped areas of the world. with the beginnings of a worldwide infrastructure for aviation, christian aviators realized aviation could increase the range and effectiveness of their efforts to reach the world for christ (mellis, 2006). a qualitative, ethnographic study was conducted to document the activities of one faith-based aviation organization to gain an understanding of this little known-aspect of civilian aviation. the study was conducted with missionary flights international (mfi) of fort pierce, florida, which has been involved in faith-based missionary aviation since its inception in 1964. a constant comparative method was utilized to identify common elements, themes and patterns; common threads woven throughout the fabric of the organization and its culture. with the use of triangulation, three sides of input data from interviews, questionnaires and observations, two general phenomena, aviation and missions, each with six related categories emerged, describing the organization. mfi provides twice a week service to the island of hispaniola and the republic of haiti. in this in-depth study, insight and understanding were gained into the purpose of mfi, its daily routines and operations, and the challenges it faces in maintaining its flight services to haiti. faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 105104 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research introduction aviation is an expeditious means by which people and cargo can be transported especially in remote areas where traditional modes of transportation may not exist. charitable aviation fills a gap where commercial aviation cannot be financially sustained. we are accustomed to measuring profits by looking at the financial bottom line, but there are many rewards of equal or greater importance that are not measured monetarily: missions accomplished, hurdles overcome, lives saved. an exceptional example of this was the global response to the devastating january 12, 2010 earthquake in the republic of haiti. haiti is frequently visited by epidemics, tropical storms and flooding. it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and an area of great need. in 2010, haiti was the epicenter of a severe earthquake from which its people have yet to recover. nearly one hundred general aviation aircraft flew over 700 mercy flights, transporting 3,800 passengers and 1.4 million pounds of relief supplies in the days immediately after the earthquake, providing a lifeline to haiti (national business aviation association, 2010). missionary flights international of fort pierce, fl occupies a most unique niche in flying modernized dc-3s, the dc-3 tp aircraft for missionaries to the republic of haiti and the dominican republic on the island of hispaniola in the caribbean. a qualitative, ethnographic study through cultural emersion into missionary flights international (mfi) was undertaken to gain an understanding of this little-known aspect of civilian aviation and to gain greater insight into the mission and purpose of mfi documenting the activities of this faith-based aviation organization, its daily routine, and the challenges they face in maintaining their flight service to haiti. the ultimate goal of this study was to document the value of the faith-based aviation services of mfi; to highlight the organization; and to discover its operational methods. in so doing, this study hopes to create a picture, through an in-depth ethnographic study, of mission aviation. background the development of faith-based mission aviation was largely a post-world war ii phenomenon. at the end of wwii, americans formed missionary aviation groups: mission aviation fellowship (maf), established in 1945 and jungle aviation and radio service ( jaars) established in 1948. formal education programs for the training of missionaries in aviation have existed since the 1940s and 1950s with moody aviation of the moody bible institute and letourneau university of longview, texas. many other flight and maintenance programs exist today in the united states for the training of mission aviators. globally today there are “125 distinct, international and/or cross-cultural mission aviation programs…supported by more than 35 dedicated mission aviation training programs” (mcgee, 2007, p. 1). mfi was established in 1964 and in its early days flew beech-18 aircraft from florida to the caribbean. in 1976, the organization acquired its first dc-3 from moody aviation—further evidence and belief in god’s providence that continues today (beldin, 2007). a major event for mfi was their change from a faa part 91 operation to a part 125 operation in 2008, which is discussed in further depth in this study’s results. the dc-3 first flew for commercial airlines in 1935 and was known for its versatility, safety, dependability and ability to fly into unimproved airstrips. over 12,000 dc-3/c-47s were produced by douglas aircraft company, and 1,000 remain in service today. the plane was originally powered by the pratt & whitney r-1830-s1c3g wasp radial piston engines. the updated turboprop version is powered by pratt & whitney pt6a-65ar turbine engines. currently, mfi operates two dc-3 tp, dc-3 turboprops. in addition to background information on the types of planes flown by mfi, it is important to have a brief understanding of the history, demographics and geography of the island of hispaniola and the country of haiti. hispaniola, formerly española, is the second largest island in the caribbean in the west indies between cuba and puerto rico. the island is divided east and west into the dominican republic and the republic of haiti. the island’s strategic location in the caribbean was essential to spanish colonization of the region into cuba, mexico, panama, and south america. the spanish ceded the western third of hispaniola in 1697 to france, which later gained independence in 1804 becoming the republic of haiti. the remainder of the island gained colonial independence in 1844 becoming the dominican republic. today haiti, a nation of 8.7 million people is the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere, clearly illustrated through per capita income, infant mortality rates and life expectancy data. haiti is also a densely-populated country approximately the size of maryland; it is largely deforested, with a significantly lower standard of living, income and life expectancy and significantly higher infant mortality and population density than its dominican republic or other caribbean neighbors (index mundi, 2013). the 2010 earthquake that struck haiti registered 7.0 on the richter scale, and killed 316,000, injured 300,000 and left more than 1.3 million people homeless. the earthquake had an estimated economic cost of nearly $14 billion to this already impoverished nation (united states geological survey, 2013). mfi had its first aircraft on the ground in port-au-prince within 24 hours of the earthquake. soon, seven daily flights were ferrying essential, lifesaving cargos and provisions, including medical and rescue personnel to the island from ft. pierce (snook, budensiek, & martin, 2010). in 2011, mfi’s dc-3s flew 1,600 hours and 275,000 miles, with an average of four flights per week to haiti, the dominican republic and to the bahamas, with 270,000 pounds of luggage and 230 tons of essential supplies and cargo with a similar amount flown in 2012 (missionary flights international, 2013). research and data analysis methodology grounded theory with a constant comparison method is a contemporary, dynamic approach to qualitative research which is a “bottom-up” method for the identification of emerging common and recurrent trends and themes from ongoing data analysis, ensuring development of hypothesis and theories about phenomena. a constant comparative method faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 105104 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research introduction aviation is an expeditious means by which people and cargo can be transported especially in remote areas where traditional modes of transportation may not exist. charitable aviation fills a gap where commercial aviation cannot be financially sustained. we are accustomed to measuring profits by looking at the financial bottom line, but there are many rewards of equal or greater importance that are not measured monetarily: missions accomplished, hurdles overcome, lives saved. an exceptional example of this was the global response to the devastating january 12, 2010 earthquake in the republic of haiti. haiti is frequently visited by epidemics, tropical storms and flooding. it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and an area of great need. in 2010, haiti was the epicenter of a severe earthquake from which its people have yet to recover. nearly one hundred general aviation aircraft flew over 700 mercy flights, transporting 3,800 passengers and 1.4 million pounds of relief supplies in the days immediately after the earthquake, providing a lifeline to haiti (national business aviation association, 2010). missionary flights international of fort pierce, fl occupies a most unique niche in flying modernized dc-3s, the dc-3 tp aircraft for missionaries to the republic of haiti and the dominican republic on the island of hispaniola in the caribbean. a qualitative, ethnographic study through cultural emersion into missionary flights international (mfi) was undertaken to gain an understanding of this little-known aspect of civilian aviation and to gain greater insight into the mission and purpose of mfi documenting the activities of this faith-based aviation organization, its daily routine, and the challenges they face in maintaining their flight service to haiti. the ultimate goal of this study was to document the value of the faith-based aviation services of mfi; to highlight the organization; and to discover its operational methods. in so doing, this study hopes to create a picture, through an in-depth ethnographic study, of mission aviation. background the development of faith-based mission aviation was largely a post-world war ii phenomenon. at the end of wwii, americans formed missionary aviation groups: mission aviation fellowship (maf), established in 1945 and jungle aviation and radio service ( jaars) established in 1948. formal education programs for the training of missionaries in aviation have existed since the 1940s and 1950s with moody aviation of the moody bible institute and letourneau university of longview, texas. many other flight and maintenance programs exist today in the united states for the training of mission aviators. globally today there are “125 distinct, international and/or cross-cultural mission aviation programs…supported by more than 35 dedicated mission aviation training programs” (mcgee, 2007, p. 1). mfi was established in 1964 and in its early days flew beech-18 aircraft from florida to the caribbean. in 1976, the organization acquired its first dc-3 from moody aviation—further evidence and belief in god’s providence that continues today (beldin, 2007). a major event for mfi was their change from a faa part 91 operation to a part 125 operation in 2008, which is discussed in further depth in this study’s results. the dc-3 first flew for commercial airlines in 1935 and was known for its versatility, safety, dependability and ability to fly into unimproved airstrips. over 12,000 dc-3/c-47s were produced by douglas aircraft company, and 1,000 remain in service today. the plane was originally powered by the pratt & whitney r-1830-s1c3g wasp radial piston engines. the updated turboprop version is powered by pratt & whitney pt6a-65ar turbine engines. currently, mfi operates two dc-3 tp, dc-3 turboprops. in addition to background information on the types of planes flown by mfi, it is important to have a brief understanding of the history, demographics and geography of the island of hispaniola and the country of haiti. hispaniola, formerly española, is the second largest island in the caribbean in the west indies between cuba and puerto rico. the island is divided east and west into the dominican republic and the republic of haiti. the island’s strategic location in the caribbean was essential to spanish colonization of the region into cuba, mexico, panama, and south america. the spanish ceded the western third of hispaniola in 1697 to france, which later gained independence in 1804 becoming the republic of haiti. the remainder of the island gained colonial independence in 1844 becoming the dominican republic. today haiti, a nation of 8.7 million people is the most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere, clearly illustrated through per capita income, infant mortality rates and life expectancy data. haiti is also a densely-populated country approximately the size of maryland; it is largely deforested, with a significantly lower standard of living, income and life expectancy and significantly higher infant mortality and population density than its dominican republic or other caribbean neighbors (index mundi, 2013). the 2010 earthquake that struck haiti registered 7.0 on the richter scale, and killed 316,000, injured 300,000 and left more than 1.3 million people homeless. the earthquake had an estimated economic cost of nearly $14 billion to this already impoverished nation (united states geological survey, 2013). mfi had its first aircraft on the ground in port-au-prince within 24 hours of the earthquake. soon, seven daily flights were ferrying essential, lifesaving cargos and provisions, including medical and rescue personnel to the island from ft. pierce (snook, budensiek, & martin, 2010). in 2011, mfi’s dc-3s flew 1,600 hours and 275,000 miles, with an average of four flights per week to haiti, the dominican republic and to the bahamas, with 270,000 pounds of luggage and 230 tons of essential supplies and cargo with a similar amount flown in 2012 (missionary flights international, 2013). research and data analysis methodology grounded theory with a constant comparison method is a contemporary, dynamic approach to qualitative research which is a “bottom-up” method for the identification of emerging common and recurrent trends and themes from ongoing data analysis, ensuring development of hypothesis and theories about phenomena. a constant comparative method faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 107106 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was utilized to identify common elements, themes and patterns; common threads woven throughout the fabric of the organization and its culture. figure 1 is an illustration of the triangulation research methods, based on a triangle with three sides of input data from interviews, questionnaires and observations. data collection and analysis the author conducted a five-day visit to mfi in ft. pierce, florida, in january, 2013, for on-ground observation of aviation management, aircraft preparation and loading, aircraft maintenance, flight operations and preparation with opportunity for interviews of staff and of clientele served by the organization and to observe and participate in ground and flight activities in fort pierce and in haiti. mfi is a relatively small aviation operation with twenty-one paid employees and additional unpaid volunteers. it has personnel functioning in a wide spectrum of routine essential aviation activities. departments at mfi include: administration, flight operations, maintenance operations, flight planning/ loadmaster, warehouse/mailroom/purchasing and office/clerical support staff. there were five prominent personnel categories at mfi to include those in administration, pilot/ maintenance, warehouse/mailroom and purchasing, clerical office staff, and volunteers. the author undertook a directed, intentional and purposeful sampling of employees in each category for both the depth and scope of this inquiry. over the course of four days nineteen formal interviews were conducted. one day was dedicated to participating in flight operations with a roundtrip flight to haiti as a member of the flight crew as the required flight attendant. eight adult passengers expressed a willingness and interest to participate in a questionnaire process at a later date. a similar-sized group of mfi customers, unknown to the researcher was surveyed through contact information provided by mfi, for another, independent data set for triangulation purposes. this group was asked the same questions as passengers on the january, 10, 2013 flights to and from haiti. commonly asked questions included the individual’s experience with mfi; for staff members, their personal experiences, responsibilities and perspectives on the organization and its customers. mfi’s clientele were questioned about their experience with the organization. in both cases, those questioned were given the opportunity to expand and develop their thoughts in germane areas. following the on-site visit, audio recordings and field notes were transcribed. data from all sources were examined for common and repetitive themes. these themes were categorized, the frequency or commonality was noted and categories of related themes were also developed in keeping with the study’s design. data for this study about faith-based aviation and missionary flights international was derived from sources within the organization, and sources outside the organization. the internal data was from interviews in fort pierce, fl with mfi personnel and were a key source of primary information. the external data was from interviews with fort pierce airport personnel; questionnaires completed by mfi customers; and from five days of field notes and observations with a critical source of external data from mfi customers by questionnaire. thirteen of twenty questionnaires were completed for an overall response rate of sixty-five percent. at least four distinct and different data sources of information, allowing for triangulation, were derived for analysis to identify and establish core phenomena. results utilizing a constant comparative method to initially identify potential core phenomena, recurring events and themes emerged and were identified. the core phenomena ninety topics about faith-based aviation and missionary flights international were initially identified. these topics were further refined and concentrated into twelve categories. each of these categories was significant and each was confirmed from a variety of data sources. two core phenomena were identified: flight or aviation and missions or missionaries in keeping with missionary flights international’s own definition: missionary flights international is not an airline. we do, however, strive to offer affiliated missions the kind of efficient service and professionalism expected of an airline operation. the lord has led us to “stand in the gap” in meeting the air support needs of affiliated biblical missions in the island fields of the west indies, particularly haiti, the dominican republic, and the bahamas. (missionary flights international. 2013. para 1) faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 107106 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was utilized to identify common elements, themes and patterns; common threads woven throughout the fabric of the organization and its culture. figure 1 is an illustration of the triangulation research methods, based on a triangle with three sides of input data from interviews, questionnaires and observations. data collection and analysis the author conducted a five-day visit to mfi in ft. pierce, florida, in january, 2013, for on-ground observation of aviation management, aircraft preparation and loading, aircraft maintenance, flight operations and preparation with opportunity for interviews of staff and of clientele served by the organization and to observe and participate in ground and flight activities in fort pierce and in haiti. mfi is a relatively small aviation operation with twenty-one paid employees and additional unpaid volunteers. it has personnel functioning in a wide spectrum of routine essential aviation activities. departments at mfi include: administration, flight operations, maintenance operations, flight planning/ loadmaster, warehouse/mailroom/purchasing and office/clerical support staff. there were five prominent personnel categories at mfi to include those in administration, pilot/ maintenance, warehouse/mailroom and purchasing, clerical office staff, and volunteers. the author undertook a directed, intentional and purposeful sampling of employees in each category for both the depth and scope of this inquiry. over the course of four days nineteen formal interviews were conducted. one day was dedicated to participating in flight operations with a roundtrip flight to haiti as a member of the flight crew as the required flight attendant. eight adult passengers expressed a willingness and interest to participate in a questionnaire process at a later date. a similar-sized group of mfi customers, unknown to the researcher was surveyed through contact information provided by mfi, for another, independent data set for triangulation purposes. this group was asked the same questions as passengers on the january, 10, 2013 flights to and from haiti. commonly asked questions included the individual’s experience with mfi; for staff members, their personal experiences, responsibilities and perspectives on the organization and its customers. mfi’s clientele were questioned about their experience with the organization. in both cases, those questioned were given the opportunity to expand and develop their thoughts in germane areas. following the on-site visit, audio recordings and field notes were transcribed. data from all sources were examined for common and repetitive themes. these themes were categorized, the frequency or commonality was noted and categories of related themes were also developed in keeping with the study’s design. data for this study about faith-based aviation and missionary flights international was derived from sources within the organization, and sources outside the organization. the internal data was from interviews in fort pierce, fl with mfi personnel and were a key source of primary information. the external data was from interviews with fort pierce airport personnel; questionnaires completed by mfi customers; and from five days of field notes and observations with a critical source of external data from mfi customers by questionnaire. thirteen of twenty questionnaires were completed for an overall response rate of sixty-five percent. at least four distinct and different data sources of information, allowing for triangulation, were derived for analysis to identify and establish core phenomena. results utilizing a constant comparative method to initially identify potential core phenomena, recurring events and themes emerged and were identified. the core phenomena ninety topics about faith-based aviation and missionary flights international were initially identified. these topics were further refined and concentrated into twelve categories. each of these categories was significant and each was confirmed from a variety of data sources. two core phenomena were identified: flight or aviation and missions or missionaries in keeping with missionary flights international’s own definition: missionary flights international is not an airline. we do, however, strive to offer affiliated missions the kind of efficient service and professionalism expected of an airline operation. the lord has led us to “stand in the gap” in meeting the air support needs of affiliated biblical missions in the island fields of the west indies, particularly haiti, the dominican republic, and the bahamas. (missionary flights international. 2013. para 1) faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 109108 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 1 illustrates the final categorization of two research phenomena, with twelve categories, six in under phenomenon. the first core phenomenon: aviation remarks about aviation consistently addressed the merits of aviation in overcoming geographic hurdles common to other forms of transportation. likewise, the comment was often made about aviation being a remarkable tool in advancing the kingdom of god. aviation is a time-saving means for missionaries in haiti. aviation is also a secure method of transporting personnel and cargo otherwise vulnerable to hostile inhabitants and hazardous road conditions. mfi’s service is reliable and dependable and constitutes a lifeline to the mainland for missionaries. they deliberately establish their charges at the lowest possible rates while meeting expenses. a roundtrip to any of their four destinations has a recommended donation of $450, or about half of a commercial fare. aircraft mfi utilized the dc-3 radial aircraft from 1973 until 2011. the turboprop version, the dc-3 tp was first introduced to mfi in 2003, with complete conversion in 2011. the professional pilot and maintenance staff at mfi consistently remarked about the dependability and versatility of the aircraft, especially the turboprop version. as a tail dragger aircraft with large, robust main gear, the dc-3 is well suited for primitive landing fields. in essence, it is a simple, easily maintained aircraft. the dc-3 tp is more reliable, requiring only normally scheduled maintenance. the dc-3 tp can be put back into flight service after checking the engine oil and cleaning the galley. the turbine aircraft uses universally available jet a fuel. key to mfi’s operations is keeping the cost of travel and shipping for missionaries as low as possible. considering current economics, no other aircraft option is viable. part 125 flight and maintenance operations mfi comes under stringent regulations by the faa under part 125 operations requiring strict adherence to flight operations and maintenance procedures. conversion to part 125 operations in 2008 accelerated change within mfi, with the creation of a director of operations and a chief pilot, development of standard operating procedures (sops) and flight and maintenance manuals to standardize operations, and greater stringency in training and record keeping. they are conscious of risk management and the importance of crew resource management (crm) and safety management systems (sms) programs. under federal regulations, they are responsible for currency of their captain and first officer pilots (e. hallquist, personal communications, january 9, 2013). their move in 2005 to fort pierce from west palm beach, fl provided a spacious headquarters with a 35,000 square foot hangar with offices, maintenance and storage facilities and warehouses. the aircraft are housed in hangars, greatly reducing aircraft corrosion and greatly enhancing their maintenance and flight loading efforts. the director of mfi is aware of the limitations in having only two functional aircraft for routine operations and realize that with additional aircraft they could expand their missionary aviation services throughout the caribbean (k. gumpel, personal communication, january 9, 2013). flight preparations mfi has seen a continuously changing aviation environment, especially as an international operation post 9/11. there are greater concerns about safety and compliance with american and haitian government immigration, customs procedures and regulations affecting every flight (e. hallquist, personal communications, january 9, 2013). in shipping freight and cargo, they must adhere to safe practices and not ship hazardous or banned cargo (w. norton, personal communication, january 8, 2013). missionary team leaders establish reservations several months to a year in advance for their groups. planning software helps coordinate flight planning efforts merging reservation and cargo data with the number of passengers, onboard fuel requirements and the length of flight legs (w. norton, personal communication, january 8, 2013). passport, visa, general declarations and cargo and passenger manifests are submitted electronically in advance to the united states and haitian governments. prior permission must be granted for both the departure and arrival of all flights (s. hengst, personal communication, january 11, 2013). professionalism richard snook, mfi’s president and ceo, remarked of mfi’s desire to mimic a commercial airline operation with professionalism, adherence to regulations and aviation standards, and in their relationships with the faa. a sense of professionalism was confirmed from external sources at the fort pierce airport. mfi has an experienced cadre of pilots, each flying weekly and approximately 250 hours per year (k. stratton, personal communications, january 9, 2013). their pilots have from 5,000 to 25,000 hours of flight experience (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). multiple references were made to mfi’s commitment to the missionaries’ safety and welfare, through conducting emergency flights evacuating missionaries for catastrophes, medical emergencies and accidents and because of political unrest in haiti. all mfi customers surveyed confirmed a high degree of professionalism and competence in flight and office operations. they consistently remarked about mfi’s faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 109108 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 1 illustrates the final categorization of two research phenomena, with twelve categories, six in under phenomenon. the first core phenomenon: aviation remarks about aviation consistently addressed the merits of aviation in overcoming geographic hurdles common to other forms of transportation. likewise, the comment was often made about aviation being a remarkable tool in advancing the kingdom of god. aviation is a time-saving means for missionaries in haiti. aviation is also a secure method of transporting personnel and cargo otherwise vulnerable to hostile inhabitants and hazardous road conditions. mfi’s service is reliable and dependable and constitutes a lifeline to the mainland for missionaries. they deliberately establish their charges at the lowest possible rates while meeting expenses. a roundtrip to any of their four destinations has a recommended donation of $450, or about half of a commercial fare. aircraft mfi utilized the dc-3 radial aircraft from 1973 until 2011. the turboprop version, the dc-3 tp was first introduced to mfi in 2003, with complete conversion in 2011. the professional pilot and maintenance staff at mfi consistently remarked about the dependability and versatility of the aircraft, especially the turboprop version. as a tail dragger aircraft with large, robust main gear, the dc-3 is well suited for primitive landing fields. in essence, it is a simple, easily maintained aircraft. the dc-3 tp is more reliable, requiring only normally scheduled maintenance. the dc-3 tp can be put back into flight service after checking the engine oil and cleaning the galley. the turbine aircraft uses universally available jet a fuel. key to mfi’s operations is keeping the cost of travel and shipping for missionaries as low as possible. considering current economics, no other aircraft option is viable. part 125 flight and maintenance operations mfi comes under stringent regulations by the faa under part 125 operations requiring strict adherence to flight operations and maintenance procedures. conversion to part 125 operations in 2008 accelerated change within mfi, with the creation of a director of operations and a chief pilot, development of standard operating procedures (sops) and flight and maintenance manuals to standardize operations, and greater stringency in training and record keeping. they are conscious of risk management and the importance of crew resource management (crm) and safety management systems (sms) programs. under federal regulations, they are responsible for currency of their captain and first officer pilots (e. hallquist, personal communications, january 9, 2013). their move in 2005 to fort pierce from west palm beach, fl provided a spacious headquarters with a 35,000 square foot hangar with offices, maintenance and storage facilities and warehouses. the aircraft are housed in hangars, greatly reducing aircraft corrosion and greatly enhancing their maintenance and flight loading efforts. the director of mfi is aware of the limitations in having only two functional aircraft for routine operations and realize that with additional aircraft they could expand their missionary aviation services throughout the caribbean (k. gumpel, personal communication, january 9, 2013). flight preparations mfi has seen a continuously changing aviation environment, especially as an international operation post 9/11. there are greater concerns about safety and compliance with american and haitian government immigration, customs procedures and regulations affecting every flight (e. hallquist, personal communications, january 9, 2013). in shipping freight and cargo, they must adhere to safe practices and not ship hazardous or banned cargo (w. norton, personal communication, january 8, 2013). missionary team leaders establish reservations several months to a year in advance for their groups. planning software helps coordinate flight planning efforts merging reservation and cargo data with the number of passengers, onboard fuel requirements and the length of flight legs (w. norton, personal communication, january 8, 2013). passport, visa, general declarations and cargo and passenger manifests are submitted electronically in advance to the united states and haitian governments. prior permission must be granted for both the departure and arrival of all flights (s. hengst, personal communication, january 11, 2013). professionalism richard snook, mfi’s president and ceo, remarked of mfi’s desire to mimic a commercial airline operation with professionalism, adherence to regulations and aviation standards, and in their relationships with the faa. a sense of professionalism was confirmed from external sources at the fort pierce airport. mfi has an experienced cadre of pilots, each flying weekly and approximately 250 hours per year (k. stratton, personal communications, january 9, 2013). their pilots have from 5,000 to 25,000 hours of flight experience (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). multiple references were made to mfi’s commitment to the missionaries’ safety and welfare, through conducting emergency flights evacuating missionaries for catastrophes, medical emergencies and accidents and because of political unrest in haiti. all mfi customers surveyed confirmed a high degree of professionalism and competence in flight and office operations. they consistently remarked about mfi’s faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 111110 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research hardworking, caring, courteous, cheerful and friendly attitudes, being unflappable and innovative especially in the face of emergencies, and with a willingness to “go the extra mile.” a missionary with ten years of experience flying with mfi stated: “very professional while being compassionate to serve the lord with excellence” (interview questionnaire (non mfi-personnel: clients, patrons, sponsors & benefactor), february 27, 2013). the second core phenomenon: missions and missionaries missions and missionaries were defined as the act of proclaiming the gospel message in service and in love. those within mfi consider themselves to be stateside missionaries. to serve to serve as a calling or vocation is especially important within this organization in providing for the physical and spiritual needs of others. mfi’s president remarked, everyone, regardless of rank or responsibility has been called to mfi to serve. when interviewed, both paid staff and volunteers spoke of having been called to the mission field and of having been specifically led to mfi. when asked why they serve, volunteers and staff commonly responded that they have the spiritual gift of “helps”; feel called to bring relief and aid to others; and/or possess talents in aviation. when combined, mfi is the ideal platform from which to serve. service mfi has continually developed and refined the services they offer missionaries and their missions. their missionary services started in 1964 with the delivery of mail to missionaries in the bahamas. all missionary organizations utilizing mfi’s services must qualify as affiliate members. each application is reviewed for consistency with mfi’s own doctrinal statement. mfi supports over 300 missionary organizations with more than 750 permanent missionary families residing in haiti and additional transient short-term missionaries. mfi’s vision goes well beyond the provision of aviation services for transporting people and material. mfi has compiled a listing of fifteen important services they provide for missions and missionaries in haiti including disaster relief, feeding programs, sea shipments, construction teams, youth groups, orphanages, agriculture, church building, education, evangelism, emergence evacuations, christmas bags, well drilling, mail and package service and hospital and medical clinic support. the greatest service mfi provides is best defined as a concierge service for missionaries. twice weekly, mfi ships mail to each of its three hundred affiliates in haiti at no cost. packages and cargo are shipped at mfi’s costs. this is particularly noteworthy of a nonprofit organization that annually hopes to break even financially. the value of this was consistently validated and confirmed by missionaries in the field. many stated, they could not accomplish their mission in haiti without mfi; mfi is their link to america, often making life in haiti more bearable. evangelization and prayer evangelization was defined as preaching and good works for spiritual conversion with prayer defined as conversation with god. a common and unifying denominator for those at mfi and the missionaries they serve is spiritual belief and faith. one missionary pilot remarked: “i do it for one reason, so that others may come to know jesus christ as their personal savior” (k. gumpel, personal communication, january 9, 2013). mfi’s president remarked on their ultimate spiritual motivation: we have a burden for haiti and the unreached. it’s not about flying airplanes. eternity is too important. it’s about reaching people. these old dc-3’s were once instruments of war. they are now instruments of peace. (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). mfi’s employees remarked of routinely seeking god’s wisdom and counsel in their operations. at the beginning of each week, those in the mfi community join together in prayer. nearly two-thirds of the missionaries traveling to and from haiti specifically mentioned reassurance with the flight crews’ routine of prayer for god’s protection before each flight. faith in god’s provision, support and fund raising not surprisingly, in any non-profit organization, fund raising is essential. those at mfi depend upon charitable donations to sustain their organization and its efforts. faith, provision and support were defined in this context of trusting god for his provision. those at mfi are called to be good stewards. in a legal sense, mfi is the owner of the organization. in a biblical sense, they are stewards of the resources god has and continues to provide for them in serving others. unique to faith-based organizations is the concept of support. each missionary is responsible for raising his or her own support or salary. individuals, families and churches have supported these missionaries, and the organization corporately with their consistent contributions (l. campbell, personal communications, january 8, 2013). those entering the mfi community must first spend several years developing this financial support before becoming part of the organization (r. snook, personal communications, january 11, 2013). this same principle is also applied to the organization. mfi must actively solicit support to sustain their flight operations. in 2013 one of their dc-3 aircraft was refurbished at an expense of well over one million dollars, a private foundation financed the engine overhaul of $900,000 ( j. karabensh, personal communication, january 7, 2013). mfi’s operating budget of nearly four million dollars is provided entirely through financial donations and fund raising (h. martin, personal communication, january 7, 2013). in 2012 mfi became debt free. as god provides additional people and additional aircraft, mfi plans to expand their services to cuba, to central and south america (l. campbell, personal communication, january 8, 2013). history and culture faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 111110 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research hardworking, caring, courteous, cheerful and friendly attitudes, being unflappable and innovative especially in the face of emergencies, and with a willingness to “go the extra mile.” a missionary with ten years of experience flying with mfi stated: “very professional while being compassionate to serve the lord with excellence” (interview questionnaire (non mfi-personnel: clients, patrons, sponsors & benefactor), february 27, 2013). the second core phenomenon: missions and missionaries missions and missionaries were defined as the act of proclaiming the gospel message in service and in love. those within mfi consider themselves to be stateside missionaries. to serve to serve as a calling or vocation is especially important within this organization in providing for the physical and spiritual needs of others. mfi’s president remarked, everyone, regardless of rank or responsibility has been called to mfi to serve. when interviewed, both paid staff and volunteers spoke of having been called to the mission field and of having been specifically led to mfi. when asked why they serve, volunteers and staff commonly responded that they have the spiritual gift of “helps”; feel called to bring relief and aid to others; and/or possess talents in aviation. when combined, mfi is the ideal platform from which to serve. service mfi has continually developed and refined the services they offer missionaries and their missions. their missionary services started in 1964 with the delivery of mail to missionaries in the bahamas. all missionary organizations utilizing mfi’s services must qualify as affiliate members. each application is reviewed for consistency with mfi’s own doctrinal statement. mfi supports over 300 missionary organizations with more than 750 permanent missionary families residing in haiti and additional transient short-term missionaries. mfi’s vision goes well beyond the provision of aviation services for transporting people and material. mfi has compiled a listing of fifteen important services they provide for missions and missionaries in haiti including disaster relief, feeding programs, sea shipments, construction teams, youth groups, orphanages, agriculture, church building, education, evangelism, emergence evacuations, christmas bags, well drilling, mail and package service and hospital and medical clinic support. the greatest service mfi provides is best defined as a concierge service for missionaries. twice weekly, mfi ships mail to each of its three hundred affiliates in haiti at no cost. packages and cargo are shipped at mfi’s costs. this is particularly noteworthy of a nonprofit organization that annually hopes to break even financially. the value of this was consistently validated and confirmed by missionaries in the field. many stated, they could not accomplish their mission in haiti without mfi; mfi is their link to america, often making life in haiti more bearable. evangelization and prayer evangelization was defined as preaching and good works for spiritual conversion with prayer defined as conversation with god. a common and unifying denominator for those at mfi and the missionaries they serve is spiritual belief and faith. one missionary pilot remarked: “i do it for one reason, so that others may come to know jesus christ as their personal savior” (k. gumpel, personal communication, january 9, 2013). mfi’s president remarked on their ultimate spiritual motivation: we have a burden for haiti and the unreached. it’s not about flying airplanes. eternity is too important. it’s about reaching people. these old dc-3’s were once instruments of war. they are now instruments of peace. (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). mfi’s employees remarked of routinely seeking god’s wisdom and counsel in their operations. at the beginning of each week, those in the mfi community join together in prayer. nearly two-thirds of the missionaries traveling to and from haiti specifically mentioned reassurance with the flight crews’ routine of prayer for god’s protection before each flight. faith in god’s provision, support and fund raising not surprisingly, in any non-profit organization, fund raising is essential. those at mfi depend upon charitable donations to sustain their organization and its efforts. faith, provision and support were defined in this context of trusting god for his provision. those at mfi are called to be good stewards. in a legal sense, mfi is the owner of the organization. in a biblical sense, they are stewards of the resources god has and continues to provide for them in serving others. unique to faith-based organizations is the concept of support. each missionary is responsible for raising his or her own support or salary. individuals, families and churches have supported these missionaries, and the organization corporately with their consistent contributions (l. campbell, personal communications, january 8, 2013). those entering the mfi community must first spend several years developing this financial support before becoming part of the organization (r. snook, personal communications, january 11, 2013). this same principle is also applied to the organization. mfi must actively solicit support to sustain their flight operations. in 2013 one of their dc-3 aircraft was refurbished at an expense of well over one million dollars, a private foundation financed the engine overhaul of $900,000 ( j. karabensh, personal communication, january 7, 2013). mfi’s operating budget of nearly four million dollars is provided entirely through financial donations and fund raising (h. martin, personal communication, january 7, 2013). in 2012 mfi became debt free. as god provides additional people and additional aircraft, mfi plans to expand their services to cuba, to central and south america (l. campbell, personal communication, january 8, 2013). history and culture faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 113112 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research mfi has a rich culture in its fifty-year history. the missionary calling is common to all within the organization. they share a common desire to fulfill the lord’s command to reach out “to the least of these” (matt 25:40). everyone’s position and contribution is equally important and valuable. as the ceo remarked: “we are in this together, to serve the lord. that makes my job easy” (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). the director of flight operations remarked about their corporate culture when he said: “as christians, there is a spiritual issue of maintaining good relationships. we are all committed to our faith and that has an impact on the organization” (e. hallquist, personal communication, january 9, 2013). most members have been with the organization between ten and thirty years. to remain focused and refreshed in their service, each mfi missionary staff member and family is encouraged to spend time in haiti, living and serving with a missionary family every two years. staff members know they are constantly sowing seeds, even in the setting of the drudgery and repetition of their aviation jobs. their work is an act of spiritual service. ”we do things well, even in the details because it’s an act of worship. it pleases god to do things well. everything we do has a spiritual component” (e. hallquist, personal communication, january 9, 2013). charity and generosity are important cultural element at mfi. members are known for their service and commitment to the fort pierce airport and community and for being responsible corporate citizens. annually, tens of thousands of meals are prepared at mfi for the save our starving children food-packing event. mfi donates their spacious hangar for the airport’s annual open house, atc safety seminars and fund raising auctions for the public schools. people and human assets people are essential and valued at mfi, and key to their daily success. those at mfi have seen how god has provided the right people at the right time, in the short and long term. multiple times the organization’s leadership expressed personal concerns for the welfare of each staff member. it is noted in the organization’s financial commitment to each staff member, its policy for short term mission trips to haiti for each staff member, regular leave for support raising and compensatory time off following extended duty time. mfi’s people are cherished as a god-given resource. many times short and long term missionaries commonly remarked about the caring, committed and kind nature of those at mfi as well as their shared cultural bonds. volunteers volunteers were defined as those who work without being financially compensated. they are essential and critical to the daily efforts of mfi, and are recognized as god given. a full-time staff person at mfi has the responsibility for coordinating volunteer services. there are tens of thousands of volunteer hours are served each year ( j. karabensh, personal communication, march 3, 2013). during the 2010 haiti earthquake relief efforts, volunteers routinely served ten to twelve hours per day for months, greatly facilitating and multiplying mfi’s effective response (t. long, personal communication, january 8, 2013). volunteers serve sorting missionaries’ mail and cargo and loading aircraft. fulltime seasonal volunteers assist annually during mfi’s busiest seasons. discussion in anthropology and sociology, the term fictive kinship is used to describe a family bound together by common ties of affection, concern, obligation and responsibility and not by bonds of blood or marriage (the free dictionary, 2013). this kinship is apparent in examining the data about missionary flights international with their shared common spiritual identify and purpose in achieving common goals. it was apparent that missionary flights international is a trust, a trust in a spiritual sense, in god having entrusted them with resources and opportunities. it is also a multi-generational time-honored trust with fifty years of traditions being passed from one generation to the next. the people at mfi are deeply committed to their service of standing in the gap for god’s people made possible by god’s provision from a broad base of support for its operations and its missionaries. summary missionary flight international of fort pierce, florida, is part of the post-wwii expansion of mission aviation into the third world. in 1964, the organization began its flight services in support of missionaries in the commonwealth of the bahamas. over the past fifty years, mfi has increased the scope of missionary services, establishing an aviation niche in serving missionaries primarily in the island nation of haiti. most mission aviation organizations today are located and operated solely in foreign countries utilizing single engine aircraft with much smaller capacities and shorter ranges, not typically flying over open oceans. there are very few, such as mfi, who routinely utilizing larger aircraft in their application. consistently, mfi has delivered tons of cargo and thousands of passengers annually for decades. in considering mfi’s air transportation services, a theme emerged of providing a lifeline from the united states to haiti. clients of mfi offered a consistent picture of professional, dependable, cost-effective aviation services declared as being essential and critical. those at mfi see themselves as serving heroes, when in practice, they are also heroes. in examining mfi, what first stands out is their daily use of aircraft to overcome geographic barriers. as an organization, they have an effective fictive kinship to serve a common spiritual purpose. as central as aviation is to mfi, without faith, there would be no flight. it is in their belief in a higher calling that these aviation professionals labor so arduously for a lifetime. as an organization, they are aware of fiscal stewardship in providing their service. they must be competitive with other carriers and distinguish themselves with superior services. there is an underlying notion of providing and caring for missionaries. as a business practice, they follow the biblical principle of not acquiring debt. faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 113112 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research mfi has a rich culture in its fifty-year history. the missionary calling is common to all within the organization. they share a common desire to fulfill the lord’s command to reach out “to the least of these” (matt 25:40). everyone’s position and contribution is equally important and valuable. as the ceo remarked: “we are in this together, to serve the lord. that makes my job easy” (r. snook, personal communication, january 11, 2013). the director of flight operations remarked about their corporate culture when he said: “as christians, there is a spiritual issue of maintaining good relationships. we are all committed to our faith and that has an impact on the organization” (e. hallquist, personal communication, january 9, 2013). most members have been with the organization between ten and thirty years. to remain focused and refreshed in their service, each mfi missionary staff member and family is encouraged to spend time in haiti, living and serving with a missionary family every two years. staff members know they are constantly sowing seeds, even in the setting of the drudgery and repetition of their aviation jobs. their work is an act of spiritual service. ”we do things well, even in the details because it’s an act of worship. it pleases god to do things well. everything we do has a spiritual component” (e. hallquist, personal communication, january 9, 2013). charity and generosity are important cultural element at mfi. members are known for their service and commitment to the fort pierce airport and community and for being responsible corporate citizens. annually, tens of thousands of meals are prepared at mfi for the save our starving children food-packing event. mfi donates their spacious hangar for the airport’s annual open house, atc safety seminars and fund raising auctions for the public schools. people and human assets people are essential and valued at mfi, and key to their daily success. those at mfi have seen how god has provided the right people at the right time, in the short and long term. multiple times the organization’s leadership expressed personal concerns for the welfare of each staff member. it is noted in the organization’s financial commitment to each staff member, its policy for short term mission trips to haiti for each staff member, regular leave for support raising and compensatory time off following extended duty time. mfi’s people are cherished as a god-given resource. many times short and long term missionaries commonly remarked about the caring, committed and kind nature of those at mfi as well as their shared cultural bonds. volunteers volunteers were defined as those who work without being financially compensated. they are essential and critical to the daily efforts of mfi, and are recognized as god given. a full-time staff person at mfi has the responsibility for coordinating volunteer services. there are tens of thousands of volunteer hours are served each year ( j. karabensh, personal communication, march 3, 2013). during the 2010 haiti earthquake relief efforts, volunteers routinely served ten to twelve hours per day for months, greatly facilitating and multiplying mfi’s effective response (t. long, personal communication, january 8, 2013). volunteers serve sorting missionaries’ mail and cargo and loading aircraft. fulltime seasonal volunteers assist annually during mfi’s busiest seasons. discussion in anthropology and sociology, the term fictive kinship is used to describe a family bound together by common ties of affection, concern, obligation and responsibility and not by bonds of blood or marriage (the free dictionary, 2013). this kinship is apparent in examining the data about missionary flights international with their shared common spiritual identify and purpose in achieving common goals. it was apparent that missionary flights international is a trust, a trust in a spiritual sense, in god having entrusted them with resources and opportunities. it is also a multi-generational time-honored trust with fifty years of traditions being passed from one generation to the next. the people at mfi are deeply committed to their service of standing in the gap for god’s people made possible by god’s provision from a broad base of support for its operations and its missionaries. summary missionary flight international of fort pierce, florida, is part of the post-wwii expansion of mission aviation into the third world. in 1964, the organization began its flight services in support of missionaries in the commonwealth of the bahamas. over the past fifty years, mfi has increased the scope of missionary services, establishing an aviation niche in serving missionaries primarily in the island nation of haiti. most mission aviation organizations today are located and operated solely in foreign countries utilizing single engine aircraft with much smaller capacities and shorter ranges, not typically flying over open oceans. there are very few, such as mfi, who routinely utilizing larger aircraft in their application. consistently, mfi has delivered tons of cargo and thousands of passengers annually for decades. in considering mfi’s air transportation services, a theme emerged of providing a lifeline from the united states to haiti. clients of mfi offered a consistent picture of professional, dependable, cost-effective aviation services declared as being essential and critical. those at mfi see themselves as serving heroes, when in practice, they are also heroes. in examining mfi, what first stands out is their daily use of aircraft to overcome geographic barriers. as an organization, they have an effective fictive kinship to serve a common spiritual purpose. as central as aviation is to mfi, without faith, there would be no flight. it is in their belief in a higher calling that these aviation professionals labor so arduously for a lifetime. as an organization, they are aware of fiscal stewardship in providing their service. they must be competitive with other carriers and distinguish themselves with superior services. there is an underlying notion of providing and caring for missionaries. as a business practice, they follow the biblical principle of not acquiring debt. faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 115114 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research limitations of this study and recommendations for future research this was a qualitative study of a single faith-based mission aviation organization. the intent was to document and illustrate the value of aviation in alleviating human suffering and in the advancement of christian ministry. it is impossible to extrapolate from this study or from the mfi experience the complete value of faith-based mission aviation in the world or of its potential global impact. mfi is a unique organization, flying older, multiengine, higher capacity aircraft from an american base into and out of the third world multiple times each week. this identical solution might not be applicable to other organizations or in other areas of the world due to different geopolitical factors. haiti is a unique setting which mfi has carefully nurtured and cultivated over the past half century. most of mfi’s flights are for missionaries originating from north america. the need and utility for a routine use of larger aircraft such as the dc-3 in other settings has not been documented. faith-based mission aviation is a unique entity, largely beneath the radar and overshadowed by commercial aviation. with resources such as the internet, facebook and youtube, this underpublicized aspect of aviation will hopefully be made more visible in the future with greater public awareness and support. this article is an abridged version of a thesis written in 2013 of the same title and available on line for additional details. http://search.proquest.com/pqdtlocal1006849/docview/1371017798/7af3769f1f0e48 f5pq/1?accountid=4886 references basler turbo-67. (2010). basler turbo conversions. retrived from basler turbo conversion, llc basler turbo 67 aircraft: http://www.baslerturbo.com/ beldin, d. (2007). yours for a meeting in the air. mustang, ok: tate publishing. faa commercial operations branch part 125 operations. (2012, october 17). faacommercial operations branch part 125 operations. retrived from federal aviation administration: http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ avs/offices/afs/afs800/afs820/part125_oper/ jaars. (2013). jaars aviation a quick flight. retrived from jungle aviation and radio service: https://www.jaars.org/what/aviation mcgee, j. (2007). flightplan exploring the present and future of mission aviation. retrieved from global mapping international: http://www.gmi.org/files/flightplan%20 overview.pdf mellis, c. (2006). more than a pilot. chino, ca: r.c. law & co., inc. and missionary aviation fellowship. mission aviation fellowship. (2013). mission aviation fellowship making an impact. retrieved from mission aviation fellowship: http://www.maf.org/about/impact#. usvjxb3yh8f mission resources. (2013). world christian resource directory aviation ministry. retrieved from mission resources: http://www.missionresources.com/aviation.html missionary flights international. (2011). missionary flights international year in review 2011. fort pierce, fl. missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international general information. retrived from missionary flights international: http://www. missionaryflights.org/about-mfi/general-information missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international organization affiliation. retrieved from http://www.missionaryflights.org/affiliation missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international reports in the mission field. retrieved from missionary flights international: http://www. missionaryflights.org/field-reports/in-the-mission-field missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international the fleet. retrieved from missionary flights international: http://www.missionaryflights.org/ about-mfi/the-fleet national business aviation association. (2010, may 12). congress honors business aviation’s role in haiti earthquake relief. retrieved from national business aviation association: http://www.nbaa.org/news/pr/2010/20100512-026.php faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 115114 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research limitations of this study and recommendations for future research this was a qualitative study of a single faith-based mission aviation organization. the intent was to document and illustrate the value of aviation in alleviating human suffering and in the advancement of christian ministry. it is impossible to extrapolate from this study or from the mfi experience the complete value of faith-based mission aviation in the world or of its potential global impact. mfi is a unique organization, flying older, multiengine, higher capacity aircraft from an american base into and out of the third world multiple times each week. this identical solution might not be applicable to other organizations or in other areas of the world due to different geopolitical factors. haiti is a unique setting which mfi has carefully nurtured and cultivated over the past half century. most of mfi’s flights are for missionaries originating from north america. the need and utility for a routine use of larger aircraft such as the dc-3 in other settings has not been documented. faith-based mission aviation is a unique entity, largely beneath the radar and overshadowed by commercial aviation. with resources such as the internet, facebook and youtube, this underpublicized aspect of aviation will hopefully be made more visible in the future with greater public awareness and support. this article is an abridged version of a thesis written in 2013 of the same title and available on line for additional details. http://search.proquest.com/pqdtlocal1006849/docview/1371017798/7af3769f1f0e48 f5pq/1?accountid=4886 references basler turbo-67. (2010). basler turbo conversions. retrived from basler turbo conversion, llc basler turbo 67 aircraft: http://www.baslerturbo.com/ beldin, d. (2007). yours for a meeting in the air. mustang, ok: tate publishing. faa commercial operations branch part 125 operations. (2012, october 17). faacommercial operations branch part 125 operations. retrived from federal aviation administration: http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ avs/offices/afs/afs800/afs820/part125_oper/ jaars. (2013). jaars aviation a quick flight. retrived from jungle aviation and radio service: https://www.jaars.org/what/aviation mcgee, j. (2007). flightplan exploring the present and future of mission aviation. retrieved from global mapping international: http://www.gmi.org/files/flightplan%20 overview.pdf mellis, c. (2006). more than a pilot. chino, ca: r.c. law & co., inc. and missionary aviation fellowship. mission aviation fellowship. (2013). mission aviation fellowship making an impact. retrieved from mission aviation fellowship: http://www.maf.org/about/impact#. usvjxb3yh8f mission resources. (2013). world christian resource directory aviation ministry. retrieved from mission resources: http://www.missionresources.com/aviation.html missionary flights international. (2011). missionary flights international year in review 2011. fort pierce, fl. missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international general information. retrived from missionary flights international: http://www. missionaryflights.org/about-mfi/general-information missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international organization affiliation. retrieved from http://www.missionaryflights.org/affiliation missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international reports in the mission field. retrieved from missionary flights international: http://www. missionaryflights.org/field-reports/in-the-mission-field missionary flights international. (2013). missionary flights international the fleet. retrieved from missionary flights international: http://www.missionaryflights.org/ about-mfi/the-fleet national business aviation association. (2010, may 12). congress honors business aviation’s role in haiti earthquake relief. retrieved from national business aviation association: http://www.nbaa.org/news/pr/2010/20100512-026.php faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 117116 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research snook, r., budensiek, j., & martin, h. (2010). shaking ground unshakable faith: stories of god at work in the 2010 haiti earthquake relief effort. hobe sound, fl: m&k publishing. the free dictionary. (2013, march 15). fictive kinship. retrieved from the free dictionary: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fictive+kinship united states geological survey. (2013, february 28). haiti earthquake summary. retrieved from united states geological survey: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ earthquakes/recenteqsww/quakes/us2010rja6.php#summary affection deprivation and weathering middle tennessee state university 23 affection deprivation and weathering: an exploratory study of black and african americans’ well-being during covid-19* alfred holman, jordyn ewing-roush, and christal goines abstract this study investigates factors related to the well-being of african americans during the covid-19 pandemic, specifically, reports of discrimination, perceived stress, and affection deprivation through the lenses of affection exchange theory and the weathering framework. sixty-six individuals participated in a cross-sectional survey study through an online qualtrics questionnaire. we predicted that black and african american participants would report experiencing more discrimination during the pandemic than other people of color (poc) due to several overlapping pathways of racism (e.g., stereotype effect, internalized racism, and systemic racism) affecting black individuals more than others. we also predicted affection deprivation for black and african american participants would be directly related to their perceived stress. results from an independent samples t-test indicated no significant difference of discrimination between black and non-black participants. however, in post hoc analysis, there was a significant difference of discrimination between black and white participants, illustrating the greater strain on black individuals during the pandemic when compared to their white counterparts. finally, correlational analysis revealed a significant positive association between affection deprivation and perceived stress for black participants. we believe this relationship reflects an important health problem black americans are facing during the covid-19 pandemic, in which isolation through covid-19 protective measures (e.g., quarantine) are exacerbating the burden of stress they already bear. *winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 24 spring 2022 black and african american individuals are at risk for experiencing greater discrimination than other populations due to the history of their position in the united states’ social structure. discrimination and microaggressions have enormous potential to cause harmful mental (e.g., depression, anxiety) and physical (e.g., high blood pressure) health problems (geronimus et al., 2006). the challenges of a global pandemic, such as covid-19, create additional stressors that can exacerbate the negative health outcomes associated with discrimination and related hardships. the current project explores this phenomenon through the lens of the weathering framework, which suggests that black and african american individuals are at a greater risk for “high-effort coping.” this style of coping leads to even greater stress and long-lasting health problems for these individuals because they have exponentially greater exposure to racial stressors (e.g., prejudice and discrimination) than other members of the u.s. population during the covid pandemic (music, 2020; wakeel & njoku, 2021). additionally, affection exchange theory suggests that during times of stress, affectionate touch can help reduce negative health outcomes (floyd, 2014; floyd et al., 2018). however, when social distancing and other precautions are being used to prevent the spread of disease, especially at the height of the pandemic, the health benefits of affectionate touch cannot be accessed (i.e., affection deprivation; floyd, 2014). thus, affection deprivation during the pandemic would contribute to the “weathering” of black and african american individuals, making the study of affection exchange during the pandemic an important endeavor. the current project explores these concepts in a crosssectional survey study designed to help address concerns of well-being for members of the black and african american communities during the pandemic. literature review black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) have faced discrimination in america for centuries. colonization and oppression have created deep rooted issues that affect the legal and social systems of today. although all members of bipoc groups have the potential to face discrimination in america, black and african american people may be disproportionately affected due to the history of slavery in this country and the pathways of cultural racism (i.e., stereotype threat, internalized racism, interpersonal racism, and systemic racism) embedded in society, which have affected their daily lives (wakeel & njoku, 2021). of interest to the current study, many instances of discrimination against black and african american people occur in the medical industry. for example, a disproportionate number of black and african american people lack access to affection deprivation and weathering middle tennessee state university 25 healthcare services (chaney, 2020), and the quality of healthcare services available is often diminished (wakeel & njoku, 2021). chaney (2020) asserts that black people are less likely to be treated by a provider of their same race. according to filut and carnes (2020), “blacks comprise approximately 13% of the u.s. population but only 5% of practicing physicians” (p. 1). the disproportionate number of black healthcare providers means black and african american patients are less likely to receive care from people who look like them and, therefore, understand their needs. additionally, preference for same-race providers stems from frequent discrimination in different-race provider experiences (malat & hamilton, 2006). furthermore, wang et al. (2021) assert that healthcare workers are often “inherently and racially biased, which leads to misdiagnosis and therefore mistreatment of diseases bipoc population could face” (p. 2). these conditions make it much more difficult to manage properly any range of health concerns, whether it is physical, emotional, or mental. coupled with systemic racism and related health determinants, wakeel and njoku (2021) identify the following as stressful life events co-occurring for black and african americans during the covid pandemic: “unemployment or underemployment, increased isolation, reduced educational opportunities, postponement of preventive care needs, reduced access to public transportation as well as free or subsidized meals, and increased stigma related to racial or cultural identity” (p. 4). these negative experiences contribute to the immense stress towards the black and african american community previously mentioned and appear to be affecting this population more than others. thus, we propose the following hypothesis: h1: black participants will report experiencing more discrimination during the pandemic than other poc within the united states. the stressors that black and african american people within the united states must endure, in addition to the added stress of the covid-19 pandemic, carry a rather large and negative weight. as a result, black and african american individuals are more susceptible to developing an array of negative health conditions. according to chaney (2020), black people are at a higher risk of developing covid-19 than other people within the united states. millett et al. (2020) found that counties with a high population of black people, which were predominantly located in the southern united states, accounted for 52% of covid-19 cases and 58% of covid-related deaths. thus, it is imperative that we examine what might alleviate some of these compounding stressors during an especially high stress and high-risk period. supportive communication has been shown to mitigate stress outcomes and should be tremendously helpful for this population. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 26 spring 2022 affection exchange theory (e.g., floyd, 2006) suggests that affectionate communication facilitates connection between individuals and fosters growth and well-being. furthermore, affectionate communication can minimize negative health outcomes that occur due to stress (floyd et al., 2007). in a more recent study, graves (2021) found a positive association between affectionate communication and positive emotion and a negative association between receiving affection and stress. thus, as affectionate communication increases, positive emotions increase and stress decreases. according to affection exchange theory and through the lens of the weathering framework, affectionate touch should help to alleviate some of the allostatic load (“the cumulative wear and tear on the body’s systems owing to repeated adaptation to stressors”; geronimus et al., 2006, p. 826) stemming from the stress of the pandemic and the systemic inequalities that black and african american people face. unfortunately, affection deprivation due to the pandemic prevents this buffering effect from happening. hesse et al. (2021) describe affection deprivation as when individuals report receiving less affection than desired. affection deprivation is associated with depression, sadness, and loneliness, as well as worse general health, poorer relationship satisfaction, and a greater number of diagnosed secondary immune disorders (floyd, 2014; hesse et al., 2021). as the global spread of the covid pandemic necessitated an increase in social distancing, people all over the world experienced loneliness and isolation. thus, affectionate touch was received less frequently, especially for individuals who live alone. therefore, it stands to reason that widespread affection deprivation is a direct consequence of the pandemic, contributing to an increase in stress for all (hesse et al., 2021). however, the situation may be more dire for black and african american individuals, whose stress during the pandemic is heightened due to systemic inequalities and other pathways of racism, which are now compounded by affection deprivation. therefore, we propose our second hypothesis: h2: affection deprivation will be directly related to black participants’ reports of stress during the covid-19 pandemic. methodology participants eighty-seven participants were initially recruited for this study. data from 21 participants was deleted due to incomplete survey responses, leaving 66 participants. participants within this study included 66 adults (m = 27.72, sd = 12.35, range = 19-70). among the participants, there were 43 (65%) who self-identified as female, 22 (33%) who self-identified as male, and one (2%) who self-identified as non-binary. of the 66 participants, 28 (42%) answered “yes” to being a college student while 38 (58%) answered affection deprivation and weathering middle tennessee state university 27 “no” to being a college student. out of the 28 participants currently in college, two (7%) were undergraduate sophomores, 10 (36%) were undergraduate juniors, 11 (39%) were undergraduate seniors, two (7%) were undergraduate fifth year seniors, and three (11%) were graduates or receiving their master’s degree. participants reported their race as white or caucasian (n = 20, 30%), hispanic or latino (n = 1, 2%), black or african american (n = 40, 61%), asian or pacific islander (n = 1, 2%), and two or more races (n = 4, 6%). after re-coding, there were a total of six non-black poc included in analysis. procedures all procedures for this project were approved through a standing irb protocol for comm 3750 – quantitative research methods in communication. participants were recruited through various means of social media (e.g., instagram, snapchat) and by word of mouth (e.g., co-workers, classmates, friends, family, and within campus organizations). those who wished to participate clicked a link to access a qualtrics survey questionnaire and completed their participation fully online. for each measure, participants were instructed to focus on their experiences during the covid-19 pandemic. participants took an average of six minutes to complete the questionnaire. measures perceived discrimination. fifteen items were adapted from williams et al.’s (1997) perceived discrimination scale to measure perceived discrimination (m = .82, sd = .60, a = .88). the first six items instructed participants to report how many times they experienced discrimination based on their race or ethnic identity during covid-19 by entering a whole number. items such as “you were not hired for a job” and “you were prevented from renting or buying a home in the neighborhood you wanted” were included. some participants seemed to misunderstand instructions and responded to items with “no” in place of a numeric response. we interpreted these responses as equivalent to not having any experience with this event, so we re-coded the negative response with a “0.” some responded with a “yes,” so we changed these positive experiences to “1” to reflect the event happening at least once. the final nine items instructed participants to choose from four responses in a likert-type scale of four options (1 = never and 4 = often) where higher scores indicated more frequent experiences of discrimination. items such as “you are treated with less respect than others” and “you are called names or insulted” were included. affection deprivation. eight items were adapted from floyd’s (2014) affection deprivation scale to measure affection deprivation (m = 3.32, sd = .87, a = 0.90). participants responded to statements with a 5-point likert-type scale where higher scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 28 spring 2022 numbers represented higher affection deprivation (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). items such as “i often wish i got more affection from others” (reverse coded) and “in general, i feel deprived of affection” were included. perceived stress. ten items were adapted from cohen et al.’s (1983) perceived stress scale to measure perceived stress (m = 3.30, sd = .60, a = 0.87). participants responded to statements with a 5-point likert-type scale where higher numbers represented higher frequency of stress (0 = never and 5 = very often). items such as “how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?” and “how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?” were included. results an independent samples t-test was performed to compare discrimination levels between black and non-black poc. hypothesis 1 stated, black participants will report experiencing more discrimination during the pandemic than other poc within the united states. results indicated that there was not a significant difference between the two racial groups, t(41) = .30, p = .77. black people’s reports of discrimination (m = 1.09, sd = .52) were slightly higher than non-black poc’s reports of discrimination (m = 1.02, sd = .46), but this difference seems to be due to chance alone. thus, hypothesis 1 was not supported. however, post hoc analysis revealed a significant difference, t(55) = -6.30, p = .000, between black participants (m = 1.09, sd = .52) and white participants (m = .26, sd = .37) on the outcome measure of discrimination. a pearson product moment correlation analysis was performed to test the relationship between black participants’ stress levels and affection deprivation levels. hypothesis 2 stated, affection deprivation will be directly related to black participants’ reports of stress. results indicate a moderate, positive relationship between stress and affection deprivation, r(36) = .65, p = .000. the results suggest that an increase in black participants’ affection deprivation is related to an increase in stress. because of this significant relationship, hypothesis 2 was supported. discussion we expected that black and african american participants would experience greater discrimination than non-black people of color (poc) during the pandemic due to the long history of prejudice and discrimination in the country. the analysis for hypothesis 1 did not support this. one explanation for why our results indicated more parity among the two groups could be that a climate of fear has developed during the covid pandemic, leading to an increase in discrimination in general. certainly, a virus that has been pejoratively referred to as the “chinese flu” has incited an increase in antiaffection deprivation and weathering middle tennessee state university 29 asian violence (e.g., reny & barreto, 2020). our post hoc analysis revealed that black and african american participants reported far greater experiences of discrimination when compared to white participants, showing some support for the weathering hypothesis (geronimus et al., 2006) and that black and african american individuals bear more emotional and psychological burdens than white individuals during the pandemic (wakeel & njoku, 2021). supporting our second hypothesis, affection deprivation was significantly and positively related to black and african american participants’ levels of perceived stress. consistent with the weathering framework (wakeel & njoku, 2021), black and african american individuals are more likely to be negatively impacted by the stress related to the pandemic. the significant negative relationship between affection deprivation and perceived stress in our study sample supports previous findings (e.g., floyd, 2014; hesse et al., 2021) and the assertion that well-being is closely linked to receiving supportive communication and affectionate touch, the fundamental claim in affection exchange theory. indeed, these results suggest that black people would benefit greatly from an increase in affectionate communication during the covid pandemic. limitations and future research sampling was a limitation in the current study. the sub-sample of non-black poc (n = 6) consisted of one participant identifying as hispanic or latino, one participant identifying as asian or pacific islander, and four participants who identified as having two or more races. this sub-sample is too small to achieve any meaningful power and did not allow us to substantially test our first hypothesis. future research should attempt to obtain measures from a larger and more diverse sample. additionally, a more complex investigation of the weathering framework (wakeel & njoku, 2021) would be helpful for understanding the relationship between stress and affection deprivation during the pandemic. conclusion the purpose of our research was to investigate factors related to the well-being of black people during the pandemic. based on these factors (i.e., affection deprivation, perceived stress, and racial discrimination), our goal was to contribute to the conversation about improving the lives of black people in america, especially in ways that help to prevent further weathering as the result of a worldwide pandemic. to support our goal, we conducted a cross-sectional survey study with 66 participants. results indicated black and african american individuals experienced racial discrimination at similar rates when compared to non-black poc and at higher rates when compared to white individuals. furthermore, results indicated that an increase in affection deprivation is related to an scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2022 increase in perceived stress for black and african american individuals. these findings suggest that increases in supportive communication can act as a buffer for black and african american individuals to help reduce the negative effects of weathering and pandemic-related stress. affection deprivation and weathering middle tennessee state university 31 references chaney, c. (2020). family stress and coping among african americans in the age of covid-19. journal of comparative family studies, 51(3-4), 254-273. https://doi. org/10.3138/jcfs.51.3-4.003 floyd, k. (2006). human affection exchange: xii. affectionate communication is associated with diurnal variation in salivary free cortisol. western journal of communication, 70(1), 47-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570310500506649 floyd, k. (2014). relational and health correlates of affection deprivation. western journal of communication, 78(4), 383-403. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2014.927 071 floyd, k., mikkelson, a. c., tafoya, m. a., farinelli, l., la valley, a. g., judd, j., haynes, m. t., davis, k. l., & wilson, j. (2007). human affection exchange: xiii. affectionate communication accelerates neuroendocrine stress recovery. health communication, 22(2), 123-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410230701454015 floyd, k., pauley, p. m., hesse, c., eden, j., veksler, a. e., & woo, n. t., (2018). supportive communication is associated with markers of immunocompetence. southern communication journal, 83(4), 229-244. https://doi.org/10.1080/10417 94x.2018.1488270 geronimus, a. t., hicken, m., keene, d., bound, j. (2006). “weathering” and age patterns of allostatic load scores among blacks and whites in the united states. american journal of public health, 96(5), 826-833. https://doi.org/10.2105/ ajph.2004.060749 graves, c. g. (2021). insights on affection exchange dynamics in interpersonal interaction. personal relationships, 28(2), 355-378. https://doi.org/10.1111/ pere.12370 hesse, c., mikkelson, a., & tian, x. (2021). affection deprivation during the covid-19 pandemic: a panel study. journal of social and personal relationships, 38(10), 2965-2984. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211046587 malat, j. & hamilton, m. a. (2006). preference for same-race health care providers and perceptions of interpersonal discrimination in health care. journal of health and social behavior, 47(2), 173-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/002214650604700206 music, g. (2020). covid, racism and black lives matter: a deadly constellation. developmental child welfare, 2(3), 197-207. https://doi. org/10.1177/2516103220959814 reny, t. t., & barreto, m. a. (2020). xenophobia in the time of pandemic: othering, anti-asian attitudes, and covid-19. politics, groups, and identities, 1-24. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2022 https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1769693 wakeel, f., & njoku, a. (2021). application of the weathering framework: intersection of racism, stigma, and covid-19 as a stressful life event among african americans. healthcare, 9, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9020145 wang, j., jiang, s., ho cao, k., chiu, a., & lian, k. (2021). racial bias in the medical field and its influence on bipoc teenagers and young adults’ decisions to get vaccinated for covid-19. international socioeconomics laboratory, 1(4), 163-195. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4740667 williams, d. r., yu, y., jackson, j. s., & anderson, n. b. (1997). racial differences in physical and mental health: socio-economic status, stress and discrimination. journal of health psychology, 2(3), 335-351. https://doi. org/10.1177/135910539700200305 exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 27 exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals* dara zwemer abstract the present author created a measure of officer workload in the u.s. and determined whether this measure predicted lethal officer-involved shootings (oiss) of unarmed individuals. seventy-six oiss from the year 2016 were analyzed using archival data. data were collected regarding population size, number of officers, and violent crime statistics for each city and state in which a lethal ois of an unarmed decedent occurred. the present author hypothesized that states with more officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals would have higher officer workloads than states with fewer shootings, and that officer workload would be higher in cities where shootings occurred, compared to those cities’ state-level measures. workload comparisons between states were not significant; however, city to state comparisons revealed meaningful workload differences. specifically, cities with fatal oiss of unarmed decedents had higher officer workloads than the state in which the cities were located. future research that includes data beyond 2016 could allow one to predict cities that are at risk for lethal oiss and offer evidence-based insights into methods designed to minimize the number of these events. *winner of the dean’s distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 28 spring 2021 citizens and politicians alike have directed significant attention toward officer-involved shootings and use of force incidents in the past several years. in 2016 alone, 962 individuals were fatally shot by police officers in the united states, and 76 of those killed were unarmed (“police shootings,” n.d.). as news coverage and awareness of these events have increased, public support of the police has become divided, often along political lines; this division makes taking unified actions to reduce the number of fatal shootings more difficult. recent protests related to the black lives matter movement and calls to defund police forces across the united states have highlighted this division, particularly in response to the deaths of unarmed individuals. given the polarized nature of this issue, this study aims to address officer-involved shootings from a nonpartisan standpoint by focusing on the workload of officers in the united states. focusing on the effect of workload acknowledges officer fatigue and how this fatigue may affect an officer’s responses rather than analyzing characteristics of the officer or the subject. acknowledging that an officer’s workload may need to be adjusted in light of officer fatigue does not vilify officers or unarmed decedents. the evidence-based insights that result from this study of lethal use of force incidents may help identify specific, practical remedies to reduce these events. on the whole, scientific studies examining police use of force focus on the role population demographics play in actions taken by officers rather than on officer workload. in their use of force content analysis, klahm and tillyer (2010) found that the demographic variables researchers generally include (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender) either yield mixed results across studies or do not serve as good predictors of future use of force. for example, in the studies they analyzed, neither the race nor the gender of an officer was significantly related to overall officer use of force. furthermore, the researchers found that the effect of the suspect’s race on use of force by officers was mixed (klahm & tillyer, 2010). aside from these demographic characteristics, some environmental variables have also been considered in relation to these use of force cases. brook, piquero, and cronin (1994) found that officers working in busier precincts with more calls for service generally have more negative attitudes regarding their department and community compared to officers in slower precincts. such negative attitudes may impact how officers characterize individuals that they encounter or arrest. if officers view these community members negatively, then officers may be less reluctant to use force against these individuals, especially if the officers fear for their own safety in encountering members of their community. similarly, granot, balcetis, and stern (2017) report a positive relationship between the crime rate in an area and negative contact with police officers. exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 29 in fact, the relationship becomes even clearer when use of force cases are analyzed on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. one study conducted by terrill and reisig (2003) sought to contextualize use of force cases by studying the neighborhoods in which these incidents occurred. the researchers found that individuals living in disadvantaged areas with high rates of homicide were met with higher levels of physical and verbal force (e.g., threats, restraints, and both lethal and nonlethal strikes with an object or hand) from police compared to those residing in more advantaged neighborhoods. this study and the studies formerly mentioned illustrate how workload and crime rate are associated with officers’ attitudes and use of force. unfortunately, none of these studies focus specifically on lethal use of force directed toward unarmed citizens, especially as those actions relate to a police force’s capacity to respond to violent crime. given the same violent crime rate in a community, an officer employed in a precinct staffed with a relatively large number of officers would have a lower violent crime workload than would an officer working in a less adequately staffed precinct. specifically, the latter would have, on average, a greater number of potentially life-threatening calls to respond to, and the volume of this type of work could potentially affect their responses to potential suspects. it is important to note that in many of the more recent, attitude-galvanizing events, the potential suspects in question were unarmed. thus, the aim of this study was to test for a possible link between violent crime workloads (rather than precinct busyness or crime rates) and the fatal shooting of unarmed persons by police officers. to our knowledge, no prior published studies have examined this possible link. in order to examine this link, the present author created an officer workload measure for each city and state in which an unarmed citizen was fatally shot by the police in 2016. it should be noted that in many cases the actual location was a town or smaller municipality rather than a city. however, for the sake of presentation efficiency, the term “city” is used throughout this report. workload, in this case, was defined as the average number of violent crimes an officer would have to respond to in their respective patrol area. these violent crimes include robbery, aggravated assault, and nonnegligent manslaughter. officer workload served as this study’s predictor variable, while the dependent variable was the number of unarmed, lethal shootings that occurred in a particular city or state. shootings in this sample were defined as those in which an unarmed, non-incarcerated citizen was fatally shot by an on-duty police officer with a firearm in 2016. use of force cases can take up to a year to be processed and accounted for in federal data; therefore, the present study focused on less recent cases (beck & uchidna, 2019). the present author hypothesized that american states with more officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals (e.g., california) would have higher officer scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2021 workloads than states with fewer shootings (e.g., new york). these higher workloads may affect officers in ways that increase the lethality of their response to suspects. for example, responding to a large number of violent crimes in the line of duty may fatigue officers or increase their perceptions of threat, thereby affecting their ability to make decisions about how much force to use during an interaction. secondly, the author hypothesized that officer workload would be higher in cities where shootings occurred compared to those cities’ corresponding state-level workload measures. this prediction would act as a second test of the fatigue-lethal response model. by comparing cities to the states in which they are located, this approach controls for potential confounds such as between-state differences in population demographics, policing norms, officer training standards, and use of force policies. methods archival cases there were 76 cases from 2016 included in this research. individuals were not included in the present analyses if they were driving a vehicle in the direction of one or more officers at the scene (n = 8). this exclusion criterion was adopted because police officers often consider such vehicular maneuvers as hostile, since the vehicle could be used as a weapon and harm officers on the scene. in addition, the death of one individual who died during a police training accident (n = 1) was omitted because such events usually involve equipment malfunctions that accidentally harm someone who was not being arrested or investigated by an officer. finally, inmates attempting to escape from a prison facility (n = 2) were not included, even if they were unarmed. though officers often need to make use of force judgments when apprehending escaped inmates, comparing individuals who are trying to escape a prison facility with those encountered by police outside of these institutions is problematic, as escaped prisoners may be characterized by the police as inherently more dangerous, among other assumptions. the cities analyzed in this study corresponded to those in which each lethal officer-involved shooting took place in 2016. information gathered about each of the 71 cities in which a case occurred was also collected for each of the 50 u.s. states, and 32 total states included one or more cities with a lethal ois. in five of these 71 cities, two fatal oiss occurred in 2016; however, no city had more than two lethal oiss during the course of 2016. materials and data the 76 cases were identified and recorded from two main databases: the washington post “police shootings” database and a similar, independently maintained database exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 31 provided by the guardian (swaine, laughland, lartey, & mccarthy, n.d.). these databases were used to gather the decedents’ names, the shooting locations, and the basic circumstances surrounding each shooting. after the cases were identified, population estimates for each city where a lethal shooting occurred were obtained from census data compiled by the united states census bureau. population estimates from 2017-2018 were recorded for most cities; however, 2010 census values for cities were recorded when 2017-2018 population estimates were not available. in the case of arvonia, virginia, population data was not available in the census and was instead pulled from the website best places, which compares crime rates and cost of living across cities (“arvonia,” n.d.). for each city, the number of officers employed in that area was derived from the federal bureau of investigation’s uniform crime reporting (ucr) data. ucr data was also utilized to collect information on both the overall number of violent crimes and the number of specific violent crimes (i.e., murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults) committed in each city and its corresponding state where one of these cases occurred. information about the number of overall violent crimes and the number of violent crimes per citizen in each city was specifically accessed through a detroit free press database that consisted of organized ucr data (tanner, 2017). in the few cases where ucr data was missing regarding the number of officers employed in a city, the present author checked official police websites for each city and emailed police departments to ask how many police officers were employed in 2016. information about the number of police officers per ten thousand residents for each city was recorded from a database compiled by governing (2018) or hand calculated before it was converted into a measurement per one thousand residents using microsoft excel. procedure city-level officer workload values were calculated by dividing the number of officers per thousand citizens employed in the city in 2016 by that city’s violent crime rate in 2016 (i.e., the combined number of homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies committed per 1,000 citizens). this crime rate calculation represents the number of violent crimes that each officer, on average, would have encountered in the city during that year. thus, for cities that employed a large number of officers (per citizen population) while experiencing few violent crimes, the calculated workload rate was relatively low. conversely, for cities that employed fewer officers while experiencing more violent crimes, the workload rate was high relative to other calculated rates in the sample. similarly, state-level officer workload values were calculated by dividing the number of officers per 1,000 citizens employed in a state by the state’s overall violent crime rate. thus, each city’s and each state’s officer workload number reflected the number of violent crimes to which scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2021 a typical officer employed by that city or state had to respond to in the year 2016. hypothesis one proposed that states with more officer-involved shootings of unarmed decedents would have higher officer workloads than states with fewer shootings. to test this hypothesis, a pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for state-level violent crime workload values and the number of unarmed individuals lethally shot by law enforcement in the corresponding state in 2016. a separate analysis was conducted for the second hypothesis, which predicted that officer workload would be higher in cities where shootings occurred, compared to the corresponding state-level workload value. to test the second hypothesis, a paired samples t-test was conducted. violent crime-based workload served as the dependent variable, and city vs. state workload was the grouping variable. only the 32 states where one or more unarmed shootings occurred were included in this analysis. this analysis compared overall officer workload values, which meant that these values were calculated from a combination of violent crimes; however, in a third analysis, the present author also compared individual workload indices based on specific categories of crime (i.e., nonnegligent manslaughter, robbery, and aggravated assault) on state and city levels using the same paired t-test. results a pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to compare state-level officer workload to the number of unarmed, lethal ois in a corresponding state (which ranged from 0 to 15). contrary to the prediction reflected in the first hypothesis, state-level officer workload and the number of unarmed shootings were not significantly correlated, r(48) = -0.22, p = 0.93. the data are illustrated in figure 1. regarding the second hypothesis, a paired samples t-test was conducted to compare each oiss’ city-based officer workload value to its state level officer workload value. although marginally statistically significant, city-level workload values were higher (m = fig. 1. the number of lethal oiss and the workload index for each state. exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 33 1.31, sd = 2.19) than corresponding state-level workload values (m = 0.66, sd = 0.26); t(31) = 1.62, p = .06, d = .29. for exploratory purposes, similar paired sample t-tests were conducted to compare cities to their corresponding states on each of the 3 specific violent crimes that made up the overall violent crime-based workload values (i.e., non-negligent manslaughter, robbery, and aggravated assault). none of these analyses revealed significant differences, likely due to the variability of such specific indices across cities and states. discussion the first prediction, that states with more officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals would have higher officer workloads than states with fewer shootings, was not supported. a large degree of variability between workday lengths, policing laws, and training standards likely limits the extent to which officer workload alone can predict state-to-state patterns of lethal use of force. for example, the number of hours of de-escalation and mental health awareness training police officers receive differs widely across states, with a minimum of two and a maximum of 40 hours across the 31 states that mandate such training (plotkin & peckerman, 2017). this large range serves to illustrate the varying nature of state laws related to policing. in contrast, hypothesis two received support. cities in which a fatal ois of an unarmed decedent occurred had significantly higher officer workloads than their overall state’s officer workload average. put another way, police working in population centers that witnessed lethal oiss had violent crime workloads twice that of the average officer in their state. it should be noted that, due to the degree of variability in city-level workload values, analyses indicated this difference was marginally significant and small-to-moderate in size. due to the archival, non-experimental nature of the data, this study is not equipped to determine potential causal mechanisms behind this finding. as previously described, perhaps higher workloads affect one or more physiological or psychological characteristics of police in ways that increase their odds of using lethal force during citizen interactions. for example, high violent crime workloads may impact officer fatigue, morale, and/or perceptions of threat. alternatively, one or more confounding variables (e.g., police-community relations, local revenue capacities) could potentially account for the observed difference. even so, controlling for state-to-state differences in policing variables by comparing ois locations to their respective region did help clarify ois patterns. for example, cities and towns within one state, such as arizona, are likely to have similar, state-mandated police selection and training requirements. within this more homogeneous context, one can more clearly observe that lethal oiss of unarmed citizens in 2016 occurred in areas where officers had relatively high workloads. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 34 spring 2021 the results of the present study align with past research findings showing that officer workload may influence officers’ use of force and attitudes towards the citizens they serve. recall that terrill and reisig (2003) found that individuals living in neighborhoods with higher crime rates were generally responded to with higher use of force by officers. the current study found that cities where an ois occurred had both higher workloads and higher crime rates than the state in which they were located. furthermore, though brooks et al. (1994) focused on the effect of police attitudes rather than on the rate of lethal oiss, both their study and the present study reveal the potential effects of workloads on officer responses. one strength of the present study is how easy it would be to replicate. the procedures could be repeated on more recent ucr data and easily compared with this study’s results. also, databases that contain archival data regarding these ois cases, though few in number, are maintained and accessible remotely for ease of access. a second strength is that, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the present study is the first to comprehensively study cases of lethal force across all 50 american states over the course of a calendar year. most importantly, this study is the first to single out cases in which the use of lethal force was directed toward unarmed persons. though more general research regarding use of force is certainly important, taking a closer look at cases involving unarmed decedents is also necessary to have a clear picture of use of force as a whole. regarding limitations of the present study, the reported findings might have been stronger if a more refined, centralized source of police data existed. currently, the u.s. has a fragmented system of reporting violent crimes and the number of police in an area; though ucr data provides researchers with a number of important statistics, some law enforcement agencies do not provide any data to the fbi (banks et al., 2016). as reporting to the fbi is voluntary, the issue of missing data is difficult to resolve. unarmed shootings and other uses of police force also take time for departments to process and submit; therefore, these incidents may not be properly represented in more recent datasets (beck & uchidna, 2019). even so, analyzing the data that are available does provide valuable insights to use of force behavior and knowledge about officer workloads. further examination of these variables could provide valuable insights on improving both the u.s. system of policing and the well-being of fatigued officers. while being mindful of the aforementioned time lag, further research should expand the present analyses beyond 2016. taking action to expand this present study’s scope could reveal trends in officer workload across cities and states and, in turn, add weight to the results observed in the present study. for example, if cities where these oiss occur maintain higher workloads over time than the state in which they are located, the present exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 35 study’s conclusions could be further supported. if this pattern does persist, researchers could also attempt to predict cities in which shootings were likely to occur based on workload values. then, policy makers and police agencies could take actions that reduced each officer’s workload. these actions could come in the form of (1) hiring more officers in understaffed areas, (2) allocating resources to entities (e.g., social workers) that could respond to situations currently included in officers’ workloads (e.g., non-violent mental health crises), or (3) implementing interventions that address officer fatigue, morale, or threat perceptions. ideally, no matter what solutions are employed to lower officer workload, this alert could lower the number of lethal oiss that occur in the united states. in closing, the present study represents a first of its kind. it examines a crucial, polarizing phenomenon in a manner tied to actual incidents and relevant to recent events. insights from this study and future research modeled after it has the potential to generate practical, nonpartisan solutions aimed at minimizing the loss of life during policing interactions. acknowledgements this project was supported by a ureca grant through the office of research and sponsored programs at middle tennessee state university. this research would not have been possible without the invaluable assistance of dr. john pennington and fellow members of his research team, including leva sepehri, gracyn blake, and emma bradley. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2021 references arvonia (zip 23004), virginia. (n.d.). best places. https://www.bestplaces.net/ zip-code/ virginia/arvonia/23004 banks, d., hendrix, j., hickman, m., & kyckelhahn, t. (2016, october 4).  national sources of law enforcement employment data. u.s. department of justice. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/nsleed.pdf.  beck, c., & uchida, c. d. (2019). the accuracy of fatal officer-involved shooting data: a response to “the limitations of government databases for analyzing fatal officer-involved shootings in the united states.” criminal justice policy review, 30(3), 359–373. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/10.1177/0887403417718339 brooks, l. w., piquero, a., & cronin, j. (1994). work-load rates and police officer attitudes: an examination of busy and slow precincts. journal of criminal justice, 22(3), 277-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2352(94)90023-x crime in the u.s. (2017). about crime in the u.s. (cius). federal bureau of investigation. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/cius2016. granot, y., balcetis, e., & stern, c. (2017). zip code of conduct: crime rate affects legal punishment of police. translational issues in psychological science, 3(2), 176–186. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/10.1037/tps0000109 governing: the future of states and localities. (2018). police employment, officers per capita rates for u.s. cities [data set]. https://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html. klahm, c. & tillyer, r. (2010). understanding police use of force: a review of the evidence. southwest journal of criminal justice, 7(2), 214-239. https://www.researchgate.net/ profile/charles_klahm/publication/256255286_understanding_police_use_of_ force_a_review_of_the_evidence/links/004635220bab4505c6000000/understanding-police-use-of-force-a-review-of-the-evidence.pdf. plotkin, m., & peckerman, t. (2017). the variability in law enforcement state standards: a 42-state survey on mental health and crisis de-escalation training. csg justice center. https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/jc-le-survey.pdf swaine, j., laughland, o., lartey, j., & mccarthy, c. (n.d.). the counted: people killed by police in the united states. the guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killingsus-database.  exploring the link between violent crime workload and officer-involved shootings of unarmed individuals middle tennessee state university 37 tanner, k. (2017, september 25). database: 2016 fbi crime statistics. detroit free press. https://www.freep.com/story/news/2017/09/25/database-2016-fbi-crime-statistics-u-s-city/701445001/.  terrill, w., & reisig, m. d. (2003). neighborhood context and police use of force. journal of research in crime and delinquency, 40(3), 291–321. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022427803253800 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2021 2021 scientia book file 33 2021 scientia book file 34 2021 scientia book file 35 2021 scientia book file 36 2021 scientia book file 37 2021 scientia book file 38 2021 scientia book file 39 2021 scientia book file 40 2021 scientia book file 41 2021 scientia book file 42 2021 scientia book file 43 2021 scientia book file 44 2021 scientia book file 45 2021 scientia book file 46 2021 scientia book file 47 2021 scientia book file 48 2021 scientia book file 49 2021 scientia book file 50 2021 scientia book file 51 2021 scientia book file 52 2021 scientia book file 53 2021 scientia book file 54 2021 scientia book file 55 2021 scientia book file 56 2021 scientia book file 57 2021 scientia book file 58 2021 scientia book file 59 2021 scientia book file 60 2021 scientia book file 61 2021 scientia book file 62 2021 scientia book file 63 2021 scientia book file 64 defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women middle tennessee state university 53 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2014 defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women sarah rivas abstract this paper explores the character of marmee in louisa may alcott’s little women in order to illustrate marmee’s influence on her daughters and the message concerning womanhood and femininity evoked by the novel as a whole. the cult of marmee —an eclectic mixture of barbara welter’s the “cult of true womanhood,” feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform—drives the plot of little women by becoming the standard from which the four march sisters construct their individual identities. this paper establishes marmee as the primary influence on the march sisters, and therefore as the primary influence on the novel ’s plot, while exploring the five elements of the cult of marmee as they relate to the novel ’s characters and to real nineteenth-century women. ultimately, any rigid conclusion regarding the novel as feminist or antifeminist must be grounded in an understanding of the novel ’s historical context. alcott offers an imperfect picture of liberated womanhood; in spite of this, however, little women’s message of hope for female independence and strength should not be ignored. bibliography burke, edmund. a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. edited by adam phillips. oxford: oxford university press, 1990. cafarelli, annette wheeler. “how theories of romanticism exclude women: radcliffe, milton, and the legitimation of the gothic novel.” in milton, the metaphysicals, and romanticism. edited by lisa low and anthony john harding. 84-113. cambridge: cambridge u.p., 1994. 84-113. print. chard, chloe. introduction to the romance of the forest, by ann radcliffe. oxford: oxford university press, 2009. gilbert, sandra and susan gubar. “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers.” in the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. 2nd ed., 187-212. new haven: yale university press, 2000. kilgour, maggie. the rise of the gothic novel. london: routledge, 1995. milbank, alison. introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne, by ann radcliffe. oxford: oxford university press, 1995. ---. “milton, melancholy and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu.” women’s writing 1, no. 2 (1994): 143-60. milton, john. “il penseroso.” in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 72-76. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. ---. “l’allegro.” in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 67-72. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. ---. paradise lost. in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 207-469. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. radcliffe, ann. “on the supernatural in poetry.” in gothic documents: a sourcebook 1700-1820. edited by e.j. clery and robert miles, 163-172. manchester: manchester university press, 2000. ---. the castles of athlin and dunbayne. edited by alison milbank. oxford: oxford university press, 1995. ---. the mysteries of udolpho. edited by bonamy dobree. oxford: oxford university press, 2008. ---. the romance of the forest. edited by chloe chard. oxford: oxford university press, 2009. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 54 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 55 “oh, my girls, however long you may live, i never can wish you a greater happiness than this!” these are the final words in one of the most beloved children’s stories of all time—louisa may alcott’s little women (380). mrs. march, or marmee, speaks these words to her daughters in a family-centered happy ending that has long delighted girls and women alike. meg, jo, and amy are happily married with families of their own, and they seem content to carry on the legacy begun by their mother marmee. the trials and joys of the four march sisters culminate in domesticity and matrimony, even for rambunctious jo. but what does it all mean? is little women simply a confirmation of rather repressive nineteenthcentury gender roles, or is it a subversive text meant to inspire young girls to independence and self-sufficiency?i this remains perhaps the most controversial debate connected with little women. remarkably, throughout this critical debate, marmee has been largely ignored; however, her philosophies influence each of the four girls’ actions, and this influence causes them to make the decisions that ultimately drive the novel’s plot. the existing feminist debate concerning little women stems in part from inconsistencies in marmee’s philosophy, leaving readers to wonder exactly what marmee believes. nevertheless, what marmee believes may be one of the most important elements of the novel. the cult of marmee—an eclectic mixture of barbara welter’s the “cult of true womanhood,” feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform—drives the plot of little women by becoming the standard from which the four march sisters construct their individual identities. critics, including gregory k. eiselein and anne phillips, cite marmee as a fictional construction of abba alcott, louisa’s own mother (196). as a result, much of the scholarly attention paid to marmee remains almost exclusively autobiographical in nature. madeleine stern’s biography louisa may alcott (1985) provides the most scholarly information on which to base autobiographical interpretations of the novel. however, these interpretations, while helpful, do not explore marmee’s philosophies through a close reading of the text of little women itself, an exploration necessary for understanding the themes and messages conveyed throughout the novel. in spite of this seeming critical neglect, multiple critics do agree that the mother figure is central to the nineteenth-century home, and, therefore, central to the nineteenth-century domestic novel. eiselein and phillips call marmee an “omnipotent presence” (197), while nina auerbach asserts the absolute authority of the victorian mother within her domestic sphere, particularly as far as her daughters are concerned (7). because of her position of authority, marmee’s beliefs must be carefully examined in order to better understand her influence over her daughters. little women is the coming-of-age story of four sisters—meg, jo, beth, and amy march. when the novel begins, the sisters’ beloved father mr. march is serving away from home as a chaplain in the union army. in his absence, marmee educates and cares for her daughters despite limited financial resources. the sisters become close friends with laurie, the grandson of their next-door neighbor, and together they experience the trials and joys of growing up in the mid-nineteenth century. as the novel progresses, mr. march is wounded in the war, and marmee leaves to care for him. while marmee is away, beth contracts scarlet fever, and though she begins to recover, she never fully regains her strength. later, mr. brooke, laurie’s tutor, falls in love with meg, much to the consternation of her sister jo. the two marry, and jo eventually moves to new york to pursue a career in writing. while there, she meets a german professor, frederick bhaer, whom she marries at the end of the novel. tragically, beth’s illness takes a turn for the worse, and she dies soon after jo returns from new york. meanwhile, amy, who has matured significantly since the novel’s opening, spends time in france where she falls in love with laurie. at the novel’s end, each of the three surviving sisters marries and has children, and jo opens a school for boys in lieu of pursuing a literary career. throughout the novel, meg, jo, beth, and amy do not seem to question marmee’s goodness, wisdom, or absolute authority. they voluntarily appeal to her for guidance of all kinds and look to her as their disciplinarian. when meg attends a party with the moffats, she dresses up and flirts gaily, causing laurie to disapprove of her actions. meg feels remorse, and soon after her return home says to her mother, “marmee, i want to ‘fess’” (82). meg voluntarily confesses her perceived fault without prior threat of punishment to her mother, her moral authority. mrs. march shows no surprise at this voluntary admission, but calmly responds, “i thought so; what is it, dear?” (82). this scene reveals that marmee’s authority follows meg wherever she goes, and this principle holds true for each of the four sisters. despite their perception of marmee as primary moral authority, the march sisters seem to adore her more than anyone else in the novel. in chapter one, the girls decide to devote their christmas money exclusively to marmee. they surprise her with a slew of presents, choosing to honor her instead of buying gifts for themselves (14). this adoration continues after the girls marry. as soon as meg and john brooke say their vows, meg offers her mother, instead of john, her first kiss as a married woman: “it wasn’t at all the thing, i’m afraid, but the minute she was fairly married, meg cried, ‘the first kiss for marmee!’ and, turning, gave it with her heart on her lips” (200). this illustrates only one of several incidents in the text in which marmee is equated with a male lover. while talking to jo near the end of the second half of the novel, marmee encourages her to wait patiently until “the best lover of all comes to give you your reward,” meaning a male romantic lover (341). jo declares in reply, “mothers are the best lovers in the world,” though she then admits she would “like to try all kinds” (341). though jo is interested in a romantic relationship, her interest does not supersede her adoration and reverence for her mother. marmee occupies the central place in her daughters’ experiences, and her ideas and philosophies serve as the model from which the girls construct their own. therefore, marmee’s ideology becomes a sort of religion, or cult, which her daughters follow faithfully. the cult of marmee extends its influence through each chapter in the novel. the first aspect of the cult of marmee derives from welter’s “cult of true womanhood,” defined as a combination of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity (152).ii upper and middle-class nineteenth century women were expected to cultivate these four virtues in order to become a “true” woman. men and women alike actively promoted the tenets of this cult, and marmee is no exception. as welter asserts, “if anyone, male or female, dared to tamper with the complex of virtues which made up true womanhood, he was damned immediately scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 54 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 55 “oh, my girls, however long you may live, i never can wish you a greater happiness than this!” these are the final words in one of the most beloved children’s stories of all time—louisa may alcott’s little women (380). mrs. march, or marmee, speaks these words to her daughters in a family-centered happy ending that has long delighted girls and women alike. meg, jo, and amy are happily married with families of their own, and they seem content to carry on the legacy begun by their mother marmee. the trials and joys of the four march sisters culminate in domesticity and matrimony, even for rambunctious jo. but what does it all mean? is little women simply a confirmation of rather repressive nineteenthcentury gender roles, or is it a subversive text meant to inspire young girls to independence and self-sufficiency?i this remains perhaps the most controversial debate connected with little women. remarkably, throughout this critical debate, marmee has been largely ignored; however, her philosophies influence each of the four girls’ actions, and this influence causes them to make the decisions that ultimately drive the novel’s plot. the existing feminist debate concerning little women stems in part from inconsistencies in marmee’s philosophy, leaving readers to wonder exactly what marmee believes. nevertheless, what marmee believes may be one of the most important elements of the novel. the cult of marmee—an eclectic mixture of barbara welter’s the “cult of true womanhood,” feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform—drives the plot of little women by becoming the standard from which the four march sisters construct their individual identities. critics, including gregory k. eiselein and anne phillips, cite marmee as a fictional construction of abba alcott, louisa’s own mother (196). as a result, much of the scholarly attention paid to marmee remains almost exclusively autobiographical in nature. madeleine stern’s biography louisa may alcott (1985) provides the most scholarly information on which to base autobiographical interpretations of the novel. however, these interpretations, while helpful, do not explore marmee’s philosophies through a close reading of the text of little women itself, an exploration necessary for understanding the themes and messages conveyed throughout the novel. in spite of this seeming critical neglect, multiple critics do agree that the mother figure is central to the nineteenth-century home, and, therefore, central to the nineteenth-century domestic novel. eiselein and phillips call marmee an “omnipotent presence” (197), while nina auerbach asserts the absolute authority of the victorian mother within her domestic sphere, particularly as far as her daughters are concerned (7). because of her position of authority, marmee’s beliefs must be carefully examined in order to better understand her influence over her daughters. little women is the coming-of-age story of four sisters—meg, jo, beth, and amy march. when the novel begins, the sisters’ beloved father mr. march is serving away from home as a chaplain in the union army. in his absence, marmee educates and cares for her daughters despite limited financial resources. the sisters become close friends with laurie, the grandson of their next-door neighbor, and together they experience the trials and joys of growing up in the mid-nineteenth century. as the novel progresses, mr. march is wounded in the war, and marmee leaves to care for him. while marmee is away, beth contracts scarlet fever, and though she begins to recover, she never fully regains her strength. later, mr. brooke, laurie’s tutor, falls in love with meg, much to the consternation of her sister jo. the two marry, and jo eventually moves to new york to pursue a career in writing. while there, she meets a german professor, frederick bhaer, whom she marries at the end of the novel. tragically, beth’s illness takes a turn for the worse, and she dies soon after jo returns from new york. meanwhile, amy, who has matured significantly since the novel’s opening, spends time in france where she falls in love with laurie. at the novel’s end, each of the three surviving sisters marries and has children, and jo opens a school for boys in lieu of pursuing a literary career. throughout the novel, meg, jo, beth, and amy do not seem to question marmee’s goodness, wisdom, or absolute authority. they voluntarily appeal to her for guidance of all kinds and look to her as their disciplinarian. when meg attends a party with the moffats, she dresses up and flirts gaily, causing laurie to disapprove of her actions. meg feels remorse, and soon after her return home says to her mother, “marmee, i want to ‘fess’” (82). meg voluntarily confesses her perceived fault without prior threat of punishment to her mother, her moral authority. mrs. march shows no surprise at this voluntary admission, but calmly responds, “i thought so; what is it, dear?” (82). this scene reveals that marmee’s authority follows meg wherever she goes, and this principle holds true for each of the four sisters. despite their perception of marmee as primary moral authority, the march sisters seem to adore her more than anyone else in the novel. in chapter one, the girls decide to devote their christmas money exclusively to marmee. they surprise her with a slew of presents, choosing to honor her instead of buying gifts for themselves (14). this adoration continues after the girls marry. as soon as meg and john brooke say their vows, meg offers her mother, instead of john, her first kiss as a married woman: “it wasn’t at all the thing, i’m afraid, but the minute she was fairly married, meg cried, ‘the first kiss for marmee!’ and, turning, gave it with her heart on her lips” (200). this illustrates only one of several incidents in the text in which marmee is equated with a male lover. while talking to jo near the end of the second half of the novel, marmee encourages her to wait patiently until “the best lover of all comes to give you your reward,” meaning a male romantic lover (341). jo declares in reply, “mothers are the best lovers in the world,” though she then admits she would “like to try all kinds” (341). though jo is interested in a romantic relationship, her interest does not supersede her adoration and reverence for her mother. marmee occupies the central place in her daughters’ experiences, and her ideas and philosophies serve as the model from which the girls construct their own. therefore, marmee’s ideology becomes a sort of religion, or cult, which her daughters follow faithfully. the cult of marmee extends its influence through each chapter in the novel. the first aspect of the cult of marmee derives from welter’s “cult of true womanhood,” defined as a combination of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity (152).ii upper and middle-class nineteenth century women were expected to cultivate these four virtues in order to become a “true” woman. men and women alike actively promoted the tenets of this cult, and marmee is no exception. as welter asserts, “if anyone, male or female, dared to tamper with the complex of virtues which made up true womanhood, he was damned immediately scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 56 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 57 as an enemy of god, of civilization, and of the republic” (152). marmee adheres rather closely to three of these tenets—purity, submissiveness (to mr. march), and domesticity. however, though marmee is quite spiritual, she does not actively practice conventional christianity. for many nineteenth-century christians, particularly calvinists, attending weekly sunday services was central to the implementation of their faith. in little women, there is no mention of the march family attending sunday services even though welter cites piety, or religion, as “the core of woman’s virtue” (152). therefore, by not adhering to this tenet of the cult of true womanhood in the traditional sense, marmee subverts established gender roles. however, marmee does practice an unconventional form of moral piety loosely associated with christianity, the third aspect of the cult of marmee termed “spirituality” for the purposes of this discussion. iii though marmee does not adhere to the virtue of piety in the cult of true womanhood, she confirms the remaining three virtues at various moments in the text, including purity. according to welter, purity is “essential” to the nineteenth-century woman; without it, a woman becomes “unnatural and unfeminine” (154). this virtue remains somewhat concealed throughout the pages of little women, but its implications are present in the text. as welter asserts, “the marriage night was the single great event of a woman’s life, when she bestowed her greatest treasure upon her husband, and from that time on was completely dependent upon him, an empty vessel” (154-5). although marmee does not explicitly address the issue of virginity, she does stress the monumental importance of marriage in a woman’s life during a conversation with meg and jo: “to be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and i sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience” (alcott 84). in this statement marmee implies that her daughters’ life experiences will be incomplete unless they are “chosen” by a good man, an interesting word choice that highlights the girls’ lack of agency. iv the underlying message, of course, is that one is not “chosen” by a “good” man unless one is a “good” girl; for nineteenth-century proponents of the cult of true womanhood, being “good” means being pure, saving oneself for the “beautiful experience” of marriage marmee describes. though marmee does not hesitate to exercise authority over her daughters, she seems to defer to mr. march on any issue that extends outside the bounds of the home, implementing the virtue of submissiveness outlined by welter as “the most feminine virtue” (158). marmee’s submissiveness most strongly demonstrates itself in questions of morality. after amy falls through the frozen pond while chasing jo and laurie, jo discusses her faults, most notably her anger, with her mother. marmee confesses that she too struggles with anger, to which jo replies, “why, you are never angry!” (alcott 68). marmee asserts that she has tried to “cure” her anger for forty years, causing jo to exclaim, “poor mother! what helped you then?” marmee replies, “your father, jo. he never loses patience,—never doubts or complains,—but always hopes, and works, and waits so cheerfully, that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him” (69). marmee does not view mr. march as her moral equal; instead, he is her superior, and she looks to him for acceptable patterns of behavior. her deferral is itself a submissive act, though the fact that she defers to him on questions of morality, generally understood as a feminine concern in the nineteenth century, shows her submission even in a matter where she could legitimately assume authority. her submission reinforces the idea of mr. march as the moral superior; notably, mr. march’s faults and shortcomings are not discussed in the novel, while marmee and the sisters’ faults are discussed at length. just as marmee confirms the virtue of submissiveness, she also stresses to her daughters the importance of domesticity in multiple, rather humorous incidents throughout little women. in chapter eleven, “experiments,” the girls decide to take a weeklong break from their work, with marmee’s permission. unfortunately, their experiment does not produce the hoped-for result of continual rest and enjoyment; on the contrary, beth’s little bird pip dies from neglect, jo makes a dreadful supper, amy damages a white frock by sitting in the grass, and meg ruins some of her clothes by careless mending (92-8). mrs. march allows the girls to follow this experiment to its conclusion, using their failure as a teaching moment. marmee suggests to jo, “suppose you learn plain cooking; that’s a useful accomplishment, which no woman should be without” (99). jo’s culinary failures, though humorous even to marmee, will not serve her well as a nineteenth-century young lady, and marmee is acutely aware of this. jo must cultivate characteristics of domesticity in order to meet societal expectations and save herself from embarrassment and isolation. however, domestic competency is not enough; the girls must learn to work together for the good of all. practicing collaborative labor teaches them how to manage their own homes: “don’t you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear or forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all?” (99). the women of the house are responsible for making home “comfortable and lovely,” and the march sisters must practice keeping house before they are given homes of their own. ironically, these elements of the cult of true womanhood are paired throughout the text with elements of radical feminist ideology, sometimes in the same scene. in fact, immediately after mrs. march tells meg and jo that being “chosen by a good man” will be “the best and sweetest thing” that can happen to them, she tells the girls, “better be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands” (84). marmee insinuates that her girls’ happiness remains more important to her than their marriage prospects, a reversal from the dominant nineteenth-century philosophy that women contributed little to society unless they were married and could have children. her assertion is decidedly feminist, even though an arguably sexist statement precedes it. however, the fact that marmee’s three surviving daughters do marry and pursue almost entirely domestic interests at the end of the novel seems to contradict this feminist declaration. in spite of this, marmee’s assertion, “better be happy old maids than unhappy wives,” seems to undercut her previous statement that female fulfillment is ultimately derived from being chosen by a worthy man (84). later, marmee more convincingly espouses feminist ideas when she encourages her daughter meg to be proactive and take responsibility for her marriage and her personal education. after meg’s marriage to john brooke, she absorbs herself in the care of their two small children and neglects her relationship with her husband. as a result, john chooses to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 56 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 57 as an enemy of god, of civilization, and of the republic” (152). marmee adheres rather closely to three of these tenets—purity, submissiveness (to mr. march), and domesticity. however, though marmee is quite spiritual, she does not actively practice conventional christianity. for many nineteenth-century christians, particularly calvinists, attending weekly sunday services was central to the implementation of their faith. in little women, there is no mention of the march family attending sunday services even though welter cites piety, or religion, as “the core of woman’s virtue” (152). therefore, by not adhering to this tenet of the cult of true womanhood in the traditional sense, marmee subverts established gender roles. however, marmee does practice an unconventional form of moral piety loosely associated with christianity, the third aspect of the cult of marmee termed “spirituality” for the purposes of this discussion. iii though marmee does not adhere to the virtue of piety in the cult of true womanhood, she confirms the remaining three virtues at various moments in the text, including purity. according to welter, purity is “essential” to the nineteenth-century woman; without it, a woman becomes “unnatural and unfeminine” (154). this virtue remains somewhat concealed throughout the pages of little women, but its implications are present in the text. as welter asserts, “the marriage night was the single great event of a woman’s life, when she bestowed her greatest treasure upon her husband, and from that time on was completely dependent upon him, an empty vessel” (154-5). although marmee does not explicitly address the issue of virginity, she does stress the monumental importance of marriage in a woman’s life during a conversation with meg and jo: “to be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and i sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience” (alcott 84). in this statement marmee implies that her daughters’ life experiences will be incomplete unless they are “chosen” by a good man, an interesting word choice that highlights the girls’ lack of agency. iv the underlying message, of course, is that one is not “chosen” by a “good” man unless one is a “good” girl; for nineteenth-century proponents of the cult of true womanhood, being “good” means being pure, saving oneself for the “beautiful experience” of marriage marmee describes. though marmee does not hesitate to exercise authority over her daughters, she seems to defer to mr. march on any issue that extends outside the bounds of the home, implementing the virtue of submissiveness outlined by welter as “the most feminine virtue” (158). marmee’s submissiveness most strongly demonstrates itself in questions of morality. after amy falls through the frozen pond while chasing jo and laurie, jo discusses her faults, most notably her anger, with her mother. marmee confesses that she too struggles with anger, to which jo replies, “why, you are never angry!” (alcott 68). marmee asserts that she has tried to “cure” her anger for forty years, causing jo to exclaim, “poor mother! what helped you then?” marmee replies, “your father, jo. he never loses patience,—never doubts or complains,—but always hopes, and works, and waits so cheerfully, that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him” (69). marmee does not view mr. march as her moral equal; instead, he is her superior, and she looks to him for acceptable patterns of behavior. her deferral is itself a submissive act, though the fact that she defers to him on questions of morality, generally understood as a feminine concern in the nineteenth century, shows her submission even in a matter where she could legitimately assume authority. her submission reinforces the idea of mr. march as the moral superior; notably, mr. march’s faults and shortcomings are not discussed in the novel, while marmee and the sisters’ faults are discussed at length. just as marmee confirms the virtue of submissiveness, she also stresses to her daughters the importance of domesticity in multiple, rather humorous incidents throughout little women. in chapter eleven, “experiments,” the girls decide to take a weeklong break from their work, with marmee’s permission. unfortunately, their experiment does not produce the hoped-for result of continual rest and enjoyment; on the contrary, beth’s little bird pip dies from neglect, jo makes a dreadful supper, amy damages a white frock by sitting in the grass, and meg ruins some of her clothes by careless mending (92-8). mrs. march allows the girls to follow this experiment to its conclusion, using their failure as a teaching moment. marmee suggests to jo, “suppose you learn plain cooking; that’s a useful accomplishment, which no woman should be without” (99). jo’s culinary failures, though humorous even to marmee, will not serve her well as a nineteenth-century young lady, and marmee is acutely aware of this. jo must cultivate characteristics of domesticity in order to meet societal expectations and save herself from embarrassment and isolation. however, domestic competency is not enough; the girls must learn to work together for the good of all. practicing collaborative labor teaches them how to manage their own homes: “don’t you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear or forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all?” (99). the women of the house are responsible for making home “comfortable and lovely,” and the march sisters must practice keeping house before they are given homes of their own. ironically, these elements of the cult of true womanhood are paired throughout the text with elements of radical feminist ideology, sometimes in the same scene. in fact, immediately after mrs. march tells meg and jo that being “chosen by a good man” will be “the best and sweetest thing” that can happen to them, she tells the girls, “better be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands” (84). marmee insinuates that her girls’ happiness remains more important to her than their marriage prospects, a reversal from the dominant nineteenth-century philosophy that women contributed little to society unless they were married and could have children. her assertion is decidedly feminist, even though an arguably sexist statement precedes it. however, the fact that marmee’s three surviving daughters do marry and pursue almost entirely domestic interests at the end of the novel seems to contradict this feminist declaration. in spite of this, marmee’s assertion, “better be happy old maids than unhappy wives,” seems to undercut her previous statement that female fulfillment is ultimately derived from being chosen by a worthy man (84). later, marmee more convincingly espouses feminist ideas when she encourages her daughter meg to be proactive and take responsibility for her marriage and her personal education. after meg’s marriage to john brooke, she absorbs herself in the care of their two small children and neglects her relationship with her husband. as a result, john chooses to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 58 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 59 visit friends in the evening instead of coming home, and meg laments that she “might as well be a widow” (306). mrs. march tells her to involve john in the children’s upbringing, and she exhorts meg to “take an interest in whatever john likes, talk with him, let him read to you, exchange ideas, and help each other in that way. don’t shut yourself up in a bandbox because you are a woman, but understand what is going on, and educate yourself ” (308). marmee promotes mental equality and the exchange of ideas in marriage, bringing together the traditionally female sphere of the home and the traditionally male sphere of the outside world. sarah elbert, author of a hunger for home, asserts that as far as marmee is concerned, being a good wife requires proactivity and independence: “docility is a fine quality in a daughter, even a sister, alcott admits, but dangerous in a wife. meg becomes dowdy and dependent... mrs. march shares her domestic secret with her daughter: a good marriage is based on mutuality of interests and responsibilities” (203-4). after meg begins including john in the children’s upbringing and seeks to engage his mind, he once again prefers to stay at home with her. they begin to share responsibilities, even domestic pursuits. according to alcott, through teamwork meg and john find “the key to…mutual helpfulness” (313). this idea of “mutual helpfulness” noticeably conflicts with the tenets of the cult of true womanhood. marmee also praises hard work as a means through which women can attain independence. after she suggests that jo learn to cook, marmee praises work as a source of independence: “work is wholesome, and there is plenty for every one; it keeps us from ennui and mischief…and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion” (99). though marmee generally encourages her girls to accomplish domestic work, rather than pursuing any sort of work outside the home, she does recognize the importance of female contributions to society, even if these contributions are domestic in nature. in order to achieve independence, women must prove their value and worth. as elbert eloquently states, “accepting, even glorifying the importance of women’s domestic work, alcott emphasizes that men are homeless without women…it follows that women have already proved themselves in the world; thus their ability to extend their sphere is unquestioned in little women” (202). therefore, according to elbert, domesticity can provide the doorway through which women become valued as contributing members of society, and marmee most certainly encourages her daughters to contribute by proving that “domestic work is real work” (202). in so doing, marmee encourages a feminist spirit in her daughters and inspires in them a desire to contribute to society. coupled with this more liberal idea of female contributions to society is the more traditional concept of spirituality. for marmee, spirituality is a mixture of christianity and the idea that one should always strive to be as good as possible (particularly if one is a little girl). though the march family, like louisa may alcott’s family, does not appear to attend weekly church services, marmee still believes in god and invokes his help in times of need. after marmee tells jo about her struggle to control her anger, she tells her daughter to trust god and pray to him: “the more you love and trust him, the nearer you will feel to him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom…believe this heartily, and go to god with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows” (alcott 70). in this passage, marmee reveals her direct relationship with god, the “heavenly father,” though references to christ, church, and other components of the christian faith are absent from the text (70).v marmee undoubtedly believes in god, but the text does not clarify the exact nature of this belief. the god she references appears to be the christian god, though she does not seem to practice christianity in a traditional, calvinist sense. vi though marmee makes a couple of direct references to god, she more often communicates the importance of moral virtue to her daughters, a communication laden with spiritual overtones; however, these overtones are not explicitly christian. the first chapter of little women, “playing pilgrims,” outlines marmee’s idea that the four sisters pretend they are on a journey to the celestial city, in the hopes that this game will enable the girls to handle life’s everyday trials and challenges with grace and goodness: “now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play but in earnest, and see how far on you can get before father comes home” (18). though pilgrim’s progress is a decidedly christian text, in little women it becomes more of a guidebook for living a moral life. vii the rest of the novel takes on some allegoric characteristics as the march sisters embark on their journey through life. according to holly blackford in her article “vital signs at play: objects as vessels of mother-daughter discourse in louisa may alcott’s little women,” marmee repurposes pilgrim’s progress, a masculine text by a masculine author, using it to illustrate her daughters’ journey towards mature femininity (5). blackford then argues, “the pilgrim’s progress stands in for the absent father in the march house. it is a cultural metaphor for both christian progress and individual child development” (6). in many ways, pilgrim’s progress provides the crux on which the novel itself hinges. the girls’ sense of the spiritual and moral journey that they are taking drives the plot, and alcott includes explicit allusions to pilgrim’s progress throughout the text. marmee’s sense of morality and spirituality is strongly tied to the idea of “mending a fault,” or purging one’s character of vices, no matter how insignificant they may seem (alcott 61). after amy’s contraband limes are discovered at school, mr. davis strikes her, and marmee decides to withdraw amy from school (after consulting mr. march, of course). however, though she does not condone mr. davis’s method of punishment, marmee does encourage amy to mend her faults: “you are getting to be altogether too conceited and important, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it” (61). though marmee’s words are somewhat “severe,” she firmly believes in the necessity of cultivating morality (61). she does not fail to stress the importance of good character in everyday moments, including story time; her daughters have come to expect this from their mother: “tell another story, mother; one with a moral to it, like this. i like to think about them afterwards, if they are real, and not too preachy” (42). because the march sisters adore marmee, they are eager to hear whatever she has to say, and this makes them particularly receptive to her moral instruction. marmee’s instruction encompasses more than the morals contained in these didactic stories, however; marmee also espouses ideas about education gleaned from the nineteenthcentury transcendentalists. this philosophy strongly influences other components of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 58 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 59 visit friends in the evening instead of coming home, and meg laments that she “might as well be a widow” (306). mrs. march tells her to involve john in the children’s upbringing, and she exhorts meg to “take an interest in whatever john likes, talk with him, let him read to you, exchange ideas, and help each other in that way. don’t shut yourself up in a bandbox because you are a woman, but understand what is going on, and educate yourself ” (308). marmee promotes mental equality and the exchange of ideas in marriage, bringing together the traditionally female sphere of the home and the traditionally male sphere of the outside world. sarah elbert, author of a hunger for home, asserts that as far as marmee is concerned, being a good wife requires proactivity and independence: “docility is a fine quality in a daughter, even a sister, alcott admits, but dangerous in a wife. meg becomes dowdy and dependent... mrs. march shares her domestic secret with her daughter: a good marriage is based on mutuality of interests and responsibilities” (203-4). after meg begins including john in the children’s upbringing and seeks to engage his mind, he once again prefers to stay at home with her. they begin to share responsibilities, even domestic pursuits. according to alcott, through teamwork meg and john find “the key to…mutual helpfulness” (313). this idea of “mutual helpfulness” noticeably conflicts with the tenets of the cult of true womanhood. marmee also praises hard work as a means through which women can attain independence. after she suggests that jo learn to cook, marmee praises work as a source of independence: “work is wholesome, and there is plenty for every one; it keeps us from ennui and mischief…and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion” (99). though marmee generally encourages her girls to accomplish domestic work, rather than pursuing any sort of work outside the home, she does recognize the importance of female contributions to society, even if these contributions are domestic in nature. in order to achieve independence, women must prove their value and worth. as elbert eloquently states, “accepting, even glorifying the importance of women’s domestic work, alcott emphasizes that men are homeless without women…it follows that women have already proved themselves in the world; thus their ability to extend their sphere is unquestioned in little women” (202). therefore, according to elbert, domesticity can provide the doorway through which women become valued as contributing members of society, and marmee most certainly encourages her daughters to contribute by proving that “domestic work is real work” (202). in so doing, marmee encourages a feminist spirit in her daughters and inspires in them a desire to contribute to society. coupled with this more liberal idea of female contributions to society is the more traditional concept of spirituality. for marmee, spirituality is a mixture of christianity and the idea that one should always strive to be as good as possible (particularly if one is a little girl). though the march family, like louisa may alcott’s family, does not appear to attend weekly church services, marmee still believes in god and invokes his help in times of need. after marmee tells jo about her struggle to control her anger, she tells her daughter to trust god and pray to him: “the more you love and trust him, the nearer you will feel to him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom…believe this heartily, and go to god with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows” (alcott 70). in this passage, marmee reveals her direct relationship with god, the “heavenly father,” though references to christ, church, and other components of the christian faith are absent from the text (70).v marmee undoubtedly believes in god, but the text does not clarify the exact nature of this belief. the god she references appears to be the christian god, though she does not seem to practice christianity in a traditional, calvinist sense. vi though marmee makes a couple of direct references to god, she more often communicates the importance of moral virtue to her daughters, a communication laden with spiritual overtones; however, these overtones are not explicitly christian. the first chapter of little women, “playing pilgrims,” outlines marmee’s idea that the four sisters pretend they are on a journey to the celestial city, in the hopes that this game will enable the girls to handle life’s everyday trials and challenges with grace and goodness: “now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play but in earnest, and see how far on you can get before father comes home” (18). though pilgrim’s progress is a decidedly christian text, in little women it becomes more of a guidebook for living a moral life. vii the rest of the novel takes on some allegoric characteristics as the march sisters embark on their journey through life. according to holly blackford in her article “vital signs at play: objects as vessels of mother-daughter discourse in louisa may alcott’s little women,” marmee repurposes pilgrim’s progress, a masculine text by a masculine author, using it to illustrate her daughters’ journey towards mature femininity (5). blackford then argues, “the pilgrim’s progress stands in for the absent father in the march house. it is a cultural metaphor for both christian progress and individual child development” (6). in many ways, pilgrim’s progress provides the crux on which the novel itself hinges. the girls’ sense of the spiritual and moral journey that they are taking drives the plot, and alcott includes explicit allusions to pilgrim’s progress throughout the text. marmee’s sense of morality and spirituality is strongly tied to the idea of “mending a fault,” or purging one’s character of vices, no matter how insignificant they may seem (alcott 61). after amy’s contraband limes are discovered at school, mr. davis strikes her, and marmee decides to withdraw amy from school (after consulting mr. march, of course). however, though she does not condone mr. davis’s method of punishment, marmee does encourage amy to mend her faults: “you are getting to be altogether too conceited and important, my dear, and it is quite time you set about correcting it” (61). though marmee’s words are somewhat “severe,” she firmly believes in the necessity of cultivating morality (61). she does not fail to stress the importance of good character in everyday moments, including story time; her daughters have come to expect this from their mother: “tell another story, mother; one with a moral to it, like this. i like to think about them afterwards, if they are real, and not too preachy” (42). because the march sisters adore marmee, they are eager to hear whatever she has to say, and this makes them particularly receptive to her moral instruction. marmee’s instruction encompasses more than the morals contained in these didactic stories, however; marmee also espouses ideas about education gleaned from the nineteenthcentury transcendentalists. this philosophy strongly influences other components of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 60 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 61 cult, particularly feminism and spirituality. transcendentalism embraced radical ideas that often overturned traditional notions of gender and religion. bronson alcott, louisa’s father, was one of the great transcendentalists, cited by jane duran as a “forerunner…of the pragmatists” (232). his influence can be seen throughout the pages of little women, particularly concerning issues of education. unlike his contemporary henry david thoreau, who advocated nature as the ideal source of education, bronson believed that by cultivating an observant attitude, one could learn best from interacting with others. he also believed that classrooms could be just as effective as natural surroundings, though unfortunately true learning did not often occur in the public education system. like margaret fuller, bronson believed that “education…is a continuous process” (duran 238). this is a process that marmee fully embraces, using the daily happenings in her daughters’ lives to teach them valuable lessons. in little women, marmee seeks to educate her daughters through their interactions with others. she adopts unconventional methods that take the girls outside of the classroom and into the real world for their education. according to susan laird, marmee’s “curriculum… includes the complex art of learning from experience to love and survive, come what may” (297). marmee allows her daughters to learn from experience multiple times in the novel. when amy wants to throw a fashionable (and expensive) party, mrs. march expresses her concern. amy assures her that all will be well, offering to pay for it. marmee agrees, in spite of her reservations: “mrs. march knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and, when it was possible, she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice” (alcott 206). without relinquishing her authority, marmee employs a hands-off parenting method that strongly resembles transcendentalist ideas about education. transcendentalism is not the only nineteenth-century philosophy that marmee embraces. in keeping with the social reform movement that continued to gain momentum throughout the nineteenth century, marmee also encourages her girls to engage in social activism. interestingly, she does not encourage them to campaign for the female vote or prison reform; instead, she emphasizes local poverty and needs that are immediately accessible to her daughters, implying that they should waste no time in offering help to those who need it. in chapter two, “a merry christmas,” marmee asks her girls to donate their breakfast to the hummel family, a single mother with six children and not enough food to eat: “my girls, will you give them your breakfast as a christmas present?” (alcott 21). though the girls look forward all year to christmas breakfast as a special feast, they agree to part with the delicacies and content themselves with bread and milk for breakfast. the narrator notes, “when they went away, leaving comfort behind, i think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts” (22). in this scene, charity offers the girls a sense of self-fulfillment and satisfaction that further motivates them to give of themselves and their resources. in chapter seventeen, the girls are asked to give of themselves in an episode that stresses the importance of social reform. the girls discuss which sister should visit the hummel family, implying that the four girls have continued to care for the hummels since the donation of their christmas breakfasts. meg claims she is too tired for a visit, and jo complains that the weather will worsen her cold. beth, who has visited the hummels’ house every day to help care for their sick baby, ventures out yet again (141-2). tragically, the hummel baby passes away in her arms, and when beth comes home, jo finds her “sitting on the medicine chest, looking very grave, with red eyes, and a camphor bottle in her hand” (142). beth has contracted scarlet fever from her contact with the sick baby; meg and jo, who have had the fever before, are immune (143). had meg and jo visited the hummels themselves, taking responsibility for their charitable duties, beth would not have contracted the fever, which ultimately causes her death. though this consequence may seem extreme, meg and jo’s refusal to perform the duties suggested to them by their mother causes their sister’s death, a morbid but integral part of the plot of little women. the cult of marmee combines several, often conflicting, ideologies, including the cult of true womanhood, feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform. these five components are a complex mixture of common nineteenth-century philosophies and subversive ideas reminiscent of modern thought. however, these components overlap and complement one another in ways that go beyond the scope of this study. further research is necessary fully to explore the elements of the cult of marmee and their interactions with one another, as well as their place in nineteenth-century thought and culture. perhaps most importantly, scholars and critics should remember that little women is indeed a product of another time, as barbara sicherman notes in her article “reading little women: the many lives of a text.” applying twenty-first century definitions of feminism or social activism is unfair to alcott’s progressive, but still by modern standards conservative, text. perhaps the most significant legacy of little women is its message of equality for the many women and girls who have read it since its publication. as richard h. brodhead, author of “starting out in the 1860s: alcott, authorship, and the postbellum literary field,” notes, “little women tolerates deviations from normative gender identities unknown to earlier works in the domestic genre” (624). clearly, little women contains revolutionary, subversive ideas. however, brodhead identifies little women as a domestic novel, a quintessentially nineteenth-century literary form. perhaps brodhead has pinpointed the reason that marmee seems to contradict herself, and scholars and critics cannot seem to agree on the underlying message of this novel: alcott espoused radical ideas, but she was also a product of the victorian age. joining some of the earliest feminist causes, alcott advocated equality in marriage and independence for women. though she did not push these concepts to their ultimate conclusion, as modern feminists might wish, she thought more openly about social and gender-related issues than many of her peers. marmee, too, remains progressive while concurrently choosing to espouse certain victorian ideals. perhaps this paradox is most evident in the character of jo, who at the novel’s end is happily married with many boys to care for. she appears to have abandoned her writing and declares, “the life i wanted then seems selfish, lonely and cold to me now. i haven’t given up the hope that i may write a good book yet, but i can wait, and i’m sure it will be all the better for such scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 60 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 61 cult, particularly feminism and spirituality. transcendentalism embraced radical ideas that often overturned traditional notions of gender and religion. bronson alcott, louisa’s father, was one of the great transcendentalists, cited by jane duran as a “forerunner…of the pragmatists” (232). his influence can be seen throughout the pages of little women, particularly concerning issues of education. unlike his contemporary henry david thoreau, who advocated nature as the ideal source of education, bronson believed that by cultivating an observant attitude, one could learn best from interacting with others. he also believed that classrooms could be just as effective as natural surroundings, though unfortunately true learning did not often occur in the public education system. like margaret fuller, bronson believed that “education…is a continuous process” (duran 238). this is a process that marmee fully embraces, using the daily happenings in her daughters’ lives to teach them valuable lessons. in little women, marmee seeks to educate her daughters through their interactions with others. she adopts unconventional methods that take the girls outside of the classroom and into the real world for their education. according to susan laird, marmee’s “curriculum… includes the complex art of learning from experience to love and survive, come what may” (297). marmee allows her daughters to learn from experience multiple times in the novel. when amy wants to throw a fashionable (and expensive) party, mrs. march expresses her concern. amy assures her that all will be well, offering to pay for it. marmee agrees, in spite of her reservations: “mrs. march knew that experience was an excellent teacher, and, when it was possible, she left her children to learn alone the lessons which she would gladly have made easier, if they had not objected to taking advice” (alcott 206). without relinquishing her authority, marmee employs a hands-off parenting method that strongly resembles transcendentalist ideas about education. transcendentalism is not the only nineteenth-century philosophy that marmee embraces. in keeping with the social reform movement that continued to gain momentum throughout the nineteenth century, marmee also encourages her girls to engage in social activism. interestingly, she does not encourage them to campaign for the female vote or prison reform; instead, she emphasizes local poverty and needs that are immediately accessible to her daughters, implying that they should waste no time in offering help to those who need it. in chapter two, “a merry christmas,” marmee asks her girls to donate their breakfast to the hummel family, a single mother with six children and not enough food to eat: “my girls, will you give them your breakfast as a christmas present?” (alcott 21). though the girls look forward all year to christmas breakfast as a special feast, they agree to part with the delicacies and content themselves with bread and milk for breakfast. the narrator notes, “when they went away, leaving comfort behind, i think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts” (22). in this scene, charity offers the girls a sense of self-fulfillment and satisfaction that further motivates them to give of themselves and their resources. in chapter seventeen, the girls are asked to give of themselves in an episode that stresses the importance of social reform. the girls discuss which sister should visit the hummel family, implying that the four girls have continued to care for the hummels since the donation of their christmas breakfasts. meg claims she is too tired for a visit, and jo complains that the weather will worsen her cold. beth, who has visited the hummels’ house every day to help care for their sick baby, ventures out yet again (141-2). tragically, the hummel baby passes away in her arms, and when beth comes home, jo finds her “sitting on the medicine chest, looking very grave, with red eyes, and a camphor bottle in her hand” (142). beth has contracted scarlet fever from her contact with the sick baby; meg and jo, who have had the fever before, are immune (143). had meg and jo visited the hummels themselves, taking responsibility for their charitable duties, beth would not have contracted the fever, which ultimately causes her death. though this consequence may seem extreme, meg and jo’s refusal to perform the duties suggested to them by their mother causes their sister’s death, a morbid but integral part of the plot of little women. the cult of marmee combines several, often conflicting, ideologies, including the cult of true womanhood, feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform. these five components are a complex mixture of common nineteenth-century philosophies and subversive ideas reminiscent of modern thought. however, these components overlap and complement one another in ways that go beyond the scope of this study. further research is necessary fully to explore the elements of the cult of marmee and their interactions with one another, as well as their place in nineteenth-century thought and culture. perhaps most importantly, scholars and critics should remember that little women is indeed a product of another time, as barbara sicherman notes in her article “reading little women: the many lives of a text.” applying twenty-first century definitions of feminism or social activism is unfair to alcott’s progressive, but still by modern standards conservative, text. perhaps the most significant legacy of little women is its message of equality for the many women and girls who have read it since its publication. as richard h. brodhead, author of “starting out in the 1860s: alcott, authorship, and the postbellum literary field,” notes, “little women tolerates deviations from normative gender identities unknown to earlier works in the domestic genre” (624). clearly, little women contains revolutionary, subversive ideas. however, brodhead identifies little women as a domestic novel, a quintessentially nineteenth-century literary form. perhaps brodhead has pinpointed the reason that marmee seems to contradict herself, and scholars and critics cannot seem to agree on the underlying message of this novel: alcott espoused radical ideas, but she was also a product of the victorian age. joining some of the earliest feminist causes, alcott advocated equality in marriage and independence for women. though she did not push these concepts to their ultimate conclusion, as modern feminists might wish, she thought more openly about social and gender-related issues than many of her peers. marmee, too, remains progressive while concurrently choosing to espouse certain victorian ideals. perhaps this paradox is most evident in the character of jo, who at the novel’s end is happily married with many boys to care for. she appears to have abandoned her writing and declares, “the life i wanted then seems selfish, lonely and cold to me now. i haven’t given up the hope that i may write a good book yet, but i can wait, and i’m sure it will be all the better for such scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 62 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 63 experiences and illustrations as these” (alcott 379). though jo longs for complete fulfillment and professional achievement, she, like marmee, is content to work hard and wait. like her mother, jo has accepted both the joys and difficulties of nineteenth-century womanhood, and through her and her sisters the cult of marmee will live on. notes i see keyser, elizabeth lennox. “‘the most beautiful things in all the world’?: families in little women.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark, eds. new york: garland, 1999. 83-96. print. ii the cult of true womanhood certainly did not apply to all nineteenth-century women all of the time. see roberts, mary louise. “true womanhood revisited.” journal of women’s history 14.1 (2002): 150-5. project muse. web. 12 december 2012. iii see pages 9-11. iv for a discussion on 19th-century marriage see coontz, stephanie. marriage, a history: how love conquered marriage. new york: viking, 2005. print. v see taves, ann. “mothers and children and the legacy of mid-nineteenth-century american christianity.” the journal of religion 67.2 (1987): 203-19. jstor. web. 16 november 2012. vi notably, bronson and abba alcott rejected calvinism in favor of unitarian philosophies. see “religion.” eiselein, gregory k. and anne phillips. the louisa may alcott encyclopedia. westport, ct: greenwood, 2001. print. vii for an in-depth exploration of pilgrim’s progress and little women, see halttunen, karen. “the domestic drama of louisa may alcott.” feminist studies 10.2 (1984): 233-54. jstor. web. 13 november 2012. works cited alcott, louisa may. little women. new york: norton, 2004. print. auerbach, nina. “waiting together: alcott on matriarchy.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. ed. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark. new york: garland, 1999. 7-26. print. blackford, holly. “vital signs at play: objects as vessels of mother-daughter discourse in louisa may alcott’s little women.” children’s literature vol. 34 (2006): 1-36. literature online. web. 16 october 2012. brodhead, richard h. “starting out in the 1860s: alcott, authorship, and the postbellum literary field.” little women. ed. anne k. phillips and gregory eiselein. new york: norton, 2004. 624-32. print. duran, jane. “bronson alcott: transcendentalism in the personal.” transactions of the charles s. pierce society 45.2 (2009): 231-9. academic search premier. 15 november 2012. elbert, sarah. a hunger for home. new brunswick: rutgers up, 1987. print. laird, susan. “learning from marmee’s teaching: alcott’s response to girls’ miseducation.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. ed. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark. new york: garland, 1999. 285-321. print. “marmee.” eiselein, gregory k. and anne phillips. the louisa may alcott encyclopedia. westport, ct: greenwood, 2001. print. sicherman, barbara. “reading little women: the many lives of a text.” little women. ed. anne k. phillips and gregory eiselein. new york: norton, 2004. 632-57. print. stern, madeleine b. louisa may alcott: a biography. norman: u of oklahoma p, 1985. print. welter, barbara. “the cult of true womanhood: 1820-1860.” american quarterly 18.2 (1966): 151-174. jstor. web. 15 november 2012. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women 62 spring 2014 middle tennessee state university 63 experiences and illustrations as these” (alcott 379). though jo longs for complete fulfillment and professional achievement, she, like marmee, is content to work hard and wait. like her mother, jo has accepted both the joys and difficulties of nineteenth-century womanhood, and through her and her sisters the cult of marmee will live on. notes i see keyser, elizabeth lennox. “‘the most beautiful things in all the world’?: families in little women.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark, eds. new york: garland, 1999. 83-96. print. ii the cult of true womanhood certainly did not apply to all nineteenth-century women all of the time. see roberts, mary louise. “true womanhood revisited.” journal of women’s history 14.1 (2002): 150-5. project muse. web. 12 december 2012. iii see pages 9-11. iv for a discussion on 19th-century marriage see coontz, stephanie. marriage, a history: how love conquered marriage. new york: viking, 2005. print. v see taves, ann. “mothers and children and the legacy of mid-nineteenth-century american christianity.” the journal of religion 67.2 (1987): 203-19. jstor. web. 16 november 2012. vi notably, bronson and abba alcott rejected calvinism in favor of unitarian philosophies. see “religion.” eiselein, gregory k. and anne phillips. the louisa may alcott encyclopedia. westport, ct: greenwood, 2001. print. vii for an in-depth exploration of pilgrim’s progress and little women, see halttunen, karen. “the domestic drama of louisa may alcott.” feminist studies 10.2 (1984): 233-54. jstor. web. 13 november 2012. works cited alcott, louisa may. little women. new york: norton, 2004. print. auerbach, nina. “waiting together: alcott on matriarchy.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. ed. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark. new york: garland, 1999. 7-26. print. blackford, holly. “vital signs at play: objects as vessels of mother-daughter discourse in louisa may alcott’s little women.” children’s literature vol. 34 (2006): 1-36. literature online. web. 16 october 2012. brodhead, richard h. “starting out in the 1860s: alcott, authorship, and the postbellum literary field.” little women. ed. anne k. phillips and gregory eiselein. new york: norton, 2004. 624-32. print. duran, jane. “bronson alcott: transcendentalism in the personal.” transactions of the charles s. pierce society 45.2 (2009): 231-9. academic search premier. 15 november 2012. elbert, sarah. a hunger for home. new brunswick: rutgers up, 1987. print. laird, susan. “learning from marmee’s teaching: alcott’s response to girls’ miseducation.” little women and the feminist imagination: criticism, controversy, personal essays. ed. janice m. alberghene and beverly lyon clark. new york: garland, 1999. 285-321. print. “marmee.” eiselein, gregory k. and anne phillips. the louisa may alcott encyclopedia. westport, ct: greenwood, 2001. print. sicherman, barbara. “reading little women: the many lives of a text.” little women. ed. anne k. phillips and gregory eiselein. new york: norton, 2004. 632-57. print. stern, madeleine b. louisa may alcott: a biography. norman: u of oklahoma p, 1985. print. welter, barbara. “the cult of true womanhood: 1820-1860.” american quarterly 18.2 (1966): 151-174. jstor. web. 15 november 2012. robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 65 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2014 robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche a critical essay luke judkins abstract this critical essay argues that robert frost’s poem, “the road not taken” is not a poem about taking a road less traveled but about regret and the state of the human psyche during the process of decision. frost argues against indecisiveness and regret via the speaker’s battle to decide between two virtually identical roads—neither one more or less traveled than the other. readers should look beyond the last two lines of frost’s poem in order to develop a structured perspective concerning frost’s point. historical contextualization provides readers with a sense of the biographical elements of the poem, written in 1916 and inspired by his friend edward thomas. thomas was indecisive about which path to take when they both proceeded into nature for a walk, giving frost a beginning for the speaker in the poem. close analysis of each stanza, reveals that frost’s “the road not taken” has psychological implications of regret and uncertainty regarding decision-making and provides a solution by having the speaker immediately imagining himself in the future romanticizing his choice. the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 89 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2014 the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review holly plemons abstract cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the united states. according to the american academy of periodontology, one half of people over the age of thirty, approximately 64.7 million americans, have periodontal disease. the purpose of this literature review is to examine existing studies that document a link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease in order to determine if the connection extends beyond shared risk factors. to further support the relationship of the heart and oral environment, research was reviewed to determine if the treatment and subsequent improvement of periodontal status would improve cardiovascular health. research supports the relationship between the two conditions, although there is no evidence that has established a causal connection. patients with periodontal disease have higher serum levels of inflammatory markers implicated in cardiovascular disease as compared to patients who are periodontally healthy. elevated salivary amounts of periodontal pathogens have been found in patients with coronary artery disease when compared to patients without cardiovascular concerns. nonsurgical treatment of periodontal disease has been shown to decrease the amount of inflammatory markers circulating in the bloodstream and to reduce the thickness of the coronary arteries. the systemic improvement from periodontal therapy is not permanent and supports the current standard of care, calling for long-term interventions. the established link between systemic and oral health adds urgency to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and maintenance of periodontal disease. works cited bly, mary. “bawdy puns and lustful virgins: the legacy of juliet’s desire in comedies of the early 1600s.” shakespeare survey 49 (1996): 97-109. rpt. in shakespeare and sexuality as “the legacy of juliet’s desire in comedies of the early 1600s.” ed. catherine m. s. alexander and stanley wells. cambridge: cambridge up, 2001. 52-71. print. brode, douglas. “star crossed lovers: romeo and juliet.” shakespeare in the movies: from the silent era to shakespeare in love. oxford: oxford up, 2000. 41-59. print. buchanan, judith. “leaves of brass and gads of steel: cinema as subject in shakespeare films, 1991-2000.” shakespeare on film. harlow: pearson education, 2005. 220-60. print. butler, judith. gender trouble. 1990. new york: routledge, 1999. e-book. hunter, lynette and peter lichtenfels. negotiating shakespeare’s language in romeo and juliet: reading strategies from criticism, editing and the theatre. farnham: ashgate, 2009. print. jackson, russell. “introduction: shakespeare, films, and the marketplace.” the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film. ed. russell jackson. cambridge: cambridge up, 2000. 1-12. print. luhrmann, baz, dir. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet. perf. leonardo dicaprio, claire danes, john leguizamo, and pete postlethwaite. 20th century fox, 1996. dvd. luhrmann, baz, catherine martin, craig pearce, and don mcalpine. audio commentary. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet: special edition. dir. luhrmann. perf. leonardo dicaprio, claire danes, john leguizamo, and pete postlethwaite. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. moisan, thomas. “‘o any thing, of nothing first create!’: gender and patriarchy and the tragedy of romeo and juliet.” in another country: feminist perspectives on renaissance drama. ed. dorothea kehler and susan baker. metuchen: scarecrow, 1991. 113-36. print. pearson, lu emily. elizabethan love conventions. u of california p, 1933. print. shakespeare, william. romeo and juliet. ed. rené weis. london: bloomsbury, 2012. print. tatspaugh, patricia. “the tragedies of love on film.” the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film. ed. russell jackson. cambridge: cambridge up, 2000. 135-59. print. the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 91 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2014 introduction according to the centers for disease control and prevention, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the united states. many of the patients seen in dental offices have some type of cardiovascular disease, which require consideration in determining appropriate treatment. in recent years the interrelationship between the environment in the oral cavity and systemic diseases has become more heavily disputed in an effort to give patients the best chance at controlling both conditions. this established link is of great importance to healthcare providers and patients and influences the standard of care that is currently accepted. the significance of this topic is that by discovering how diseases affect each other, scientists may be able to develop treatment protocols that improve the prognosis for these conditions. for the purposes of this research, cardiovascular disease will include any conditions that affect the heart or blood vessels. periodontal disease is defined as “the inflammation and tissue destruction result in degradation of the attachment apparatus of the teeth, causing tooth loss” (berent et al.. 2009, p. 127). periodontal disease is thought to be initiated by bacterial plaque and is impacted by the host immune response. the purpose of this review is to examine the existing research on the relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease. the following research questions will be addressed: • does the evidence support a connection that is more than shared risk factors? • is there research that identifies a connection between the management of periodontal disease and improvements in the cardiovascular health of the subjects? the independent variable in this study is periodontal disease. it will be evaluated for an effect, if any, on cardiovascular disease. cardiovascular disease is the dependent variable as the research will indicate to what extent it is modified by the treatment of periodontal disease. the review will be organized first to address studies that provide data on the link between the conditions. research that identifies the management of periodontal disease as a factor in the improvement of conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels will then be evaluated and listed to support the conclusions that a link does exist. discussion in a study conducted by kodovazenitis et al.. (2011), the connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease was investigated. the purpose of the study was to analyze the effect that periodontal disease had on c-reactive protein (crp) levels found in patients with acute myocardial infarctions. crp is an inflammatory marker that is not found in healthy individuals, circulates in the bloodstream, and appears in response to inflammation, infection, or injury. increased levels of crp lead to a greater risk of cardiovascular complications. the study subjects were selected from a group of 204 consecutive patients diagnosed with acute myocardial infraction (ami) and 102 consecutive subjects without ami at the first cardiology clinic of the hippokration hospital, university of athens. the researchers excluded participants based on: • diabetes mellitus • hepatitis or hiv infection • immunosuppressive therapy • current pregnancy or lactation • periodontal therapy in the preceding 6 months • antibiotic therapy for 3 months prior to study entry • tobacco use the use of these exclusion criteria adds validity to the research by limiting the effect of common risk factors for cardiovascular disease. the state of the patients’ periodontiums was evaluated by one periodontist using criteria accepted widely across the dental profession. using one specialist to examine patients provides measurements that are considerably more reliable when being compared. the subjects were required to complete questionnaires with regard to their medical and dental history. periodontal disease was identified as being systemic in exposure when more than 30% of the sites examined had both clinical attachment loss greater than 3mm and probing depths above 4mm, these measurements illustrate how much damage has occurred to the supporting structures of the teeth. the data relating to the presence and amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease was gathered from blood samples collected from patients when they were admitted. the results showed that the contribution of periodontal disease to crp elevations was strong, independent of other risk factors and consistent amongst a spectrum of pd measures evaluated. a strong correlation between the presence of periodontal disease and elevated levels of crp was found in the analysis portion of the results. the findings showed that ami patients had significantly higher mean crp levels. the conclusions drawn by the researchers in this study support a connection between periodontal disease and inflammatory markers, specifically crp. the sampling method used provided a random way of selecting the study group and eliminated participants with risk factors that could have produced conflicting results. the analysis of the data showed definite significance in the relationship between the two variables and effectively supports a connection between the conditions. an earlier study attempted to assess if a patient’s perception of their oral health status could be useful in determining if indicators for cardiovascular disease were present. a cross-sectional baseline sub study was conducted by mochari et al.. (2008). the purposes of this study were to “determine if self-reported oral health status is independently associated with inflammatory markers and if oral health assessment as part of cvd (cardiovascular disease) risk screening can identify at-risk individuals without traditional cvd risk factors” (mochari et al., 2008, p.1509). the participants were already taking part in a study conducted by the national heart, lung, and blood institute’s family intervention trial for heart health. the participants were eligible if they were family members or cohabitants of patients hospitalized with cvd, were aged 20-79 years, did not have cvd or diabetes, and spoke either english or spanish. there were 421 subjects in this study whose oral health condition was evaluated based on the answers they provided to questionnaires with regard the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 91 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2014 introduction according to the centers for disease control and prevention, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the united states. many of the patients seen in dental offices have some type of cardiovascular disease, which require consideration in determining appropriate treatment. in recent years the interrelationship between the environment in the oral cavity and systemic diseases has become more heavily disputed in an effort to give patients the best chance at controlling both conditions. this established link is of great importance to healthcare providers and patients and influences the standard of care that is currently accepted. the significance of this topic is that by discovering how diseases affect each other, scientists may be able to develop treatment protocols that improve the prognosis for these conditions. for the purposes of this research, cardiovascular disease will include any conditions that affect the heart or blood vessels. periodontal disease is defined as “the inflammation and tissue destruction result in degradation of the attachment apparatus of the teeth, causing tooth loss” (berent et al.. 2009, p. 127). periodontal disease is thought to be initiated by bacterial plaque and is impacted by the host immune response. the purpose of this review is to examine the existing research on the relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease. the following research questions will be addressed: • does the evidence support a connection that is more than shared risk factors? • is there research that identifies a connection between the management of periodontal disease and improvements in the cardiovascular health of the subjects? the independent variable in this study is periodontal disease. it will be evaluated for an effect, if any, on cardiovascular disease. cardiovascular disease is the dependent variable as the research will indicate to what extent it is modified by the treatment of periodontal disease. the review will be organized first to address studies that provide data on the link between the conditions. research that identifies the management of periodontal disease as a factor in the improvement of conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels will then be evaluated and listed to support the conclusions that a link does exist. discussion in a study conducted by kodovazenitis et al.. (2011), the connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease was investigated. the purpose of the study was to analyze the effect that periodontal disease had on c-reactive protein (crp) levels found in patients with acute myocardial infarctions. crp is an inflammatory marker that is not found in healthy individuals, circulates in the bloodstream, and appears in response to inflammation, infection, or injury. increased levels of crp lead to a greater risk of cardiovascular complications. the study subjects were selected from a group of 204 consecutive patients diagnosed with acute myocardial infraction (ami) and 102 consecutive subjects without ami at the first cardiology clinic of the hippokration hospital, university of athens. the researchers excluded participants based on: • diabetes mellitus • hepatitis or hiv infection • immunosuppressive therapy • current pregnancy or lactation • periodontal therapy in the preceding 6 months • antibiotic therapy for 3 months prior to study entry • tobacco use the use of these exclusion criteria adds validity to the research by limiting the effect of common risk factors for cardiovascular disease. the state of the patients’ periodontiums was evaluated by one periodontist using criteria accepted widely across the dental profession. using one specialist to examine patients provides measurements that are considerably more reliable when being compared. the subjects were required to complete questionnaires with regard to their medical and dental history. periodontal disease was identified as being systemic in exposure when more than 30% of the sites examined had both clinical attachment loss greater than 3mm and probing depths above 4mm, these measurements illustrate how much damage has occurred to the supporting structures of the teeth. the data relating to the presence and amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease was gathered from blood samples collected from patients when they were admitted. the results showed that the contribution of periodontal disease to crp elevations was strong, independent of other risk factors and consistent amongst a spectrum of pd measures evaluated. a strong correlation between the presence of periodontal disease and elevated levels of crp was found in the analysis portion of the results. the findings showed that ami patients had significantly higher mean crp levels. the conclusions drawn by the researchers in this study support a connection between periodontal disease and inflammatory markers, specifically crp. the sampling method used provided a random way of selecting the study group and eliminated participants with risk factors that could have produced conflicting results. the analysis of the data showed definite significance in the relationship between the two variables and effectively supports a connection between the conditions. an earlier study attempted to assess if a patient’s perception of their oral health status could be useful in determining if indicators for cardiovascular disease were present. a cross-sectional baseline sub study was conducted by mochari et al.. (2008). the purposes of this study were to “determine if self-reported oral health status is independently associated with inflammatory markers and if oral health assessment as part of cvd (cardiovascular disease) risk screening can identify at-risk individuals without traditional cvd risk factors” (mochari et al., 2008, p.1509). the participants were already taking part in a study conducted by the national heart, lung, and blood institute’s family intervention trial for heart health. the participants were eligible if they were family members or cohabitants of patients hospitalized with cvd, were aged 20-79 years, did not have cvd or diabetes, and spoke either english or spanish. there were 421 subjects in this study whose oral health condition was evaluated based on the answers they provided to questionnaires with regard the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 93 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2014 to their oral health status which were designed to be predictive of clinical attachment loss and periodontitis. questionnaires addressing dietary assessments and physical health were included further to screen the participants. bmi and blood pressure screenings were conducted by trained examiners using automated equipment. blood specimens were taken and analyzed at the columbia university clinical and translational science award center. the data was collected using standardized forms and double entered, to prevent contamination based on human error, into a microsoft access database. the results showed a statistically-significant difference in the amount of inflammatory markers for cvd, particularly lp-pla2 in patients with periodontal disease. according to mochari et al. (2008),“the data supports a possible independent association between oral health and inflammation, suggesting that inflammation may be the factor in the relationship between oral health and cvd” (p. 1512). this association is shown by the increased amount of inflammatory markers found the blood samples obtained from patients with periodontal disease. the research showed that women were more likely than men to have increased levels of lp-pla2, while men had a higher likelihood of having elevated amounts of crp. the research also disproved a connection between age, education level, and having health insurance with elevated levels of either inflammatory marker studied. the results of this study are dependent on self-reported periodontal disease. this is a noteworthy limitation, as the true state of the participants’ oral health is not documented or quantified by any measurable standard. the participants in this study may not be indicative of the population as they were volunteers and may have characteristics unlike those of the rest of the population, such as an increased access to care. the identification of shared risk factors for cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease has allowed researchers to eliminate or attempt to reduce the impact of these factors in the design of their studies. the ability to limit these variables, such as smoking and diabetes, provides research that more accurately measures the link between the conditions being evaluated. berent et al.. (2009), conducted a prospective epidemiologic study of patients undergoing coronary angiography, which is a procedure used to assess cardiovascular disease (cvd), including 466 patients in the research. the participants were admitted to the general hospital in wels by recommendation of their physicians to evaluate the presence and extent of cvd using scores to measure the amount of vascular stenosis, the narrowing of blood vessels that can restrict blood flow. blood samples were collected from the participants and analyzed for inflammatory markers, specifically crp. the periodontal health of the participants was evaluated using radiographs, and an examination by a dentist using the community periodontal index of treatment needs (cpitn). this screening index was designed by the world health organization to assess the treatment needs of a community; scores of three (3) or above indicate the presence of periodontal disease. the participants were also interviewed with regard to their oral health behaviors at home by the dentist conducting the screenings. the results confirmed a significant association between periodontal disease and cvd, although it did not draw a correlation between measurable signs of periodontal disease and the severity of cvd. the results showed that the number of patients with confirmed cvd showed a higher prevalence of periodontal disease than those participants without cvd. according to berent et al (2009), “cpitn scores of at least 3 were observed in 38% of patients with chd and 27% of patients without chd”(p. 130). this study made adjustments for shared risk factors, namely diabetes, smoking, and age. these confounding variables had the potential to interfere with the data, adjusting for them strengthens the validity of the findings. the extensive data collection process and standardized tests and indices used to quantify the presence and extent of disease also add a measure of reliability to the study. the aim of this study was to determine a correlation between cvd and pd, the method and treatment succeeded in demonstrating a link. the authors’ suggestion that further research be done to determine the effect of periodontal therapy on cvd status was a logical next step and increases the usefulness of this research. periodontal pathogens, microbes implicated in periodontal disease, have been identified and studied. research to determine if these microbes are involved in cardiovascular disease helped to strengthen the link between oral and systemic health. hyvarinen et al.. (2012), described the purpose of the study they conducted at the helsinki university central hospital, as investigating the “association between angiographically verified coronary artery disease (cad) and salivary levels of four major periodontal pathogens” (p. 478). periodontal pathogens are a group of bacteria with disease-causing potential and when present are the primary etiologic factors for the loss of supporting structures in the oral cavity. the participants were randomly selected from a group of patients enrolled in the parogene study between june 2006 and march 2008. these participants were having a procedure, coronary angiography, done to diagnose coronary artery disease and the study group was made up of 492 patients. the methods used to acquire the necessary data included: coronary angiography to determine coronary artery disease; detailed periodontal evaluation including radiographs and full mouth probing with bleeding points to assess the extent of periodontal involvement; salivary sample and blood samples to evaluate for the presence and prevalence of major periodontal pathogens. according to hyvarinen et al (2012), the results showed “that high salivary a. actinomycetemcomitans (aa) levels are strongly associated with the risk of angiographically confirmed stable cad” (p.482). aa has been shown to be strongly associated with moderate-severe periodontal disease, and this study supported those findings. this study was not able to show a significant relationship between the other three major periodontal pathogens and cad. this research supports the theory that oral health is connected to cardiovascular status beyond shared risk factors because the bacteria responsible for periodontal disease were evaluated and measured. the results have an added measure of validity as they confirm previously-documented connections between periodontal pathogens and the severity of destruction clinically visible in the oral environment. this study has implications for the clinical management of periodontal disease as it supports the need to treat the condition to improve systemic health. the treatment of periodontal disease decreases the number of pathogens present, which leads to a suppression of the inflammatory response; the reduction the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 93 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2014 to their oral health status which were designed to be predictive of clinical attachment loss and periodontitis. questionnaires addressing dietary assessments and physical health were included further to screen the participants. bmi and blood pressure screenings were conducted by trained examiners using automated equipment. blood specimens were taken and analyzed at the columbia university clinical and translational science award center. the data was collected using standardized forms and double entered, to prevent contamination based on human error, into a microsoft access database. the results showed a statistically-significant difference in the amount of inflammatory markers for cvd, particularly lp-pla2 in patients with periodontal disease. according to mochari et al. (2008),“the data supports a possible independent association between oral health and inflammation, suggesting that inflammation may be the factor in the relationship between oral health and cvd” (p. 1512). this association is shown by the increased amount of inflammatory markers found the blood samples obtained from patients with periodontal disease. the research showed that women were more likely than men to have increased levels of lp-pla2, while men had a higher likelihood of having elevated amounts of crp. the research also disproved a connection between age, education level, and having health insurance with elevated levels of either inflammatory marker studied. the results of this study are dependent on self-reported periodontal disease. this is a noteworthy limitation, as the true state of the participants’ oral health is not documented or quantified by any measurable standard. the participants in this study may not be indicative of the population as they were volunteers and may have characteristics unlike those of the rest of the population, such as an increased access to care. the identification of shared risk factors for cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease has allowed researchers to eliminate or attempt to reduce the impact of these factors in the design of their studies. the ability to limit these variables, such as smoking and diabetes, provides research that more accurately measures the link between the conditions being evaluated. berent et al.. (2009), conducted a prospective epidemiologic study of patients undergoing coronary angiography, which is a procedure used to assess cardiovascular disease (cvd), including 466 patients in the research. the participants were admitted to the general hospital in wels by recommendation of their physicians to evaluate the presence and extent of cvd using scores to measure the amount of vascular stenosis, the narrowing of blood vessels that can restrict blood flow. blood samples were collected from the participants and analyzed for inflammatory markers, specifically crp. the periodontal health of the participants was evaluated using radiographs, and an examination by a dentist using the community periodontal index of treatment needs (cpitn). this screening index was designed by the world health organization to assess the treatment needs of a community; scores of three (3) or above indicate the presence of periodontal disease. the participants were also interviewed with regard to their oral health behaviors at home by the dentist conducting the screenings. the results confirmed a significant association between periodontal disease and cvd, although it did not draw a correlation between measurable signs of periodontal disease and the severity of cvd. the results showed that the number of patients with confirmed cvd showed a higher prevalence of periodontal disease than those participants without cvd. according to berent et al (2009), “cpitn scores of at least 3 were observed in 38% of patients with chd and 27% of patients without chd”(p. 130). this study made adjustments for shared risk factors, namely diabetes, smoking, and age. these confounding variables had the potential to interfere with the data, adjusting for them strengthens the validity of the findings. the extensive data collection process and standardized tests and indices used to quantify the presence and extent of disease also add a measure of reliability to the study. the aim of this study was to determine a correlation between cvd and pd, the method and treatment succeeded in demonstrating a link. the authors’ suggestion that further research be done to determine the effect of periodontal therapy on cvd status was a logical next step and increases the usefulness of this research. periodontal pathogens, microbes implicated in periodontal disease, have been identified and studied. research to determine if these microbes are involved in cardiovascular disease helped to strengthen the link between oral and systemic health. hyvarinen et al.. (2012), described the purpose of the study they conducted at the helsinki university central hospital, as investigating the “association between angiographically verified coronary artery disease (cad) and salivary levels of four major periodontal pathogens” (p. 478). periodontal pathogens are a group of bacteria with disease-causing potential and when present are the primary etiologic factors for the loss of supporting structures in the oral cavity. the participants were randomly selected from a group of patients enrolled in the parogene study between june 2006 and march 2008. these participants were having a procedure, coronary angiography, done to diagnose coronary artery disease and the study group was made up of 492 patients. the methods used to acquire the necessary data included: coronary angiography to determine coronary artery disease; detailed periodontal evaluation including radiographs and full mouth probing with bleeding points to assess the extent of periodontal involvement; salivary sample and blood samples to evaluate for the presence and prevalence of major periodontal pathogens. according to hyvarinen et al (2012), the results showed “that high salivary a. actinomycetemcomitans (aa) levels are strongly associated with the risk of angiographically confirmed stable cad” (p.482). aa has been shown to be strongly associated with moderate-severe periodontal disease, and this study supported those findings. this study was not able to show a significant relationship between the other three major periodontal pathogens and cad. this research supports the theory that oral health is connected to cardiovascular status beyond shared risk factors because the bacteria responsible for periodontal disease were evaluated and measured. the results have an added measure of validity as they confirm previously-documented connections between periodontal pathogens and the severity of destruction clinically visible in the oral environment. this study has implications for the clinical management of periodontal disease as it supports the need to treat the condition to improve systemic health. the treatment of periodontal disease decreases the number of pathogens present, which leads to a suppression of the inflammatory response; the reduction the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 95 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2014 of inflammation has a positive effect on cardiovascular health. treatment protocols for periodontal disease should be implemented with an eye to the systemic benefit. cardiovascular and periodontal diseases have an inflammatory component. during periods of active periodontal disease, inflammation exists in the oral tissues, which triggers a systemic reaction. blum et al.. (2007) investigated the connection between periodontal conditions and systemic inflammation as it relates to cardiovascular disease using a prospective case-controlled pilot study. the purpose of this study as stated by blum (2007) was, “to determine whether periodontitis could be an infectious trigger to systemic inflammation, and whether conservative treatment could cure the local infection and reverse systemic inflammation”(p. 114). participants were selected from patients referred to the outpatient dental clinic of the hospital where the study took place in galilee, israel. the study group was comprised of nine out of fifty patients who met the criteria of the study. exclusion criteria included: • history of smoking • risk factors for cardiovascular disease particularly hypertension • diabetes • family history of cardiovascular conditions • chronic inflammatory conditions • cancer the study group underwent a medical history review and physical examination by a team comprised of a periodontist and cardiologist. this information served as the baseline for the experiment and follow-up measurements were made after intervention with systemic antibiotics, amoxicillin and metronidazole, advanced oral hygiene instruction, and two to four sessions of scaling and root planing. scaling and root planing is a nonsurgical procedure that employs manual and power instruments to free tooth and root surfaces from debris and bacteria. a control group of nine participants was used in this study and included participants not diagnosed with periodontal disease and deemed to be healthy. the results of this research showed that there were elevated levels of crp in participants with periodontal disease as compared to those without evidence of periodontal disease. according to blum et al.. (2007), “periodontitis was improved in all 9 patients that completed 3 months of treatment” (p.114). the results also showed a reduction in the levels of crp post-treatment. although there was a reduction in the inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease with the treatment, the levels seen are still higher than those seen in healthy patients such as those in the control group. blum et al.. (2007), also drew the conclusion that treating periodontal disease, “may inhibit systemic inflammation and could be used as an important prevention tool” (p. 116). the results of this study help to support current treatment regimes that include oral hygiene instruction, instrumentation and chemotherapeutics to improve periodontal health. this study used methods to increases the significance of the results by testing both a study and a control group and by using the same demographics and exclusion criteria for each. the results agree with previous research supported by the american dental association. the clinical application of this study supports the treatment of periodontal disease using nonsurgical interventions. improvements seen in the periodontal status and systemic health of participants receiving treatment supports current treatment protocols. dental professionals believe that improving oral care practices will improve patients’ health. if these improvements impact systemic health as well as the oral cavity, then motivation and urgency to treat and maintain oral health will be increased. frisbee et al.. (2010), conducted a cross sectional convenience sample study of 115 subjects. the research hypothesis stated that better dental hygiene practices and more frequent preventive dental care would be associated with more favorable levels of systemic inflammation. the data for the analysis of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease was collected via blood samples taken from the subjects. the participants were required to complete a structured questionnaire that detailed their health and lifestyle focusing on their oral hygiene practices, dental health, and routine preventive dental care. those participants who indicated better general oral health showed lower levels of crp according to frisbee (2010). interestingly, the study also found a correlation between specific oral hygiene practices and cardiovascular disease risk factors. the statistics showed, “less frequent brushing was associated with elevated total cholesterol and less frequent flossing was associated with elevated mean arterial pressure” (frisbee, 2010, p.179). self-reported oral hygiene practices demonstrated an impact on important markers for cardiovascular disease and the analysis of the data provided support for the hypothesis. according to frisbee et al.. (2010), “better selfreported, overall dental health was associated with lower levels of crp” (p.180). the conclusions drawn support from previous studies that have documented a relationship between crp, aggressive, and localized periodontitis. it is also interesting to note that this study dealt with the non-clinical aspects of periodontal disease and that the increased levels of cardiovascular inflammatory markers were present at that point, before the clinical signs and symptoms of the disease were evident. further research to pinpoint the stage at which cardiovascular health becomes affected may help develop better preventive strategies to reduce the negative systemic influence of periodontal disease. this study used methods to analyze the data, specifically a multiple linear ordinary least squares regression, to allow the correlation strength of the data to be tested. one significant limitation of this study is that the oral hygiene status and practices were self-reported. the reliability of the participants’ responses on the questionnaires was assumed to be accurate and true with no criteria in place to test the amount or extent of their periodontal disease status. the volunteers used as the participants in this study are a possible source of bias as they may have characteristics unlike the rest of the population, such as increased health literacy. further research is necessary to determine whether the systemic inflammation related to periodontal disease begins before the onset of clinically detectable disease, and if so at what point. further research conducted by xu, f. and lu, b. (2011), attempted to determine if periodontal disease had a higher prevalence in patients with cardiovascular disease. the research technique was a multistage cluster design study of 3,661 participants over the the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 95 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2014 of inflammation has a positive effect on cardiovascular health. treatment protocols for periodontal disease should be implemented with an eye to the systemic benefit. cardiovascular and periodontal diseases have an inflammatory component. during periods of active periodontal disease, inflammation exists in the oral tissues, which triggers a systemic reaction. blum et al.. (2007) investigated the connection between periodontal conditions and systemic inflammation as it relates to cardiovascular disease using a prospective case-controlled pilot study. the purpose of this study as stated by blum (2007) was, “to determine whether periodontitis could be an infectious trigger to systemic inflammation, and whether conservative treatment could cure the local infection and reverse systemic inflammation”(p. 114). participants were selected from patients referred to the outpatient dental clinic of the hospital where the study took place in galilee, israel. the study group was comprised of nine out of fifty patients who met the criteria of the study. exclusion criteria included: • history of smoking • risk factors for cardiovascular disease particularly hypertension • diabetes • family history of cardiovascular conditions • chronic inflammatory conditions • cancer the study group underwent a medical history review and physical examination by a team comprised of a periodontist and cardiologist. this information served as the baseline for the experiment and follow-up measurements were made after intervention with systemic antibiotics, amoxicillin and metronidazole, advanced oral hygiene instruction, and two to four sessions of scaling and root planing. scaling and root planing is a nonsurgical procedure that employs manual and power instruments to free tooth and root surfaces from debris and bacteria. a control group of nine participants was used in this study and included participants not diagnosed with periodontal disease and deemed to be healthy. the results of this research showed that there were elevated levels of crp in participants with periodontal disease as compared to those without evidence of periodontal disease. according to blum et al.. (2007), “periodontitis was improved in all 9 patients that completed 3 months of treatment” (p.114). the results also showed a reduction in the levels of crp post-treatment. although there was a reduction in the inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease with the treatment, the levels seen are still higher than those seen in healthy patients such as those in the control group. blum et al.. (2007), also drew the conclusion that treating periodontal disease, “may inhibit systemic inflammation and could be used as an important prevention tool” (p. 116). the results of this study help to support current treatment regimes that include oral hygiene instruction, instrumentation and chemotherapeutics to improve periodontal health. this study used methods to increases the significance of the results by testing both a study and a control group and by using the same demographics and exclusion criteria for each. the results agree with previous research supported by the american dental association. the clinical application of this study supports the treatment of periodontal disease using nonsurgical interventions. improvements seen in the periodontal status and systemic health of participants receiving treatment supports current treatment protocols. dental professionals believe that improving oral care practices will improve patients’ health. if these improvements impact systemic health as well as the oral cavity, then motivation and urgency to treat and maintain oral health will be increased. frisbee et al.. (2010), conducted a cross sectional convenience sample study of 115 subjects. the research hypothesis stated that better dental hygiene practices and more frequent preventive dental care would be associated with more favorable levels of systemic inflammation. the data for the analysis of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease was collected via blood samples taken from the subjects. the participants were required to complete a structured questionnaire that detailed their health and lifestyle focusing on their oral hygiene practices, dental health, and routine preventive dental care. those participants who indicated better general oral health showed lower levels of crp according to frisbee (2010). interestingly, the study also found a correlation between specific oral hygiene practices and cardiovascular disease risk factors. the statistics showed, “less frequent brushing was associated with elevated total cholesterol and less frequent flossing was associated with elevated mean arterial pressure” (frisbee, 2010, p.179). self-reported oral hygiene practices demonstrated an impact on important markers for cardiovascular disease and the analysis of the data provided support for the hypothesis. according to frisbee et al.. (2010), “better selfreported, overall dental health was associated with lower levels of crp” (p.180). the conclusions drawn support from previous studies that have documented a relationship between crp, aggressive, and localized periodontitis. it is also interesting to note that this study dealt with the non-clinical aspects of periodontal disease and that the increased levels of cardiovascular inflammatory markers were present at that point, before the clinical signs and symptoms of the disease were evident. further research to pinpoint the stage at which cardiovascular health becomes affected may help develop better preventive strategies to reduce the negative systemic influence of periodontal disease. this study used methods to analyze the data, specifically a multiple linear ordinary least squares regression, to allow the correlation strength of the data to be tested. one significant limitation of this study is that the oral hygiene status and practices were self-reported. the reliability of the participants’ responses on the questionnaires was assumed to be accurate and true with no criteria in place to test the amount or extent of their periodontal disease status. the volunteers used as the participants in this study are a possible source of bias as they may have characteristics unlike the rest of the population, such as increased health literacy. further research is necessary to determine whether the systemic inflammation related to periodontal disease begins before the onset of clinically detectable disease, and if so at what point. further research conducted by xu, f. and lu, b. (2011), attempted to determine if periodontal disease had a higher prevalence in patients with cardiovascular disease. the research technique was a multistage cluster design study of 3,661 participants over the the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 97 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2014 age of thirty who had received a periodontal examination from nhanes iii mortality follow-up sample. the participants were classified as having moderate or severe periodontal disease using examination procedures obtained on the cdc website which are based on a numeric value for the amount of attachment loss present in the mouth. the stated purpose of the study was to evaluate the relationship of periodontal disease to cardiovascular disease. the study used data collected from the national death index records to determine the cause of death. the results of the data analysis showed that “men with severe pd still have an increased risk for cvd and all-cause mortality compared to men without pd in the younger group” (xu & lu, 2011, p.539). the results failed to show a relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease in older men and women. the information gained through this study is limited as it was taken from post-mortem examinations of the participants. periodontal disease has periods of activity and remission, the use of information from death certificates does not permit the distinction between current disease activity and the damage to the periodontium seen from disease potentially in a state of remission. the data contained in death certificates is also subject to error and this may impact the results of this study. the findings listed by xu and lu (2011), support the results of many other studies. the validity of this work is supported by comparison to research conducted by kodovazenitis et al..(2011), which also documented an increase in the amount of crp in participants with periodontal disease. current research has not proven that the connection between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease encompasses all aspects of the disease process. sridhar et al.. (2009), conducted a study to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis, cardiovascular disease and serum lipid levels. the study included 120 participants who were divided into 4 groups sharing common traits. group a were periodontally healthy patients without a diagnosed cardiovascular condition and served as the control group for the study. group b consisted of participants with chronic periodontitis and no documented cardiovascular concerns. group c participants displayed chronic periodontitis and coronary heart disease (chd). group d included those participants with chd but no measurable signs of periodontitis. the inclusion criteria used for this study included subjects between 40 and 60 years of age, a minimum of 14 natural teeth present, clinical attachment of at least 1mm on 30% of teeth present, and chd diagnosed with a coronary angiogram. sridar et al.. (2009), listed the exclusion criteria as: • other systemic diseases • non-ambulatory chd patients • use of drugs for hyperlipidemia(high cholesterol) • antibiotic treatment for 4 weeks before the start of the study • dental treatment 6 months before the start of the study • tobacco use serum levels were measured from blood samples taken at fasting levels for all participants and evaluated for total cholesterol, low and high density lipoprotein, as well as triglyceride levels. the periodontal status was evaluated by an intra-oral examination which included gingival index, oral hygiene index, periodontal disease index scores, and attachment loss measurements. the results did not show a correlation between periodontitis and serum lipid levels, and the presence of elevated levels of triglycerides did not have an adverse effect on the attachment levels of the subjects. the results also concluded that there was not a significant difference in the serum levels of ldl levels in periodontally healthy patients as compared with patients with documented disease. the use of indices accurately to diagnose participants used in this study adds to the validity of the results and the use of standard tests to measure serum levels of lipids also contributes to the reliability of the data collected by providing consistency. while this study did not show a correlation between periodontitis and serum lipid levels it did not disprove a link between cardiovascular disease and periodontitis. the use of a greater number of participants and evaluating other aspects of cardiovascular disease could further document the correlation between the two conditions. during dental procedures, oral tissues are manipulated and bleeding frequently occurs. the impact that treating dental disease has on the systemic health has been studied. minasslan et al.. (2010), conducted a self-controlled case series to investigate whether invasive dental treatment affected the number of vascular events. minasslan et al.. (2010), stated the null hypothesis, which implies that two aspects in a study are not related, as “rates of vascular events remain constant from day to day and are not affected by exposure to invasive dental treatment” (p. 500). stating a research goal in terms of a null hypothesis, encourages the study design to attempt to prove that theory. the participants were selected from the medicaid database and included 1,152 patients admitted for hospitalization for ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction over the age of twenty years. the database listed the disease conditions using the international classification of diseases, ninth revision, clinical modification, classification system. the study collected data for twenty-four weeks before the first cardiovascular event and included only those subjects that had invasive dental treatment and a cardiovascular event during the observation period. exclusion criteria used for this study included: • history of diabetes • hypertension • coronary artery disease • participants with prescriptions for antiplatelet or salicylate drugs the information regarding invasive dental treatment was collected based on the current dental terminology coding system and included procedures such as, periodontal therapy, invasive dental surgery, simple extractions, and complicated extractions. each procedure was followed by twenty-four weeks of observation. the results demonstrated a significant increase in the number of vascular events in the four weeks following invasive dental procedures. the results also showed that the increased risk of cardiovascular complications following invasive dental procedures declined and reached baseline levels within six months. the data supports findings that periodontal therapy has the potential to increase the systemic inflammatory response, which can impair the function of the blood vessels for the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 97 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2014 age of thirty who had received a periodontal examination from nhanes iii mortality follow-up sample. the participants were classified as having moderate or severe periodontal disease using examination procedures obtained on the cdc website which are based on a numeric value for the amount of attachment loss present in the mouth. the stated purpose of the study was to evaluate the relationship of periodontal disease to cardiovascular disease. the study used data collected from the national death index records to determine the cause of death. the results of the data analysis showed that “men with severe pd still have an increased risk for cvd and all-cause mortality compared to men without pd in the younger group” (xu & lu, 2011, p.539). the results failed to show a relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease in older men and women. the information gained through this study is limited as it was taken from post-mortem examinations of the participants. periodontal disease has periods of activity and remission, the use of information from death certificates does not permit the distinction between current disease activity and the damage to the periodontium seen from disease potentially in a state of remission. the data contained in death certificates is also subject to error and this may impact the results of this study. the findings listed by xu and lu (2011), support the results of many other studies. the validity of this work is supported by comparison to research conducted by kodovazenitis et al..(2011), which also documented an increase in the amount of crp in participants with periodontal disease. current research has not proven that the connection between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease encompasses all aspects of the disease process. sridhar et al.. (2009), conducted a study to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis, cardiovascular disease and serum lipid levels. the study included 120 participants who were divided into 4 groups sharing common traits. group a were periodontally healthy patients without a diagnosed cardiovascular condition and served as the control group for the study. group b consisted of participants with chronic periodontitis and no documented cardiovascular concerns. group c participants displayed chronic periodontitis and coronary heart disease (chd). group d included those participants with chd but no measurable signs of periodontitis. the inclusion criteria used for this study included subjects between 40 and 60 years of age, a minimum of 14 natural teeth present, clinical attachment of at least 1mm on 30% of teeth present, and chd diagnosed with a coronary angiogram. sridar et al.. (2009), listed the exclusion criteria as: • other systemic diseases • non-ambulatory chd patients • use of drugs for hyperlipidemia(high cholesterol) • antibiotic treatment for 4 weeks before the start of the study • dental treatment 6 months before the start of the study • tobacco use serum levels were measured from blood samples taken at fasting levels for all participants and evaluated for total cholesterol, low and high density lipoprotein, as well as triglyceride levels. the periodontal status was evaluated by an intra-oral examination which included gingival index, oral hygiene index, periodontal disease index scores, and attachment loss measurements. the results did not show a correlation between periodontitis and serum lipid levels, and the presence of elevated levels of triglycerides did not have an adverse effect on the attachment levels of the subjects. the results also concluded that there was not a significant difference in the serum levels of ldl levels in periodontally healthy patients as compared with patients with documented disease. the use of indices accurately to diagnose participants used in this study adds to the validity of the results and the use of standard tests to measure serum levels of lipids also contributes to the reliability of the data collected by providing consistency. while this study did not show a correlation between periodontitis and serum lipid levels it did not disprove a link between cardiovascular disease and periodontitis. the use of a greater number of participants and evaluating other aspects of cardiovascular disease could further document the correlation between the two conditions. during dental procedures, oral tissues are manipulated and bleeding frequently occurs. the impact that treating dental disease has on the systemic health has been studied. minasslan et al.. (2010), conducted a self-controlled case series to investigate whether invasive dental treatment affected the number of vascular events. minasslan et al.. (2010), stated the null hypothesis, which implies that two aspects in a study are not related, as “rates of vascular events remain constant from day to day and are not affected by exposure to invasive dental treatment” (p. 500). stating a research goal in terms of a null hypothesis, encourages the study design to attempt to prove that theory. the participants were selected from the medicaid database and included 1,152 patients admitted for hospitalization for ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction over the age of twenty years. the database listed the disease conditions using the international classification of diseases, ninth revision, clinical modification, classification system. the study collected data for twenty-four weeks before the first cardiovascular event and included only those subjects that had invasive dental treatment and a cardiovascular event during the observation period. exclusion criteria used for this study included: • history of diabetes • hypertension • coronary artery disease • participants with prescriptions for antiplatelet or salicylate drugs the information regarding invasive dental treatment was collected based on the current dental terminology coding system and included procedures such as, periodontal therapy, invasive dental surgery, simple extractions, and complicated extractions. each procedure was followed by twenty-four weeks of observation. the results demonstrated a significant increase in the number of vascular events in the four weeks following invasive dental procedures. the results also showed that the increased risk of cardiovascular complications following invasive dental procedures declined and reached baseline levels within six months. the data supports findings that periodontal therapy has the potential to increase the systemic inflammatory response, which can impair the function of the blood vessels for the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 99 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2014 a significant (approximately one week) period of time before returning to baseline levels as previously documented. one notable limitation of this study is the use of the medicaid population as these participants may have characteristics that may not be representative of the entire population, such as low socioeconomic status and a heavy proportion of disabilities. another concern for the reliability of this study is that the use of over-the-counter medications with the potential to affect the cardiovascular system was not considered or addressed. the validity of the study is strengthened by the large number of participants, the length of the study, the uniform coding of the disease status for the participants as well as the outcome of their events. the effect that treating periodontal disease has on cardiovascular disease is an important aspect of this link that has been evaluated. this research is significant because it attempts to justify the current treatment protocols accepted as standard of care in the dental profession. piconi et al..(2009), attempted to “verify possible correlations between periodontal disease and atherosclerosis in the clinical setting” (p. 1197). the participants of this longitudinal study were thirty-five otherwise healthy subjects, with a mean age of 46.21 years, who were diagnosed with mild to moderate periodontal disease. the study took place at the dental clinic of the luigi sacco university hospital in milan, italy. all participants were screened for medical conditions that could be confounding variables. exclusion criteria for this group included: • acute infectious diseases • respiratory disease • cardiovascular disease • metabolic conditions • kidney disease • tumors • antibiotic treatment in the previous 6 months baseline data was collected to determine the amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease present using blood samples and echo-doppler cardiography of the carotid artery. periodontal status was evaluated using the periodontal screening and recording index (psr), plaque scores, and bleeding points. the numbers and types of periodontal pathogens were measured by collecting and analyzing the crevicular fluid using paper points inserted into four sites per participant. the participants underwent periodontal therapy that included anti-infectives and non-surgical debridements that were completed by the fourth week. data was then collected again at one, six, and twelve month intervals and compared. the results showed that the treatment applied to the participants caused a significant reduction in the total number of periodontal pathogens present. the treatment also resulted in a decrease in the amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease in the blood as well as the adhesion and activation proteins. the thickness of the intimamedia, a measurement of the innermost two layers of the arterial wall, was also decreased after treatment. a reduction is a positive finding because the thicker the arterial wall, the more blood flow is reduced which contributes to cardiovascular complications. this research further supports the link between periodontal pathogens that cause inflammation in the oral cavity and increased systemic inflammation that contributes to cardiovascular disease. of concern is that the positive effects of treating periodontal disease are time-limited, as the levels of periodontal pathogens gradually increase within the twelve month period studied and indicate the necessity to provide continuous treatment to maintain improvements. the longitudinal method used in this research is verified by repeated observation of the variable over a long period of time. using exclusion criteria to limit confounding variables strengthens the validity and the applied therapy was standardized and the measurements taken were reliable. this is notable because limiting the effect of shared risk factors for these diseases strengthens their relationship beyond common characteristics. conclusion while a causal relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease has not been documented, a relationship does exist. helfand et al.. (2009) state, “our review and meta-analyses suggest that periodontal disease is an independent, though relatively weak, risk factor for chd” (p. 502). cardiovascular and periodontal disease are both prevalent conditions with multifactorial etiologies. the value of assessing and treating periodontal disease is supported by this literature review as the correlation between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease needs to be of concern for patients and healthcare practitioners. luciak et al.. (2007), suggest that early treatment might have a positive effect on the health of those at risk for periodontal conditions. the use of screening methods to detect periodontal conditions was found to be beneficial in this study. nonsurgical treatment of periodontal disease has been shown to improve not only the oral health of patients but also their systemic health. according to pickett (2012), treatment can reduce the clinical signs of the disease and decrease the systemic inflammatory response. the alteration of inflammatory markers with periodontal therapy is a significant finding and supports the need to address the condition. lockhart et al.. (2012), state that several cohort studies and randomized clinical trials have reported improvements in endothelial function and associated markers for inflammation among subjects who have undergone nonsurgical periodontal therapy, with or without systemic antibiotics. of great concern for dental providers is the return to baseline levels of the bacterial burden and inflammatory markers over time. long-term interventions need to be incorporated into treatment protocols to maintain the improvements seen with initial therapies. kuo et al.. (2007), support the treatment of periodontal diseases to improve systemic health. according to kuo et al.. (2007), prevention and management of periodontal diseases can have a significant impact on the improvement of cardiovascular function at a public health level. the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 99 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2014 a significant (approximately one week) period of time before returning to baseline levels as previously documented. one notable limitation of this study is the use of the medicaid population as these participants may have characteristics that may not be representative of the entire population, such as low socioeconomic status and a heavy proportion of disabilities. another concern for the reliability of this study is that the use of over-the-counter medications with the potential to affect the cardiovascular system was not considered or addressed. the validity of the study is strengthened by the large number of participants, the length of the study, the uniform coding of the disease status for the participants as well as the outcome of their events. the effect that treating periodontal disease has on cardiovascular disease is an important aspect of this link that has been evaluated. this research is significant because it attempts to justify the current treatment protocols accepted as standard of care in the dental profession. piconi et al..(2009), attempted to “verify possible correlations between periodontal disease and atherosclerosis in the clinical setting” (p. 1197). the participants of this longitudinal study were thirty-five otherwise healthy subjects, with a mean age of 46.21 years, who were diagnosed with mild to moderate periodontal disease. the study took place at the dental clinic of the luigi sacco university hospital in milan, italy. all participants were screened for medical conditions that could be confounding variables. exclusion criteria for this group included: • acute infectious diseases • respiratory disease • cardiovascular disease • metabolic conditions • kidney disease • tumors • antibiotic treatment in the previous 6 months baseline data was collected to determine the amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease present using blood samples and echo-doppler cardiography of the carotid artery. periodontal status was evaluated using the periodontal screening and recording index (psr), plaque scores, and bleeding points. the numbers and types of periodontal pathogens were measured by collecting and analyzing the crevicular fluid using paper points inserted into four sites per participant. the participants underwent periodontal therapy that included anti-infectives and non-surgical debridements that were completed by the fourth week. data was then collected again at one, six, and twelve month intervals and compared. the results showed that the treatment applied to the participants caused a significant reduction in the total number of periodontal pathogens present. the treatment also resulted in a decrease in the amount of inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease in the blood as well as the adhesion and activation proteins. the thickness of the intimamedia, a measurement of the innermost two layers of the arterial wall, was also decreased after treatment. a reduction is a positive finding because the thicker the arterial wall, the more blood flow is reduced which contributes to cardiovascular complications. this research further supports the link between periodontal pathogens that cause inflammation in the oral cavity and increased systemic inflammation that contributes to cardiovascular disease. of concern is that the positive effects of treating periodontal disease are time-limited, as the levels of periodontal pathogens gradually increase within the twelve month period studied and indicate the necessity to provide continuous treatment to maintain improvements. the longitudinal method used in this research is verified by repeated observation of the variable over a long period of time. using exclusion criteria to limit confounding variables strengthens the validity and the applied therapy was standardized and the measurements taken were reliable. this is notable because limiting the effect of shared risk factors for these diseases strengthens their relationship beyond common characteristics. conclusion while a causal relationship between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease has not been documented, a relationship does exist. helfand et al.. (2009) state, “our review and meta-analyses suggest that periodontal disease is an independent, though relatively weak, risk factor for chd” (p. 502). cardiovascular and periodontal disease are both prevalent conditions with multifactorial etiologies. the value of assessing and treating periodontal disease is supported by this literature review as the correlation between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease needs to be of concern for patients and healthcare practitioners. luciak et al.. (2007), suggest that early treatment might have a positive effect on the health of those at risk for periodontal conditions. the use of screening methods to detect periodontal conditions was found to be beneficial in this study. nonsurgical treatment of periodontal disease has been shown to improve not only the oral health of patients but also their systemic health. according to pickett (2012), treatment can reduce the clinical signs of the disease and decrease the systemic inflammatory response. the alteration of inflammatory markers with periodontal therapy is a significant finding and supports the need to address the condition. lockhart et al.. (2012), state that several cohort studies and randomized clinical trials have reported improvements in endothelial function and associated markers for inflammation among subjects who have undergone nonsurgical periodontal therapy, with or without systemic antibiotics. of great concern for dental providers is the return to baseline levels of the bacterial burden and inflammatory markers over time. long-term interventions need to be incorporated into treatment protocols to maintain the improvements seen with initial therapies. kuo et al.. (2007), support the treatment of periodontal diseases to improve systemic health. according to kuo et al.. (2007), prevention and management of periodontal diseases can have a significant impact on the improvement of cardiovascular function at a public health level. the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 101 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2014 the diseases reviewed here are complex and have many shared characteristics and a connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease is supported. the data does not infer a causal relationship, merely a relationship that extends beyond shared risk factors. the treatment and management of periodontal disease has been shown to improve both systemic and oral health, having an impact on inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease and decreasing the destructive bacteria that is harbored in periodontal pockets. the value of properly identifying and treating periodontal disease should not be understated, as it is a significant factor in the progression of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the united states. current standards of treatment aim to reduce the presence and extent of periodontal disease and need to be continually updated with evidence based protocols. the management of periodontal disease needs to include long-term and continuous interventions to maintain improvements. references berent, r., auer, j., schmid, p., krennmair, g., crouse, s., green, j., ...von duvillard, s. (2009). periodontal and coronary heart disease in patients undergoing coronary angiography. metabolism clinical and experimental, 60, 127-133. doi:10.1016/j.metabol.2009.12.016 blum, a., frnoy, e., peleg, a. (2007). periodontal care may improve systemic inflammation. clinical & investigative medicine, 30 (3), e114-e117. frisbee, s., chambers, c., frisbee, j., goodwill, a., crout, r. (2010). association between dental hygiene, cardiovascular disease risk factors and systemic inflammation in rural adults. journal of dental hygiene, 84(4), 177-184. helfand, m., buckley, d., freeman, m., fu, r., rogers, k., fleming, c., humphrey, l. (2009). emerging risk factors for coronary heart disease: a summary of systemic reviews conducted for the u. s. preventive services task force. annals of internal medicine, 151 (7), 496-507. hyvarinen, k., mantyla, p., buhlin, k., paju, s., nieminen, m., sinisalo, j., pussinen, p. (2012). a common periodontal pathogen has an adverse association with both acute and stable coronary artery disease. atherosclerosis, 223, 478-484. doi:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2012.05.021 kodovazenitis, g., pitsavos, c., papadimitriou, l., deliargyris, e., vrotsos, i., stefanadis, c., madianos, p. (2011). periodontal disease is associated with higher levels of c-reactive protein in non-diabetic, non-smoking acute myocardial infarction patients. journal of dentistry, 39, 849-854. doi:10.1016/j. jdent. 2011.09.005 kuo, l., polson, a., kang, t. (2007). associations between periodontal diseases and systemic diseases: a review of the inter-relationships and interactions with diabetes, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis. journal of the royal institute of public health, 122, 417-433. doi:10.1016/j. puhe.2007.07.004 lockhart, p., bolger, a., papapanou, p., osinbowale, o., trevisan, m., levison, m., baddour, l. (2012). periodontal disease and athersclerotic vascular disease: does the evidence support an independent association? circulation, 125, 2520-2544. doi:10.1161/cir.0b013e31825719f3 luciak-donsberger, c., piribauer, f. (2007). evidence-based rational supports a national periodontal disease screening program. journal of evidence-based dental practice, 7, 51-59. doi:10.1016/j. jebdp.2007.02.001 minasslan, c., d’aiuto, f., hingorani, a., smeeth, l. (2010). invasive dental treatment and risk for vascular events. annals of internal medicicne, 53 (8), 499-506. mochari, h., grbic, j., mosca, l. (2008). usefulness of self-reported periodontal disease to identify individuals with elevated inflammatory markers at risk of cardiovascular disease. the american journal of cardiology, 102, 1509-1513. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2008.07.047 pickett, f. (2012). state of evidence: chronic periodontal disease and stroke. canadian journal of dental hygiene, 46 (2), 124-128. piconi, s., trabattoni, d., luraghi, c., perilli, e., borelli, m., pacei, m., ...clerici, m. (2009). treatment of periodontal disease results in improvements in endothelial dysfunction and reduction of the carotid intima-media thickness. the federation of american societies for experimental biology journal, 23, 1196-1204. doi:10.1096/fj.08-119578 the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 101 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2014 the diseases reviewed here are complex and have many shared characteristics and a connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease is supported. the data does not infer a causal relationship, merely a relationship that extends beyond shared risk factors. the treatment and management of periodontal disease has been shown to improve both systemic and oral health, having an impact on inflammatory markers for cardiovascular disease and decreasing the destructive bacteria that is harbored in periodontal pockets. the value of properly identifying and treating periodontal disease should not be understated, as it is a significant factor in the progression of cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the united states. current standards of treatment aim to reduce the presence and extent of periodontal disease and need to be continually updated with evidence based protocols. the management of periodontal disease needs to include long-term and continuous interventions to maintain improvements. references berent, r., auer, j., schmid, p., krennmair, g., crouse, s., green, j., ...von duvillard, s. (2009). periodontal and coronary heart disease in patients undergoing coronary angiography. metabolism clinical and experimental, 60, 127-133. doi:10.1016/j.metabol.2009.12.016 blum, a., frnoy, e., peleg, a. (2007). periodontal care may improve systemic inflammation. clinical & investigative medicine, 30 (3), e114-e117. frisbee, s., chambers, c., frisbee, j., goodwill, a., crout, r. (2010). association between dental hygiene, cardiovascular disease risk factors and systemic inflammation in rural adults. journal of dental hygiene, 84(4), 177-184. helfand, m., buckley, d., freeman, m., fu, r., rogers, k., fleming, c., humphrey, l. (2009). emerging risk factors for coronary heart disease: a summary of systemic reviews conducted for the u. s. preventive services task force. annals of internal medicine, 151 (7), 496-507. hyvarinen, k., mantyla, p., buhlin, k., paju, s., nieminen, m., sinisalo, j., pussinen, p. (2012). a common periodontal pathogen has an adverse association with both acute and stable coronary artery disease. atherosclerosis, 223, 478-484. doi:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2012.05.021 kodovazenitis, g., pitsavos, c., papadimitriou, l., deliargyris, e., vrotsos, i., stefanadis, c., madianos, p. (2011). periodontal disease is associated with higher levels of c-reactive protein in non-diabetic, non-smoking acute myocardial infarction patients. journal of dentistry, 39, 849-854. doi:10.1016/j. jdent. 2011.09.005 kuo, l., polson, a., kang, t. (2007). associations between periodontal diseases and systemic diseases: a review of the inter-relationships and interactions with diabetes, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis. journal of the royal institute of public health, 122, 417-433. doi:10.1016/j. puhe.2007.07.004 lockhart, p., bolger, a., papapanou, p., osinbowale, o., trevisan, m., levison, m., baddour, l. (2012). periodontal disease and athersclerotic vascular disease: does the evidence support an independent association? circulation, 125, 2520-2544. doi:10.1161/cir.0b013e31825719f3 luciak-donsberger, c., piribauer, f. (2007). evidence-based rational supports a national periodontal disease screening program. journal of evidence-based dental practice, 7, 51-59. doi:10.1016/j. jebdp.2007.02.001 minasslan, c., d’aiuto, f., hingorani, a., smeeth, l. (2010). invasive dental treatment and risk for vascular events. annals of internal medicicne, 53 (8), 499-506. mochari, h., grbic, j., mosca, l. (2008). usefulness of self-reported periodontal disease to identify individuals with elevated inflammatory markers at risk of cardiovascular disease. the american journal of cardiology, 102, 1509-1513. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2008.07.047 pickett, f. (2012). state of evidence: chronic periodontal disease and stroke. canadian journal of dental hygiene, 46 (2), 124-128. piconi, s., trabattoni, d., luraghi, c., perilli, e., borelli, m., pacei, m., ...clerici, m. (2009). treatment of periodontal disease results in improvements in endothelial dysfunction and reduction of the carotid intima-media thickness. the federation of american societies for experimental biology journal, 23, 1196-1204. doi:10.1096/fj.08-119578 faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international middle tennessee state university 103 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2014 skilton, m., maple-brown, l., kapellas, k., celermajer, d., bartold, m., brown, a.,...jamieson, l. (2011). the effect of a periodontal intervention on cardiovascular risk markers in indigenous australians with periodontal disease: the periocardio study. biomed central public health, 11:729, 1-8. sridhar, r., byakod, g., pudakalkatti, p., patil, r. (2009). a study to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis, cardiovascular disease and serum lipid levels. international journal of dental hygiene, 7(2), 144-150. doi:10.1111/j.1601-5037.2008.00318.x xu, f., lu, b. (2011). prospective association of periodontal disease with cardiovascular and allcause mortality: nhanes iii follow-up study. athersclerosis, 218, 536-542. doi:10.1016/j. athersclerosis.2011.07.091 faith-based aviation: an ethnographic study of missionary flights international joseph cooper abstract the development of faith-based missionary aviation is a post-world war ii phenomenon. the war effort demonstrated the value, utility, and global reach of aviation to remote, underdeveloped areas of the world. with the beginnings of a worldwide infrastructure for aviation, christian aviators realized aviation could increase the range and effectiveness of their efforts to reach the world for christ (mellis, 2006). a qualitative, ethnographic study was conducted to document the activities of one faith-based aviation organization to gain an understanding of this little known-aspect of civilian aviation. the study was conducted with missionary flights international (mfi) of fort pierce, florida, which has been involved in faith-based missionary aviation since its inception in 1964. a constant comparative method was utilized to identify common elements, themes and patterns; common threads woven throughout the fabric of the organization and its culture. with the use of triangulation, three sides of input data from interviews, questionnaires and observations, two general phenomena, aviation and missions, each with six related categories emerged, describing the organization. mfi provides twice a week service to the island of hispaniola and the republic of haiti. in this in-depth study, insight and understanding were gained into the purpose of mfi, its daily routines and operations, and the challenges it faces in maintaining its flight services to haiti. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 27 “and still she asked, where, in this system, was there room for a studio?”: reading gender and lesbian space in vita sackville-west’s all passion spent shane mccoy abstract in my essay “`and still she asked, where, in this system, was there room for a studio?’: reading gender and lesbian space in vita sackville-west’s all passion spent,” i investigate the construction of lesbian space in the context of both the historical reality of a patriarchal society, and, within it, a patriarchal literary tradition. i place this text in the context of recent theoretical work by adrienne rich, terry castle, judith butler, sharon marcus, and luce irigaray, among others. my argument, influenced by adrienne rich’s idea of the lesbian continuum, investigates the ways in which widowhood opens up a lesbian/ woman-centered space for lady slane in sackville-west’s novel. lady slane’s newfound independence creates a subject position that allows her to make a space for herself away from patriarchal control. i focus on female autonomy in all passion spent, in particular, the creation of a female identity and female space that develops within a feminist discourse. this novel challenges traditional representations of the lesbian; consequently, it has been praised for creating alternative lesbian images as well as criticized for producing stereotypes. i break new ground by positing that the novel is a lesbian one. sackville-west’s novel might not be labeled as such by some because it does not appear to present a lesbian identity. however, within an inclusive lesbian theoretical perspective, the novel fits easily, if rather differently from other novels (such as radclyffe hall ’s the well of loneliness (1928) and virginia woolf ’s orlando (1928), into the lesbian continuum. scientia et humanitas 28 spring 2011 vita sackville-west’s all passion spent (1931) portrays the life of an elderly widow who desires a space of her own. as carol ames writes in her essay “nature and aristocracy in v. sackville-west,” the novel “posits that it is never too late to free oneself by declaring oneself independent of society’s pressures and expectations” (19). indeed, sackville-west’s work depicts an aristocratic woman breaking away from traditional and social expectations after the death of the family patriarch. after the death of her husband, lady slane, the protagonist1, embarks on a new path in life, separate from her family. she realizes how much she has sacrificed for her marriage and her family; earlier in her life, she had wanted to be an artist, and now that she is in control of her own life (much to the dismay of her children), lady slane separates and isolates herself from the family that controlled her for so long. she recognizes that her marriage trapped her in the role of “the good wife” (ames 19). providing a retrospective analysis of her married life, lady slane recognizes that she ultimately played a passive role in her marriage; she lost herself and betrayed her own desires in a rushed marriage in order to adhere to tradition and respectability. not until her husband’s death does she begin to notice that a world of independence and freedom awaits her in a lesbian space2 that we can now recognize as such. in this essay, i draw upon adrienne rich’s idea of the “lesbian continuum” to argue that lady slane and her maid, genoux, create a lesbian space in lady slane’s new home in hampstead, a space that counters the heteronormative spaces she inhabited throughout her life. focusing on the role of the narrator, i show that the novel ridicules lord slane, whose masculine gender position affords him control over lady slane. i provide an analytical perspective on lady slane’s marriage to show that the novel views marriage as a hindrance to her development as a woman due to her family’s expectations and assumptions. in addition, i argue that the protagonist creates a lesbian space void of male control after having gained a clear view of her married life and the institution of marriage. i situate my argument theoretically with critics such as adrienne rich, terry castle, and eve kosofsky sedgwick. these writers and critics/scholars have helped me to recognize the concepts of the “lesbian continuum,” lesbian identity, and homosocial bonds, which provide an understanding of a lesbian space that emerges from sackville-west’s novel as the protagonist gains agency and begins to control her own life. the characters in the novel are historically situated in gender roles that provide clear definitions of what it is to be a man or woman. lady slane ultimately rebels against these established gender identities in order to carve out a space for herself. my argument concerning lesbian space in all passion spent is based on adrienne rich’s idea of re-envisioning texts through what she calls the “lesbian continuum,” a concept that emerged during second-wave feminism and focuses on a vast range of woman-identified experiences, both sexual and non-sexual, in order to broaden our sense of the full range of women’s experiences. woman-identified experiences 1 before the protagonist’s marriage to lord slane, the narrator sometimes refers to lady slane by her first name, deborah. 2 i define lesbian space as a space void of male presence and male control. lesbian space can be the location of exclusive female friendship or female sexual relationships that males do not inhabit. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 29 are women-centered experiences articulated from the perspectives of women rather than men. indeed, rich’s concept brings to the foreground hitherto largely neglected experiences and removes them from the normative heterosexual context, which normally evaluates and ranks experiences. this continuum goes beyond the narrow heterosexual construct of the clinical definition of lesbianism, as essentially sex between women. rather, rich wants the term “lesbian continuum” “to include a range—through each woman’s life and throughout history—of woman-identified experiences, not simply the fact a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman” (349). women’s recognition of shared experiences, such as male oppression, resisting marriage, etc., draws attention to other woman-identified experiences throughout history as being lesbian regardless of whether or not a sexual component exists within the relationship. eve kosofsky sedgwick’s between men: english literature and male homosocial desire (1985) helps explain the marginalization of lesbian novels and reinforces the conceptual usefulness of the “lesbian continuum” even though she does not use the term. sedgwick writes, “it is crucial to every aspect of social structure within the exchange-of-women framework that heavily freighted bonds between men exist as the backbone of social form or forms” (86). but this raises an interesting point about the limits of male bonds, as castle points out, “how then to separate ‘functional’ male bonds—those that bolster the structure of male domination—from those that weaken it?” (69) sedgwick’s argument illustrates that functional male bonds are those that reinforce patriarchy through the “male-female-male ‘erotic paradigm’” such as charles dickens’ novel our mutual friend. the male-femalemale triangle is a “sign…of normative (namely, heterosexual) male bonding and of a remobilization of patriarchal control” (69). thus, homosocial bonds are a slippery slope that requires erotic feelings between men to be absent because male homosexuality undermines the patriarchal super-structure. traditionally, only those works of literature that undergird homosocial bonds and patriarchy are deemed worthy of the literary canon. thus, the lesbian novel is marginalized. sedgwick’s argument appears to reinforce the distinction (although sometimes blurred) between homosocial and homosexual bonds: at this particular historical moment, an intelligible continuum of aims, emotions, and valuations links lesbianism with the other forms of women’s attention to women: the bond of mother and daughter, for instance, the bond of sister and sister, women’s friendship, “networking,” and the active struggles of feminism. the continuum is crisscrossed with deep discontinuities—with much homophobia, with conflicts of race and class—but its intelligibility seems now a matter of simple common sense. however agonistic the politics, however conflicted the feelings, it seems at this moment to make an obvious kind of sense to say that women in our society who love women, women who teach, nurture, suckle, write about, march for, vote for, give jobs to, or otherwise promote the interest scientia et humanitas 30 spring 2011 of other women, are pursuing congruent and closely related activities. thus the adjective “homosocial” as applied to women’s bonds…need not be pointedly dichotomized as against “homosexual”; it can intelligibly denominate the entire continuum. (2) indeed, the “lesbian continuum” captures the full range of differences in female bonding that the term homosocial does not. sedgwick advances her argument concerning female and male homosocial experiences with a discussion on the establishment of patriarchal societies and the transfer of power to and from men via their homosocial bonds. the male homosocial relationship is “founded on an inherent and potentially active structural congruence” (sedgwick 25). this relationship has historical purposes rooted in institutionalized prejudices. for example, the male homosocial bond “may take the form of ideological homophobia, ideological homosexuality, or some highly conflicted but intensively structured combination of the two.” although lesbian relationships “must always be in a special relation to patriarchy,” these relationships are wholly different from male homosocial bonds because lesbian relationships are “on different [sometimes opposite] grounds and working through different mechanisms” (sedgwick 25)1. for example, men’s professional sports have been highly criticized for maintaining a high level of homophobia since the dominant image of masculinity perpetuated through competition is coded heterosexual. female professional sports, however, have not been subject to the same scrutiny as male professional sports because female professional sports are not as privileged in society. the privileging of male professional sports, therefore, lends a hand to institutionalizing the homophobia that in effect maintains a certain level of power. this is key in differentiating male homosocial relationships and female homosocial relationships. therefore, the term female homosocial relationship does not even begin to scratch the surface for conceptualizing lesbian relationships. terry castle’s groundbreaking work the apparitional lesbian: female homosexuality and modern culture (1993) is crucial to linking the theoretical and historical approaches on which i draw. castle’s research is rooted in both critical theory and history in order to uncover lesbian identities. castle comments, why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? in part because she has been “ghosted”—or made it seem invisible—by culture itself. it would be putting it mildly to say that the lesbian represents a threat to patriarchal protocol: western civilization has for centuries been haunted by a fear of “women without men”—of women indifferent or resistant to male desire. (5) indeed, the lesbian has been subject to being hidden away. she is seen as a threat to the patriarchal order because men in power cannot see women as being independent from male control. castle makes explicit that she is arguing against preconceived notions of lesbian identity: “what the advocates of the ‘no lesbians before 1900’ theory forget is that there 1 the point here is to present another argument for the preference of “lesbian continuum” over “homosocial.” reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 31 are myriad ways of discovering one’s desire” (9). historically speaking, the lesbian is not a twentieth-century invention. for example, nineteenth-century writer anne lister serves as a representation of a sexual lesbian. castle points out that “sex between women was technically possible” (11). although she focuses on sexual relationships between women, her argument concerning the covering up of lesbian identities or, more broadly, womancentered ones, is valuable for my purpose. the historical grounding of my essay begins with lillian faderman’s surpassing the love of men: romantic friendship and love between women from the renaissance to the present (1981). faderman includes an historical outline of women’s lives in victorian england. concerning women’s roles, she comments, throughout much of the nineteenth century, women moved still farther from men as both continued to develop their own even more distinct sets of values. men tried to claim exclusively for themselves the capacity of action and thought, and relegated women to the realm of sensibility alone. women made the best of it: they internalized the only values they were permitted to have, and they developed what has been called the cult of true womanhood. the spiritual life, moral purity, sentiment, grew in importance. (157) faderman demonstrates how women have been subject to regulation, particularly in the victorian era. women were essentially seen as the weaker sex. this is well illustrated in works such as “locksley hall” (1842) by alfred, lord tennyson (faderman 158). in order to keep women under male control, female friendship was encouraged and seen as a “means of keeping women in their place by encouraging their self-image as primarily sentimental beings, too pure for the material world” (faderman 162). thus, female friendship was deemed acceptable because it was not viewed as a threat to the established patriarchy.1 sharon marcus’s work between women: friendship, desire, and marriage in victorian england (2007) explores the varied lives of victorian women in england between 18301880. her analysis of marriage and female friendship and desire draws upon the works of carroll smith-rosenberg, adrienne rich, and as the title implies sedgwick’s between men: english literature and male homosocial desire. marcus’s research on female friendship draws upon a prominent conduct book published by sarah stickney ellis in 1839. ellis “identified the women of england (1839) as daughters, wives, and mothers ensconced in a familial, domestic sphere” (marcus 25). one of the prescriptions made by the writer in order to instill correct feminine behavior in girls was through a friend. marcus points out that “contemporary scholars who cite [ellis] as representative of victorian gender ideology consistently overlook her articulation of female friendship as a basic element of a middle class organized around marriage, family, and christian belief ” (marcus 25). indeed, female 1 radclyffe hall’s the well of loneliness can be seen in this context—when female ‘friendships’ go beyond ‘acceptable’ bonds. scientia et humanitas 32 spring 2011 friendship, which rich sees as part of the lesbian continuum, would become one of the most fundamental bonds between women in the victorian period. as demonstrated by adrienne rich’s lesbian continuum, bonds between women can be understood in two ways, either sexual or non-sexual. marcus cites carroll smithrosenberg’s “the female world of love and ritual” (1975) as a starting point for identifying female friendships and credits this profound essay as shaping lesbian studies. but marcus points out that although many critics cite smith-rosenberg’s essay, many scholars of the victorian family “have not heeded its call to incorporate the study of friendship into the history of family marriage” (marcus 30). many critics view female friendship as being an essential component of the victorian family. thus, an understanding of how female friendship functioned in victorian england is necessary in conceptualizing its importance. for example, evangelical christianity viewed female friendship as a way to “cultivate” key tenets of their religious doctrine (marcus 65).1 for many followers of the christian tradition, in particular evangelical victorians, female friendship held close ties to key principles of christianity. for example, “friendship became itself a form of religious training by helping women cultivate self-examination and worldly detachment. the philosophical discourse of male friendship had always emphasized the friend as a truthtelling critic; women similarly saw friends as agents of spiritual growth” (marcus 65). in addition, “indifference to material gain, acceptance of death, and belief in an afterlife,” were all major pillars of the christian key in victorian england that depended upon female friendship as a way in which women could “cultivate” these tenets (marcus 65). although evangelical christianity contained fundamentalist dogma, these victorians “paved the way for understanding friendship as analogous to the most fundamental forms of kinship regulated by religious and civil law,” but was “less physically intimate, more prone to be idealized as perfect than idolized despite their imperfections” (marcus 66). as the above discussion of my theoretical and historical contexts indicates, the feminist movement would enable critics to understand and discover neglected texts that scrutinize the institution of marriage from a woman’s perspective. faderman comments, society saw heterosexual unions in measuring stick terms: in a suitable marriage the male was more of everything—he was older, taller, stronger, richer, smarter. it was inculcated in a girl that she must be less of everything than the man with whom she would spend most of herearthly existence. her daily life was to be a constant reminder of her junior status. a nineteenth-century woman with an ego strong enough to envision being an earthly success would have difficulty accepting an unexamined, a priori definition of herself as inferior to her lifemate. (205) faderman illustrates the heterosexual marriage paradigm well by portraying how women were submissive subjects. the “daily life” included the roles of both wife and mother, which 1 although all passion spent does not explicitly mention religion, one could perhaps argue that religion could have been an important part of the patriarchal slane household. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 33 bound women to the home. the feminist movement gave women a sense of independence and freedom that a female network of support created. heterosexual marriage was no longer the only option for women, and many chose to denounce the institution in favor of a career or education. but it is perhaps financial independence that paved the way for women to create varied lives without the presence of a man (faderman 178). in all passion spent, the third-person omniscient narrator serves as the moral center of the novel. although wayne c. booth claims in the rhetoric of fiction (1983) that a narrator is unreliable “when he [or she] does not” act in accordance with social norms (159), the narrator’s rejection of these norms in all passion spent paradoxically constitutes the narrator’s reliability. in her introduction to sackville-west’s novel, victoria glendinning summarizes the narrator’s thoughts about lady slane as a wife and mother: “[s]he recalls her role as loving ‘appendage’; she has been ‘a lonely woman, at variance with the creeds to which she apparently conformed’” (aps, x). lady slane’s position as an “appendage” illustrates the role she fulfilled in her marriage. indeed, the idea of separate spheres clearly relegates woman to the home as both wife and mother. lady slane does not even have a self or any kind of separate identity, let alone a space of her own, simply because she is lord slane’s wife. the novel’s narrator is crucial to an understanding of the presence of irony. the third-person narrator’s sustained ironic undermining of lord slane’s character, activities, and position in society establishes an alternative basis for normative reliability. crucially, the narrator tends to approve of lady slane’s views, which marks lady slane’s position a moral one. the ironic distancing from lord slane and his patriarchal position indicates a revaluation of established patriarchal norms.1 the narrator’s descriptions and comments about lord slane are ironic in the sense that the text appears on the surface to suggest he is a genuinely nice man and accomplished. however, the reader soon realizes that the positive comments about lord slane’s reputation as a politician are articulated from the perspective of those characters who share his values, not the narrator’s perspective. indeed, the point is that the narrator does not share society’s gendered value system in which men are in control and women are not. the “public” and “colleagues” (read, men) heap praise on his life and his career accomplishments. lord slane’s professionalism and poise become part of a system of measure to indicate one’s greatness and success. the narrator eschews female commentary altogether in describing lord slane’s public position, thereby illuminating the silencing from patriarchal control of female voices who speak out on patriarchal figures. this becomes part of the larger issue throughout the text that gives the reader a sense of lady slane’s subjugation. 1 similarly, marilyn r. farwell’s essay “heterosexual plots and lesbian subtexts: toward a theory of lesbian narrative space” develops an argument aimed at foregrounding the lesbian aspects of the novel. i employ farewell’s approach for breaking down narrative codes in order to find lesbian subtexts in heterosexual plots. she points out that creating a separate space for lesbian identities is crucial in uncovering a history of lesbianism. frequently, heterosexual plots occlude, or marginalize, lesbian desire; thus, lesbian desire never surfaces due to the implications that would arise if a female character were to identify as a lesbian. i posit that mainstream critics of the canon of english literature frequently neglect vita sackville-west’s affair with virginia woolf. both women were married; thus, lesbian sexuality is rarely mentioned in the context of their lives, excepting a few biographies (most notably, suzanne raitt’s vita and virginia). scientia et humanitas 34 spring 2011 once the narrator is seen as painting lord slane as a misogynist, casting him in a light wholly different from that of the initial descriptions by other characters, many readers will recognize him as being a hindrance to lady slane’s independent development. lord slane may have been a force in the political arena and well-respected by other men; yet he is also sexist, particularly concerning the position of women in society. the narrator states, henry was a “very masculine man; masculinity, in spite of his charm and his culture, was the keynote of his character” (aps, 219). concerning women, he “had definite, masculine ideas” about their status in society, in particular their position in the home and motherhood: “[a]lthough secretly proud of his rising little sons, he pretended even to himself that they were…entirely their mother’s concern.” in an ironic tone, the narrator claims, “[s]o, naturally, [lady slane] had endeavoured to adopt those views” (aps, 182, emphasis added).1 henry also believes “[f ]ew women…could be quiet without being dull, and fewer women could talk without being a bore” (aps, 207). he was only “satisfied” by lady slane; regarding other women, henry holds a “low opinion of them” (aps, 207). he thinks of lady slane as a “simpleton” (aps, 22), mostly because she was a woman. lord slane’s attitude exemplifies the typical patriarchal head of the family, which proves to be pervasive in influencing his children to adopt the same beliefs about their mother. the narrator illustrates the patriarchal “dignity” lord slane has in the public sphere- so much so that the public regards lord slane as “another old landmark gone, another reminder of insecurity. the public, as a whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognize extreme old age as a sign of excellence” (aps, 13). the public’s perception of lord slane consisted of positive reflections: “nobody had ever seriously attacked lord slane. nobody had ever accused lord slane of being a back-number. his humour, his charm, his languor, and his good sense, had rendered him sacrosanct to all generations and to all parties; of him alone among statesmen and politicians could that be said” (aps, 15). most importantly, his colleagues held him in high esteem. lord slane was agreeable with most everyone, which is why he was “destroyed as a statesman,” but “when finally pushed into a corner, he would be more incisive, more deadly, than any man seated four-square and full of importance at a governmental desk” (aps, 16). lord slane relished the competition of being a politician, which seemed to be the ultimate expression of masculinity. mr. bucktrout and mr. gosheron offer examples of masculinity that upset the patriarchal hegemonic order established by lord slane and his son, herbert. mr. bucktrout and mr. gosheron do not display typical masculine characteristics, and it is important to note that lady slane does not interact with these types of men until after lord slane’s 1 the narrator’s ironic stance is particularly felt in lady slane’s “natural” ability to “adopt [lord slane’s] views” (aps, 182). a biological deterministic sentiment is expressed by the patriarchal culture that because lady slane is biologically a female, her “natural” position in life (that is, given by nature) is to care for her children and her husband, and that “naturally” she, too, should accept the patriarchal value system concerning woman’s domesticity. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 35 death.1 mr. bucktrout exemplifies genoux’s (lady slane’s maid) idea of “un vrai monsieur” (a true gentleman) because he “had strange and beautiful ideas; he was never in a hurry; he would break off in the middle of business to talk about descartes or the satisfying quality of pattern. and when he said pattern, he did not mean the pattern on a wall-paper; he meant the pattern of life” (aps, 115). mr. bucktrout does not express the misogynistic qualities that herbert and lord slane articulate. instead, he literally bucks tradition in order to make way for new varieties of masculinity in the text. mr. bucktrout issues important statements on the patriarchal social order of their culture: the world, lady slane, is pitiably horrible. it is horrible because it is based upon competitive struggle—and really one does not know whether to call the basis of that struggle a convention or a necessity. is it some extraordinary delusion, or is it a law of life? is it perhaps an animal law from which civilization may eventually free us? at present it seems to me, lady slane, that man has founded all his calculations upon a mathematical system fundamentally false. his sums work out right for his own purposes, because he has crammed and constrained his planet into accepting his premises. judged by other laws, though the answers would remain correct, the premises would appear merely crazy; ingenious enough, but crazy. (aps, 121-2) lady slane questions mr. bucktrout’s claim by asking whether he believed that “anyone who goes against this extraordinary delusion is helping civilization on.” his response, “i do, lady slane; most certainly i do” (aps, 122). mr. bucktrout continues his evaluation of civilization: “other methods may earn you respect in the long run, but for a short-cut there is nothing like setting a high valuation on yourself and forcing others to accept it. modesty, moderation, consideration, nicety—no good; they don’t pay” (aps, 122-3, emphasis added). indeed, it is the concern for profit in a capitalistic society that matters most. he relates to lady slane how he used to handle his business decisions: “[f ]or my practice had always been a discipline rather than an inclination” (aps, 123). indeed, mr. bucktrout’s career required a discipline rather than instinct. he narrates how he “woke a free man” on his sixty-sixth birthday and realized what was truly important in his life (aps, 123). mr. bucktrout’s analysis of patriarchal institutions, such as the business sector, is significant because he is no longer a part of the hegemonic masculinity that controls culture. unlike the other masculine figures in the novel, mr. bucktrout realizes how power is structured and distributed amongst those who adhere to ideology and tradition. he is 1 sedgwick’s work on homosocial bonding could also be interpreted here to perhaps indicate that lady slane was only acquainted with men who conformed to the dominant notion of masculinity during her marriage. considering her husband was an influential politician, she most likely only interacted with other men (not family members) in his presence. lord slane established friendships (“bonds”) with men who shared his value system concerning woman’s role in society. scientia et humanitas 36 spring 2011 outside of the established power; therefore, he is given a voice in the text that allows him to critique patriarchal power. mr. bucktrout’s leaves the world of competition behind; his choice parallels lady slane’s choice to remain alone in her old age. in addition, mr. bucktrout’s earlier characteristics resemble lord slane’s demeanor in his marriage. not until he “woke a free man” (aps, 123) did he shun capitalistic competition. lady slane and mr. bucktrout share similar experiences of adhering to socially constructed gender roles for women and men. both experience an epiphany that a better life might exist beyond the ones they were currently living. not until later in life are they afforded the insight brought through experience to make sound judgments that benefit their well-being. a crucial aspect of the novel regarding the institution of marriage is lady slane’s recollection of her husband’s marriage proposal. lady slane’s reflections portray a woman who was essentially lost in a robotic process. before henry proposes, deborah reflects how henry looked on that particular day and how she did not even want to touch him. her thoughts reveal the separate realities each were in: “[h]e had gone. he had left her. even while she conscientiously gazed at him and listened, she knew that he was already miles and miles away. he had passed into the sphere” of marriage, and he wanted lady slane to join him in that sphere. she remembers thinking that she should not accept his marriage proposal because it was not something she wanted to do, but rather something that was expected of her: “[s]he had heard her father say that young holland would be viceroy of india before they had heard the last of him. that would mean that she must be vicereine, and at the thought she had turned upon him the glance of a startled fawn” (aps, 144). the protagonist realizes that she is about to become a minor character in someone else’s plot. she is propelled by the requirement of the romance genre. before deborah was able to process being proposed to and her accepting the proposal, “there was her mother smiling through tears, her father putting his hand on mr. holland’s shoulder, her sisters asking if they might all be bridesmaids, and mr. holland himself standing very upright, very proud, very silent, smiling a little, bowing, and looking at her with an expression that even her inexperience could define only as propriety” (aps, 144). in addition to adhering to the convention, deborah was faced with expectations. the narrator states: she found herself suddenly surrounded by a host of assumptions. it was assumed that she trembled for joy in his presence, languished in his absence, existed solely (but humbly) for the furtherance of his ambitions, and thought him the most remarkable man alive, as she herself was the most favoured of women, a belief in which everybody was fondly prepared to indulge her. such was the unanimity of these assumptions that she was almost persuaded into believing them true. (aps, 155) this passage exemplifies how lady slane was expected to behave in a particular manner upon being engaged. the passage also illustrates how the discourse surrounding marriage reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 37 engagement should affect women. this is presented to us through the ironic tone of the narrator. once again, the text reiterates the word “assumptions”; many in lady slane’s immediate community expect her to be lonely for henry and missing him. this is echoed earlier in the novel when her children attempt to make living decisions for her in old age. they, too, assume what is best for lady slane rather than asking what she would like to do. here deborah is “surrounded by a host of assumptions” (aps, 155) that were not in the least applicable to her true feelings and no one asked how she felt, but rather expected her to feel a particular way about the upcoming marriage ceremony. lady slane’s children attempt to control their mother through their discussion of her living arrangements, her possessions, and income. they discuss what they are going to do with her jewels, in particular, whether or not she should keep them. the children act in such a manner that one would think their mother had already passed away. they make assumptions about lady slane’s life. for example, they begin by discussing her living arrangements for her, even perhaps selling her home and making “her home among us” (aps, 31). edith, the unmarried daughter, volunteers to live with her mother and take care of her: “…surely i ought to bear the brunt” (aps, 31). carrie rebutts edith’s remarks by saying it would be a “privilege” to watch (or rather, supervise), their “mother in these last sad years of her life—for sad they must be, deprived of the one thing she lived for” (aps, 31). the children do not know that their mother is not sad at all or “deprived.” rather, she was most alone and unhappy in her marriage. they also assume lady slane’s life is “shattered” because “she lived only for father”; therefore, they expect her life must be one of “loneliness” (aps, 35). the new patriarch, herbert, states, “we know how devoted you were to father, and we realize the blank that his loss must leave in your life” (aps, 59). he and his siblings do not even consider the possibility that their mother is relieved that their father is dead and that she would now live for them. indeed, the center of her life during her marriage was outside herself, but nevertheless his death leaves a “blank” in her life that will be filled with lady slane founding a new life. almost all of her children think of lady slane as submissive and frail, in particular, the patriarch in waiting, herbert, who is the “true son of his father” (55). lady slane’s children frequently assume that she is not coherent and cannot be trusted to make sound choices regarding her well-being after the passing of her husband. this is ironic considering that her children are most out of touch with reality. herbert exerts his masculinity by claiming the position of “head of the family” with his eldest sister, carrie, as “his support” (aps, 58). a need to maintain power over his mother exemplifies his character. herbert’s power stems from his wealth and his expression of masculinity. herbert and carrie essentially wish to become pseudo-parents in determining what is acceptable for their mother in terms of her living conditions, possessions, and income. they want to force their mother into their narrative. yet, lady slane wishes to write her own plot, traditionally a male prerogative. herbert and carrie believe lady slane “had no will of her own; all her life long, gracious and gentle, she had been wholly submissive—an appendage.” because she was simply an “appendage,” “[i]t was assumed that she had not enough brain to be self-assertive. ‘thank scientia et humanitas 38 spring 2011 goodness,’ herbert sometimes remarked, ‘mother is not one of those clever women’” (aps, 24). he thinks of his mother as not possessing the capability of being assertive; therefore, he plans to do as he wishes for his own sake, regardless of his mother’s own desires, which he believes she should not/does not have any. her submissiveness would also reinforce his position and status. instead, herbert thinks of his own interests, but he never admits that. much like his father, herbert was “flattered by womanly dependence. only for these three or four days…did he demand of his mother that she should hold opinions of her own. yet at the same time, such was his masculine contrariness, he would have resented any decision running counter to his own ideas” (aps, 55).1 consequently, the “womanly dependence” reflects herbert’s power. indeed, his sense of self develops not only from a privileged life but a masculinity that conforms to culturally constructed gender roles. therefore, he has been inculcated with expectations to obtain and exercise power simply because he is wealthy and a masculine male.2 herbert’s remarks exemplify both an ageist and sexist rhetoric. as luce irigaray theorizes in her work this sex which is not one, the rejection, the exclusion of a female imaginary certainly puts woman in the position of experiencing herself only fragmentarily, in the littlestructured margins of a dominant ideology, as waste, as excess, what is left of a mirror invested by the (masculine) ‘subject’ to reflect himself, to copy himself. moreover, the role of ‘femininity’ is prescribed by this masculine specula(riza)tion and corresponds scarcely at all to woman’s desire. (30, emphases added) indeed, the many assumptions herbert makes about his mother emerge from a masculine discourse in conceptualizing female desire, not in the sense of sexuality, but rather in her personal desires concerning her well-being. his ideas about how to care for/control his mother are all merely “masculine specula(riza)tion.” herbert portrays a male who benefits from a socially sanctioned role. although feminists might believe lady slane’s son to be out of touch with reality, he is, in fact, most in touch with reality because he represents social convention. heir to the family fortune, the new patriarch is most afraid of his mother posing a challenge: “that she might have ideas which she kept to herself never entered into [her children’s] estimate. they anticipated no trouble with their mother…she was not a clever women. she would be grateful to them for arranging her few remaining years” (aps, 24-5). she has played her role in life and now she can die. herbert’s attitude toward his 1 “only for these three or four days” (aps, 55) refers to the days after lord slane’s death. 2 in a room of one’s own (1929), virginia woolf eloquently points out the privileges that masculinity brings men, as she hypothesizes that if mrs. seton “had gone into business; had become a manufacturer of artificial silk or a magnate on the stock exchange; if she had left two or three hundred thousand pounds to fernham, we could have been sitting at our ease tonight and the subject of our talk might have been archeology, botany, anthropology, physics, the nature of the atom, mathematics, astronomy, relativity, geography” (35). indeed, if mrs. seton were a man participating in masculine activities such as investing and studying hard masculine sciences, “we might have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honourable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions” (woolf 36). reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 39 mother is not one of concern for her well-being, but rather one of indifference. his feelings echo the sentiments that his father expressed toward lady slane. the way in which herbert and the other children feel that lady slane is lonely illustrates an interesting assumption that women must be in a heterosexual relationship in order to be happy or satisfied with life. lady slane derives her happiness from his happiness; hers is a secondary emotion that is dependent on his. the social construction of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment in life is implied in marriage as an institution. the children believe lady slane needs to be taken care of by a male. they do not even hypothesize independence for women, but rather, assume independence is only for the male sex. consequently, they neglect to imagine lady slane’s ability to carve out a space for herself.1 lady slane is alone, but she is not lonely. the narrator articulates how social acceptance and validation is brought to an individual through heterosexual marriage: “so now with deborah and her parents, not to mention the rest of her world, she was made to feel that in becoming engaged to mr. holland she had performed an act of exceeding though joyful virtue, had in fact done that which had always been expected of her” (aps, 155). indeed, the previous passage expresses how lady slane felt when henry proposed marriage to her: like a “startled fawn” (aps, 144). although she was obviously frightened of the idea of being engaged, deborah did not diverge from what was expected of her because she could not imagine a different plot line. sackville-west’s novel makes profound, radical statements on the institution of heterosexual marriage. in her article “every woman is an island: vita sackville-west, the image of the city, and the pastoral idyll,” louise a. desalvo argues that the novel “eloquently demonstrates…the life of a woman without a room of her own, without a work of her own, is the life of a somnambulist—is, in fact, no life at all” (97, emphasis added). indeed, deborah does not have a life to call her own, let alone a “room” (desalvo 97). the narrator articulates keen insight on the social reproduction of patriarchal marriage. for example, the narrator comments on how henry would react if deborah were a real artist: “it would not do if henry were to return one evening and be met by a locked door. it would not do if henry…were to emerge irritably only to be told mrs. holland was engaged with a model…it would not do, in such a world of assumptions, to assume that she had equal rights with henry. for such privileges marriages were not ordained” (aps, 162). indeed, she relinquishes her desire to become an artist in order to adhere to her roles in her marriage and society. indeed, deborah having her own occupation would not be acceptable. then, the narrator outlines what women can do in marriage: but for certain privileges marriage had been ordained, and going to her bedroom deborah took out her prayer-book and turned up the marriage 1 this sentiment is also expressed in ames’ essay, in which she states that lady slane “cannot resist the assumptions of husband, children, grandchildren, and society that she exists to satisfy their needs” (20). scientia et humanitas 40 spring 2011 service. it was ordained for the procreating of children…it was ordained so that women might be loving and amiable, faithful and obedient to their husbands, holy and godly matrons in all quietness, sobriety, and peace. all this no doubt was, to a certain extent, parliamentary language. but still it bore a certain relation to fact. and still she asked, where, in this system, was there room for a studio? (aps, 162) this is one of the few passages in the novel where religious dogma manifests itself. louis althusser’s “ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation)” demonstrates how ideology operates within a society. for example, althusser’s concept of interpellation is useful for my purposes to foreground lord slane’s position as a timespecific ideological one. moreover, the numerous references to a woman’s “natural” state in marriage is linked to a scientific argument describing the female sex as being passive creatures.1 with regard to sackville-west’s novel, deborah’s position in her marriage is inculcated through the church and the family. the church-family model operates not only within the religious arena, but also within the educational arena, “and a large proportion of the functions of communications and ‘culture’” (althusser 151). established patriarchal religion constructs a masculine discourse to which society is expected to adhere. therefore, religious norms bestow power to the male, while trapping the female in a role: “loving and amiable, faithful and obedient to their husbands, holy and godly matrons in all quietness, sobriety, and peace” (aps, 162). deborah’s early desire to become an artist did not have a place in her marriage, which the narrator questions, “where, in this system, was there room for a studio?” (aps, 162) the simple answer is nowhere. her actions exemplify the pressure from an ideology that controls the individual and confines an individual’s will to move away from established cultural expectations. lady slane understands how marriage subjugates women into bearing children to carry the name of the father and for women to be submissive; what is difficult to understand is perhaps why she would follow through with an institution she might oppose. the legitimacy of marriage affords women the opportunity to be a part of society and a larger social ordering. therefore, the only fully respected position is marrying and producing offspring, thus allowing an individual to gain some type of perceived power. the protagonist’s actions illuminate the pervasiveness of ideology. regardless of whether or not one accepts the paradigm, lady slane was not able to thwart tradition. the discussion on appearance in all passion spent is a metaphor for the larger context in which the novel is presented. it is not only about maintaining a certain image for the public, but also physical appearance. the narrator states, “what a queer thing appearance was, and how unfair. it dictated the terms of people’s estimate throughout one’s whole life. if one looked significant, one was set down as insignificant; yet, one probably didn’t look insignificant unless one deserved it” (aps, 26). earlier in this essay, lord slane and herbert’s expression of their masculinity was foregrounded as a focal point in the novel. 1 evelyn fox keller also makes this point in her work reflections on gender and science (1985) in which she posits that science is not objective, but rather is infused with cultural assumptions concerning gender. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 41 lord slane’s masculine appearance afforded him the ability to control both public and private spaces. he was able to manipulate his position as a politician in the public sphere while relegating lady slane to the home because she was his wife and mother of his children. likewise, herbert’s masculinity allows him to fill the position of patriarch in the family. no one appoints him to this position, but rather, it is a “natural” position to fill simply because he is a man and the oldest child. indeed, he is, in a sense, being “hailed” by ideology (althusser 162). lady slane’s appearance is also significant in the novel. earlier in the text, she is described as being “[v]ery quiet, very distinguished, very old, very frail” (aps, 58). 1 as she talks to her children, the narrator states how the children “took her appearance for granted, but strangers exclaimed in amazement that she could not be over seventy...duty, charity, children, social obligations, public appearances—with these had her days been filled.” lady slane had been “[s]uch a wonderful help to her husband in his career!” (aps, 58-9) she is portrayed as being the support of her husband and not having an active role in the daily concerns of the family. from the day lady slane accepted lord slane’s marriage proposal, everything has been planned out for her. essentially, she adheres to the cult of true womanhood and a domestic ideology that includes wifedom and motherhood. as lillian faderman puts it, this was the only ideology available to women in the narrative. through the analysis of appearance, her children express how poorly they think of their mother. because she is female and elderly (eighty-eight), her children believe their mother to have gone “mad” when she articulates that she wants to live alone and independently of her children (aps, 68). lady slane, however, realizes that she can carve out a space for herself because widowhood is a respectable social position. this freedom is unavailable to girls and younger women. much like their father, the children believe their mother to be “simple” and “decided that old age had definitely affected her brain” (aps, 68). only kay and edith seem to have positive thoughts about their mother after she discusses her living arrangements. the narrator states, “[kay] had taken her so much for granted; they had all taken her so much for granted—her gentleness, her unselfishness, her impersonal activities—and now, for the first time in his life, it was becoming apparent to kay that people could still hold surprises up their sleeves however long one had known them” (aps, 69). edith is also insightful about her mother’s feelings: “it now dawned upon edith that her mother might have lived a full private life, all these years, behind the shelter of her affectionate watchfulness. how much had she observed? noted? criticized? stored up?” (aps, 69) it is interesting to note that edith and kay are the two children who are excluded and discounted in the discussions about their mother. both are unmarried, and they realize that their plot position is insecure. the novel employs the traditional “marriage plot” in determining lady slane’s life trajectory. as the passages quoted above well illustrate, the woman in the “marriage plot” is bombarded by a number of expectations and assumptions that ultimately lead to the 1 it is important to note that, later in the novel, lady slane is not thought of as being old and frail by other characters. mr. gosheron and mr. bucktrout see lady slane as an equal, regardless of her age and gender. scientia et humanitas 42 spring 2011 marriage ceremony: “it was assumed that she trembled for joy in his presence, languished in his absence” (aps, 155, emphasis added).1 she is expected to be grateful to becoming married, bearing children, and submitting to the role of wife and mother. sackville-west’s novel, however, provides the counter-narrative to the “marriage plot.” although lady slane assumes a particular role in her marriage as “the good wife” (ames 19) who does not thwart tradition, her conscious thoughts say otherwise about the gendered roles in marriage. to use foucault’s theory of what is “prohibited” in society (216, original emphasis), culture projects a masculine discourse on what is deemed prohibited: “[s]uch was the unanimity of these assumptions that she was almost persuaded into believing them true” (aps, 155, emphasis added). lady slane never voices her opinions about marrying to her family and never objects to following through with the marriage because the ideology constructed through a masculine discourse does not allow her to do so. they do not envision lady slane possessing the ability to carve out a space for herself. the gender differences found in the institution of marriage are foregrounded in sackville-west’s text. the narrator relates how freedom and masculinity are inseparable components and that freedom is an essentially quality of masculinity.2 in one of the most profound passages in the text, lady slane analyzes how freedom and masculinity afford men the ability to do as they please, both inside and outside of marriage: she wondered sometimes what young men did, out in the world; she imagined them laughing and ruffling; going here and there, freely; striding home through the empty streets at dawn, or hailing a hansom and driving off to richmond. they talked with strangers; they entered shops; they frequented the theatres. they had a club—several clubs. they were accosted by the importunate women in the shadows, and could take their bodies for a night into their thoughtless embrace. whatever they did, they did with a fine carelessness, a fine freedom, and when they came home they need give no account of their doings; moreover, there was an air of freemasonry among men, based upon their common liberty, very different from the freemasonry among women, which was always prying and personal and somehow a trifle obscene….but everybody seemed agreed—so well agreed, that the matter was not even discussed: there was only one employment open to women. (aps, 153-4) 1 michel foucault’s the archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language (1972) provides an analysis of the social construction of language and its power to shape both speech and behavior: “we know perfectly well that we are not free to say just anything, that we cannot simply speak of anything, when we like or where we like; not just anyone, finally, may speak of just anything…speech may well be of little account, but the prohibitions surrounding it soon reveal its links with desire and power” (216). indeed, language is infused with cultural acceptability, and lady slane merely becomes a cog in the system by not speaking her opinion because it simply was not sayable within the culture. 2 in radclyffe hall’s the well of loneliness, stephen, the protagonist, makes note of her gender role juxtaposed against roger antrim’s masculinity and the freedom afforded to him because he was a boy. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 43 unlike men, who are able to move in and out of spaces both public and private without needing permission, women are fixed in space, primarily in the domestic sphere. lady slane not only takes note of masculinity and freedom, but surveys the role of women in marriage and their subjugation. she highlights how henry’s life does not change after their marriage; it merely adds a wife to it. by contrast, her life changes completely. henry continues to enjoy the privileges of masculinity, his career being one of them: “he would continue to enjoy his free, varied, and masculine life, with no ring upon his finger or difference in his name to indicate the change in his estate.” the narrator articulates the subservience that deborah experiences in her marriage: “…whenever he felt inclined to come home she must be there, ready to lay down her book, her paper, or her letters; she must be prepared to listen to whatever he had to say; she must entertain his political acquaintances; and even if he beckoned her across the world she must follow” (aps, 160). lady slane is clearly a victim of structural violence. it is the structure of the institution of marriage that allows lord slane to live a free life; lady slane’s life, however, contrasts from his because she is a wedded woman and a mother. the social norms concerning marriage do not allow for any degree of separation from her family. and as this passage indicates, she bows to convention in her marriage because not to do so would be deemed unacceptable by society. with gender aside, lady slane’s class position affords her the ability to have her own home away from her family. if she were not wealthy (and white), she would not have been able to move out her current home into a new one. moreover, she would not have been able to employ a maid to help with the daily chores. lady slane’s character reflects the author of the novel, sackville-west. in her double biography vita and virginia, suzanne raitt comments that not only did sackville-west publicly endorse happy heterosexual marriage, but “she was also blatantly and unashamedly anti-working class; and very little of her published writing radically challenges conventional versions of femininity and female sexual pleasure (all passion spent…is perhaps an exception)” (10). sackville-west’s antiworking class sentiment does, however, penetrate the novel, especially when the narrator provides commentary. keeping in mind that perhaps the narrator is the mouthpiece of the author, and the narrator and lady slane’s perspectives parallel, a classist rhetoric begins to emerge. lady slane’s social status allows her to make her own decisions in old age. most importantly, her wealth allows her a sense of independence. she has the financial resources to purchase her own home away from her family and make a new life for herself in her remaining years. because she is a woman, without financial independence she would not be able to live independently from her family. concerning the working class, the narrator makes remarks about the caretakers: “[h]ow wrongly caretakers were named: they took so little care. a perfunctory banging about with black water in a galvanized pail, a dirty clout smeared over the floor, and they thought their work was done” (aps, 89). the narrator characterizes the working class, in particular caretakers, in a negative light. these statements belittle the work that caretakers perform, even perhaps hinting that caretakers are overpaid for their work. this is just one example in the novel that gives the reader a sense of lady scientia et humanitas 44 spring 2011 slane’s class position in society and how she has been afforded the ability to break from her family in securing her own home. the issue of education is also raised in the novel and provides another aspect of a class dimension. the use of french in the novel without translations also alludes to a readership of a particular class. lady slane’s maid, genoux, frequently speaks french in the novel and sackville-west does not provide translations, but rather assumes the reader to know french. clearly, the text has been demarcated for middle to upper class people as opposed to a working class reader who most likely cannot read french. these examples illustrating lady slane’s sentiment to the working class (in particular, caretakers) and the author’s use of french in the novel without translations furthers my argument that a high social status position allowed lady slane to have independence. without her financial resources, she would not have been able to carve out a space for herself separate from her family. if she were a working class woman, she would have had no other choice but to let her children take care of her. her age of eighty-eight would not have allowed her such freedom in a working class position. thus, a high class position, regardless of her gender, allows her much more freedom to exercise her financial independence. indeed, ironically enough, lady slane’s wealth enables her to make her choices to live independently. if she were a working class widow, she would not be able to live separately from her family and be able to support herself financially. unless a woman was independently wealthy, she would not be able to live alone.1 the narrator’s analysis of marriage is not unique to sackville-west’s novel. virginia woolf ’s novel orlando also constructs an artificial connection between society and heterosexual marriage. to begin with, orlando echoes this same sentiment of feeling alone and unwedded. orlando notices bartholomew’s ring, and “instantly perceived what she had never noticed before—a thick ring of rather jaundiced yellow circling the third finger where her own was bare” (orlando, 118). she notices the gold ring that has essentially marked bartholomew physically as a married woman. upon this recognition, orlando asks bartholomew to see her ring, bartholomew becomes very upset “as if she had been struck in the breast by a rogue.” she refuses to take the ring off her finger to see orlando inspect the round circle of gold, to which orlando concludes “that it was by the gleam on her wedding ring that she would be assigned her station among the angels and its lustre would be tarnished for ever if she let it out of her keeping for a second” (orlando, 119). when orlando goes to dinner that evening, she notices the numerous wedding rings. even in church, she makes note of them. they were “everywhere.” in addition, she noticed a new practice among couples in the town: in the old days, one would meet a boy trifling with a girl under a hawthorn hedge frequently enough…now, all that was changed. couples trudged and plodded in the middle of the road indissolubly linked together. the 1 authors such as vita sackville-west, virginia woolf, and radclyffe hall were all wealthy women. they were also white and european; therefore, they were able to make choices in their lives that influenced their writing. the simple fact that these women are writing is another testament of their agency as wealthy individuals. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 45 woman’s right hand was invariably passed through the man’s left and her fingers were firmly gripped by his. (orlando, 119) orlando attempts to make sense of the phenomenom. in doing so, she “looked at the doves and the rabbits and the elk-hounds and she could not see that nature had changed her ways or mended them, since the time of elizabeth at least” (orlando, 119). orlando looks to nature to find what has changed, and as the passage indicates, nothing in nature has changed, but rather socially-constructed institutions. she makes the point that these institutions are not natural, but rather given privilege by society. orlando parallels all passion spent when the narrator comments that lady slane “naturally” adopted the social perspective of her husband. the ironic tone of the narrator showcases that there is nothing natural about lord slane’s viewpoint. likewise, there is nothing natural about the social changes in england brought about with the dawning of the victorian era, with all of its sexual modesty in tow. orlando’s fixation on wedding rings causes her finger to have a physical reaction: “[h]er ruminations…were accompanied by such a tingling and twangling of the afflicted finger that she could scarcely keep her ideas in order” (orlando, 120). in order to combat the tingling sensation, she purchases “one of those ugly bands and wear it like the rest” (orlando, 120). although she conforms to society, she is still not married; thus, the physical reaction in her unwed finger continues. this physical reaction causes her so much trouble that she cannot even continue to write: “she could feel herself poisoned through and through.” therefore, she decides “to consider the most desperate of remedies, which was to yield completely and submissively to the spirit of the age, and take a husband” (orlando, 120). the text illustrates the pervasiveness of ideology, particularly when accepting a particular ideology has social implications of acceptance. in the following passage in orlando, the narrator reiterates that orlando’s submission to the social paradigm concerning marriage “was much against her natural temperament” (orlando, 120, emphasis added). the narrator goes on to explain orlando’s adherence to social standard in a most telling passage: such is the indomitable nature of the spirit of the age…that it batters down anyone who tries to make stand against it far moreeffectually those who bend its own way. orlando had inclined herself naturally to the elizabethan spirit, to the restoration spirit, to the spirit of the eighteenth century, and had in consequence scarcely been aware of the change from one age to the other. but the spirit of the nineteenth century was antipathetic to her in the extreme, and thus it took her and broke her, and she was aware of her defeat at its hands as she had never been before. for it is probably that the human spirit has its place in time assigned to it; some are born of this age, some of that; and now that orlando was grown a woman, a year or two past thirty indeed, the lines of her scientia et humanitas 46 spring 2011 character were fixed, and to bend them the wrong way was intolerable. (orlando, 120, emphasis added) once again, the text reiterates a dichotomy between what the protagonist naturally feels and what a masculine discourse deems as normal. orlando easily accepted the social norms and customs of previous eras, but the victorian era strikes her with much apprehension. the protagonist notices the paradigm shift from a liberal era to very much a conservative era based on principles of modesty and respectability for woman. the last sentence of the passage indicates the social role that orlando will be subjected to because of her gender. any divergence from “her character” would not be acceptable. indeed, it is not coincidental that virginia woolf structured the novel in a way that foregrounds the social roles of women in the victorian era. if the protagonist were a man (as in the earlier parts of the novel), orlando would have been subjected to a much different set of rules, one that emphasized public space and pursuit of a career. the “spirit of the age” emphasized heterosexual marriage, particularly for women, as their limited professions of wife or spinster. orlando realizes that she is without a partner and not “mated” like everyone else. later in the passage, orlando describes herself as “single,” “mateless,” and “alone” (orlando, 122). the narrator tells us that “[s]uch thoughts had never entered her head before. now they bore her down unescapably” (orlando, 122). try as she might, orlando cannot thwart victorian ideology. this causes the protagonist great anxiety: “[a]t every step she glanced nervously lest some male form should be hiding behind a furze bush or some savage cow be lowing its horns to toss her” (orlando, 122). walking in the woods, orlando experiences nostalgia of what her life was like before the present and how she found comfort in nature. then, she begins to experience a “strange ecstasy” “of following the birds to the rim of the world and flinging herself on the spongy turf and there drinking forgetfulness, while the rooks’ hoarse laughter sounded over her” (orlando, 122). she begins to run and trips, breaking her ankle. not being able to get up, orlando continues to lie on the ground. there she declares that she has “found [her] mate…it is the moor. i am nature’s bride…here will i lie…” during her dream she takes off her wedding ring. she describes how she has never been able to find love from men or women and that “death is better” (orlando, 123). she continues her fantastic vision of being a part of nature until she hears a man on horseback nearby. when the man notices that she is hurt, she replies, “i’m dead, sir!” then, the two become mysteriously engaged (orlando, 123). the text portrays a different life trajectory for the protagonist orlando, but it is wholly unsuccessful because orlando becomes domesticated by eventually marrying shelmerdine. orlando wants to be “nature’s bride” and live with nature, but a man’s entrance, which sparks the instant engagement in the novel, interrupts her dream. orlando imagines a different pathway for herself, but it is not socially acceptable; therefore, a man must come and rescue her from her own willful divergence from social convention. orlando, like lady slane’s children, is clearly being inculcated with cultural and social values of partnering in heterosexual marriage in order to avoid loneliness. however, unlike reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 47 woolf ’s character who embodies these feelings of loneliness, sackville-west’s lady slane never feels lonely or unhappy because she is a widow, but rather she seems elated her husband has died. this is plausible because we are never shown lady slane in mourning for her husband; therefore, she is to be relieved of her duties as a wife. not surprisingly, all passion spent breaks generic boundaries and expectations. critics rarely analyze one of the most important aspects of the novel--the friendship between lady slane and genoux. it deserves much attention in re-envisioning an exclusive female space. the relationship between the two women exemplifies raitt’s contention that the novel “does close on a gift between women, and on an affirmation of women’s intimacy” (113). as sharon marcus puts it, “[w]omen drew clear distinctions between the love felt for a friend and for a spouse and often articulated their belief that marriage demanded unique feelings of love that went beyond even the warmest friendly devotion” (66). by reading the text with adrienne rich’s notion of the lesbian continuum in mind, the reader can perhaps discern an exclusive female space that is created with lady slane’s independence from her former home. rich’s lesbian continuum focuses on woman-identified experiences, both sexual and non-sexual, in order to broaden our sense of the full range of women’s experiences, especially woman-centered experiences, on a continuing scale. the continuum is not confined to simply homosexual experiences, but also heterosexual ones. few critics have focused on the significance of the relationship between lady slane and her maid genoux and the lesbian connections that abound, not in sexual terms, but in female friendship and exclusive female space. a key passage illustrates the importance of this lesbian relationship: she and genoux, living in such undisturbed intimacy, bound by the ties respectively of gratitude and devotion bound also by the tie of their unspoken speculation as to which would be taken from the other first. whatever the front door shut behind one of their rare visitors, each was conscious of a certain relief at the departure of intruders. the routine of their daily life was all they wanted—all, indeed, that they had strength for. effort tired them both, though they had never admitted it to one another. (aps, 190) several male characters visit (mr. bucktrout, mr. gosheron, and mr. fitzgeorge), but only lady slane and genoux live in the home. even when later a third woman, deborah (lady slane’s great-granddaughter), joins this exclusive female space, the lesbian space still thrives and leaves a steady pulse for the novel’s entirety. the relationship between lady slane and genoux benefits both women, not only on the level of maintaining a well-kept home, on genoux’s part, or providing an income, on lady slane’s behalf for genoux, but also in the company they provide each other. genoux takes care of her and provides a constant companion for lady slane, even until her death. when deborah, her granddaughter, enters hampstead, she reinforces the exclusive female space. although lady slane defiantly states that no grandchildren are allowed to visit, she permits deborah to visit her in hampstead. deborah broke off an engagement, scientia et humanitas 48 spring 2011 much to the disappointment of her family. instead, she wants to pursue a career as a musician. unlike lady slane, deborah goes against the grain rather than becoming lost in the ideological assumptions of cultural conventions. she rejects the traditional marriage plot; instead, she follows her own desires and dreams rather than capitulating to society’s expectations. lady slane sees herself in deborah when she was her age. the two women share more than just a common name, but also a similar life trajectory. for example, lady slane wanted to be an artist and her granddaughter wanted to be a musician. the protagonist did not have the courage to end her engagement with lord slane, but feels optimistic that deborah will not make the same mistakes that she did and break the cycle of perpetual matrimony. both lady slane and deborah exemplify carol ames’s contention that “all passion spent says that, for women, breaking tradition and rebelling are necessary” (20). indeed, in order to thwart society’s stifling expectations and cultural traditions, the two women must break from the established order. patriarchal society does not grant value to women who reject patriarchal rule; thus, lady slane, during her marriage, had to play a role that did not allow her to form her own identity. likewise, her granddaughter deborah will soon find out the difficulties of carving out a space for herself. this discussion of the narrator, gender roles, lady slane’s subjugation in a patriarchal marriage, and the creation of lesbian space in all passion spent demonstrates that sackvillewest’s novel addresses issues concerning gender roles that are created by adhering to tradition and ideology as opposed to going against the grain in society, in particular, roles in marriage. an understanding of these roles is crucial to any discussion of late-nineteenth, early twentieth-century gender regimes. the novel deserves greater recognition for exposing ideological assumptions in the institution of marriage and the structural violence that is done to women in this institution. indeed, whether or not it was sackville-west’s intention, the novel elicits a strong feminist discourse in order to undermine the patriarchal values of the culture. moreover, all passion spent carves out a space for those women who recognize that their role in a marriage is merely to serve as an appendage rather than an equal partner in a mutually giving relationship. as lady slane’s character suggests, only through active participation in one’s life can one be truly happy and independent. reading gender and lesbian space middle tennessee state university 49 bibliography althusser, louis. “ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes toward an investigation).” lenin and philosophy, and other essays. trans. ben brewster. london: new left books, 1971. 123-173. ames, carol. “nature and aristocracy in v. sackville-west.” studies in the literary imagination 11.2 (1978): 11-25. academic search premier. 28 aug. 2009. butler, judith. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. 1990. new york: routledge, 2006. castle, terry. the apparitional lesbian: female homosexuality and modern culture. new york: columbia up, 1993. desalvo, louise a. “every woman is an island: vita sackville-west, the image of the city, and the pastoral idyll.” women writers in the city: essays in feminist literary criticism. ed. susan merrill squier. knoxville: u of tennessee p, 1984. 97-113. foucault, michel. the archaeology of knowledge. trans. a. m. sheridan smith. new york: pantheon, 1972. faderman, lillian. surpassing the love of men: romantic friendship and love between women from the renaissance to the present. new york: william morrow, 1981. farwell, marilyn r. “heterosexual plots and lesbian subtexts: toward a theory of lesbian narrative space.” lesbian texts and contexts: radical revisions. ed. karla jay and joanne glasgow. new york: nyu press, 1990. 91-103. irigaray, luce. this sex which is not one. ithaca: cornell up, 1985. marcus, sharon. between women: friendship, desire, and marriage in victorian england. princeton: princeton up, 2007. raitt, suzanne. vita and virginia: the work and friendship of v. sackville-west and virginia woolf. oxford: oxford up, 2002. rich, adrienne. “compulsory heterosexuality.” signs 5.4 (1980): 340-96. academic search premier. 19 mar. 2009. sackville-west, vita. all passion spent. 1931. london: virago, 2008. sedgwick, eve kosofsky. between men: english literature and male homosocial desire. new york: columbia up, 1985. woolf, virginia. orlando. 1928. london: wordsworth editions, 2003. ---. a room of one’s own. 1929. new york: harcourt, 1929. deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 1 deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism* sav buist abstract forms of altruism such as kin selection, reciprocity, and group-selection altruism exist in a biological sense—but the question of whether “real” altruism, based on good intentions, exists in a measurable manner and is a human-exclusive trait, remains to be seen. based on observations of primitive empathetical contagion behavior in mice, nonreciprocal interspecies altruism in cetaceans, and theory of mind behavior in eurasian blue jays, certain nonhuman animals could be capable of complex empathetical acts that do not fall under the “standard” biological umbrella alongside kin selection, reciprocity, and group-selection. in reviewing these phenomena, this paper seeks to change the general societal understanding of empathetical cognition and emotional capacity in nonhuman animals, and to redefine the conceptual parameters of biological altruism. *winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2023 tempting as it may be to interpret the behavior of other animals in terms of human mental processes, it’s perhaps even more tempting to reject the possibility of kinship. —jennifer ackerman, the genius of birds, 2017 introduction “let me tell you of life-saving ‘eels’ in vinegar,” writes scientist j.h. elgie (1910) in his article, “altruism in animal life,” from the journal nature (p. 489). the date is june 23, 1910, nearly a month after the passing of beloved nobel prize winner, german physician, and well-known founder of bacteriology, robert koch (stevenson, 2021). many scientists like elgie are eager to further the threshold of bacterial knowledge. under his watchful gaze, one of the “eels” elgie is studying becomes stranded in a smaller vinegar drop. to elgie’s amazement, a few of the other bacteria cross the gap into the smaller vinegar droplet and push their comrade to the safety of the larger vinegar droplet. elgie reports this as “the most singular thing it has ever been my lot to witness in the world of minute life” (p. 489). there is a long track record of scientific speculation and observation of complex forms of potential empathetical animal behavior, with interpretations ranging widely. in the descent of man, charles darwin (1871) contested the idea that human beings are the only creatures on earth capable of conscience. “all [animals],” he noted, “have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations . . . they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties of imitation, attention, memory, imagination, and reason, though in very different degrees” (darwin, 1871, p. 48). descartes, on the other hand, famously believed that animals are like “machines,” lacking “feeling or awareness of any kind” (cottingham, 1978, p. 1). although it is all too easy to assign human qualities onto animals—something known as “anthropomorphism” in the scientific field—it seems equally harmful for scientific discovery to suffer under the yoke of what primatologist frans de waal calls anthropodenial, or the denial that humans and animals can also share qualities such as empathy and altruism (de waal, 1999). if altruism can evolve and complexify in human beings, it could also potentially evolve and complexify in nonhuman animals. in exploring mogil et al.’s (2006) experiment with empathy in mice, pitman et al.’s (2016) observation of seemingly altruistic humpback whale behavior, and ostojíc et al.’s (2013) experiment with theory of mind in eurasian blue jays, one may find plausible evidence that some nonhuman animals have the capacity to employ altruism from an empathetical basis, redefining the scientific perception of biological altruism. biological altruism, defined by university of bristol philosophy of science professor dr. samir okasha (2013), is when an organism behaves in a way that benefits deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 3 others at a cost to itself—that cost being reproductive fitness, or an animal’s ability to reproduce and extend the limbs of its genetic lineage, furthering the reach of its family tree. okasha believes that although there are plenty of examples of altruism in animals, and plenty of examples of humans behaving in ways that are biologically altruistic, human beings are the only kind that can defy the constraints of reproductive fitness and perform real altruism—altruistic actions based on conscious intent (okasha, 2013). a stanford-published article of 2013, revised over the years as scientific discovery unravels nature’s most tangled secrets, okasha’s “biological altruism” is an excellent short review of the evolution of altruism with its many facets and subgenres. however, it is an anthropocentric, or human-centered, article that leaves out the many documented examples of animals behaving in ways that are not so easily placed into neat altruistic subgenres. furthermore, altruism itself is potentially a product of an evolved neurological reward system that is, inherently, a biological process for humans and nonhuman animals alike. the fact that this reward system still exists today may highlight the importance of altruism and its steadfast role in evolution. if altruism can bud on nearly every branch of the phylogenetic tree, it seems implausible that only human beings could adapt it in specific form. a scaffolding of altruistic terminology according to kendra cherry of verywell mind (2021), psychologists have defined at least four fundamental types of altruism—genetic (acts that benefit family), reciprocal (acts based on mutual give-and-take), group-selected (acts based on group affiliation), and pure (acts involving some risk but no reward) (cherry, 2021). mutualism is another form of altruism existing in nature and, like reciprocity, involves both parties benefiting from the relationship, as in the case of remora fish, who pick parasites from the skins of sharks and in turn are protected from predators and not predated on by the sharks (okasha, 2013). according to okasha, all except for pure altruism are shaded beneath the umbrella of biological altruism, in which humans and nonhumans alike reside (okasha, 2013). it is important to note that in okasha’s hypothesis, the idea of conscious intent remains undefined, leading to the question of what it means to have “conscious intentions” behind an altruistic act. one interpretation of conscious, pure, or real altruism is that it is reliant on whether or not nonhuman animals have the capacity for empathy. a potential baseline for altruism—empathy in nonhuman animals in the genius of birds, jennifer ackerman (2017) proposes that empathy is “transforming another person’s misfortune into one’s own feeling of distress” (p. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2023 134). an interesting example of possible empathy in animals lies in the case of the male eurasian jay. an experimented conducted by ljerka ostojić (2013) and her team involved placing male and female jays in glass boxes facing each other. the female jays were fed one of two special treats: wax worms or mealworms. (in this example, wax worms can be imagined as the “dark chocolate equivalent” to jays, and mealworms can be imagined as the “fruit equivalent” in terms of the specific satiety effect—the feeling of eating too much of one food and choosing to switch to another.) the male jays observed which treat their female mates indulged in, and when reunited, chose to offer the treat their mates had not been eating—possibly intuiting the specific satiety effect (ackerman, 2017). this intuition could be an example of what is called theory of mind—the capacity to imagine perspectives different from one’s own (ostojić et al., 2013). another empathetical example cited in the genius of birds (ackerman, 2017) lies in the geese of the konrad lorenz research station in austria. by measuring the heart rates of geese exposed to different stimuli such as thunder, passing vehicles, and the departing or landing of flocks, researchers were able to ascertain that “familial social conflict”—seeing or engaging a familiar goose in a social conflict—elicited the highest heart rate (ackerman, 2017, p. 130). for scientists at konrad lorenz, this was enough to evidence “emotional involvement, possibly even empathy” (ackerman, 2017, p. 130). in one empirical conclusion, a study by plotnik et al. (2014) found that asian elephants touch each other’s faces with their trunks to console each other. consolation is of special interest to ackerman (2017), who notes that it “implies a cognitively demanding degree of empathy” (p. 131). primitive forms of empathy have also been observed in some mice. in a study conducted by jeffrey mogil at mcgill university, it was ascertained that mice are “more sensitive to pain” when they see a familiar mouse in pain (miller, 2006, p. 1860). this, to the team, was evidence of what is called emotional contagion—a somewhat primitive form of empathy. these researchers see emotional contagion as a “steppingstone” towards the kind of complex empathy that evolved in human beings (miller, 2006, p. 1861). it is possible that empathy has evolved, to some extent, in other animals beyond human beings, as neurobiologist peggy mason concedes. “to imagine that empathy just started de novo in primates,” she notes, “seems biologically implausible” (miller, 2006, p. 1860). altruism in nonhuman animals if animals can feel empathetically, it is perhaps feasible to ask whether or not deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 5 they can act altruistically outside of okasha’s biological definition. ackerman (2017) reports that tits of different species “great, blue, and marsh” share among each other the latest gossip of food in the area (p. 111). even chickadees, with brains only slightly larger than the seeds they eat, use a complex rolodex of songs to convey locations of predators and food, not only to their own species but to other birds who have picked up on their warnings (ackerman, 2017). it is tempting to argue, as okasha does, that while it is not immediately apparent that this altruistic act is good for the reproductive fitness of the individual chickadee (as it is a great risk for a chickadee to vocally alert its presence to a predator), this is a form of group-selection altruism, which ensures the reproductive fitness and survival of the group as a whole (okasha, 2013). however, group-selection altruism typically refers to altruistic actions within a group of animals of their own species, as in the case of vervet monkeys, which, like the chickadee, use alarm calls to warn the rest of their group of an approaching predator (okasha, 2013). in ackerman’s great, blue, and marsh tits, we find that those of different species, who in normal biological circumstances might be in competition, instead share valuable information, undermining the idea that biological “cost and benefit” altruism is the only form of altruism practiced by nonhuman animals (ackerman, 2017). in cetaceans (dolphins and whales), there are several compelling examples of nonreciprocal interspecies altruism, in which animals from different species altogether perform altruistic acts, despite there being no kin-based relationship between them and no obvious reward. a 2022 study on white-beaked dolphins had kastelein et al. witnessing dolphins cooperating “on [their] own initiative” to herd a harbor porpoise towards a veterinary treatment area in their pool enclosure, as well as assisting newly arrived harbor porpoises in swimming (kastelein et al., 2022). in this case, the animals acted on their own volition without the prospect of reward, an act that was independent of genetic relationships and of other easily packaged forms of biological altruism. another example of cetaceans potentially performing acts of nonreciprocal interspecies altruism was observed by pitman et al. (2016), who studied 115 recorded interactions in which humpback whales harassed killer whales attacking various seals (pitman et al., 2016). the team concluded that there was “no apparent benefit” for the humpbacks to interfere with the attacks, as the humpbacks often traveled hundreds of miles from their natural breeding and feeding grounds, and often did so with their young, which are natural prey for killer whales (pitman et al., 2016, para. 1). since it endangers the young, the act represents a risk to the reproductive fitness of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2023 humpbacks and has no apparent benefit or reward. from this, the team determined that “interspecific altruism, even if unintentional . . . could not be ruled out” (pitman et al., 2016, para. 1). the controversy of empathy and altruism in nonhuman animals as the untangling of nature’s empathetical and altruistic secrets is still a relatively new process, skepticism from those in tangential scientific fields is to be expected and is understandable. “we can explain behavior separate from the way humans think,” argues anthropologist holly dunsworth in an interview with the guardian concerning anthropomorphism in the modern age (milman, 2016, para. 6). psychologist patricia ganea agrees that while anthropomorphism is a natural way of explaining animal behaviors, the effects can lead to an inaccurate understanding of nature that can cause someone to misinterpret the actions of a wild animal (milman, 2016). conversely, aforementioned primatologist frans de waal believes that anthropodenial is an attempt to “build a brick wall” to “separate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom” (ackerman, 2017, p. 23). dr. mark bekoff (2008) notes in his book the emotional lives of animals that we as scientists must continue to reassess our relationship with animals, asking difficult questions and changing our behavior to match what is true rather than what is believed. “humanocentrism is what plagues the study of emotional arguments, and it’s also a large reason why animals are treated by such varying standards,” he argues. “why are we so special?” (bekoff, 2008, p. 43). in some ways, de waal’s “brick wall” serves a valuable purpose in protecting science from misinformation; however, sometimes a brick wall—inaccessible, structurally immovable—should instead be a door or a window through which scientists can look. in this sense, the wall between biological and “real” altruism obstructs the view that “real” altruism is measured only in philosophical standards, and all altruism is inherently biological. even conscious, intentioned acts of altruism have a biological source and benefit—that of neurological reward response. in an article published by the journal of social and biological structures on altruism and the internal reward system, biologist james danielli surmises that the mechanisms of the internal reward system include “the release of mood-controlling substances in the brain. . . such as the opioid peptides” (danielli, 1980). in other words, performing altruistic acts releases a response similar to the euphoria of opioids. s.g. post (2005) also postulated in his article “altruism, happiness, and health” that there is a strong association between altruism and longevity in terms of health and wellness (p. 66). in short, even “real” or “pure” altruism has a biological benefit that influences reproductive deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 7 fitness in human beings, negating any “real” difference between real and biological altruism. although behavior can certainly be explained separately from human thought, as anthropologists like dunsworth maintain, some behaviors could also be explained similarly to human thought. it may be a mistake to overlook the specific acts of altruism in animals, especially in a nonreciprocal, interspecies sense, in which there is no genetic or relationship basis nor a conceivable basis for reward. with this in consideration, acts of altruism in humans and nonhumans could be multifaceted— based on acts of cost-benefit and acts of conscious intention, as in the case of the male eurasian blue jays employing altruistic acts both from a standpoint of conscious intention (intuiting a female’s specific desires) and of reproductive fitness (doing so to ensure genetic lineage) (ostojíc et al., 2013). the idea that altruism could complexify in nonhuman animals is not rooted in mere speculation. other forms of complex cognition, such as vocal learning, spatial awareness, theory of mind, and even deceptive caching, have evolved convergently across the taxa (krupenye et al., 2019). in a review published in cognitive science, krupenye et al. (2019) attested with their social intelligence hypothesis that some nonhuman animals, including corvids like the eurasian blue jay, share foundational social cognitive mechanisms with humans, and that social cognition evolved in response to the demands of social living. if these complex cognitive behaviors could evolve in distantly related animals via convergent evolution, it is conceivable that in the right environmental or social context (such as gregariousness, as in whales, primates, and birds), altruism could continue to evolve in nonhuman animals in a way that surpasses normal “biological” parameters and crosses over into more complex forms, such as nonreciprocal and interspecies. a new frontier – further experimentation with altruism one novel methodology that could perhaps answer some questions about the neurological reward system and what complex behavior such as theory of mind and emotional contagion look like in the mind of a nonhuman animal, particularly in the case of monitorable nonhuman laboratory animals such as mice and eurasian blue jays, is by monitoring radioactivity in the brain using positron emission tomigraphy, or pet scans (pendergraft et al., 2021). in this process, which has already been utilized by pendergraft et al. (2021) for experiments pertaining to different neurological processes in corvids, the radiotracer 17f-fluorodeoxyglucose (fdg), a chemical analogous to the glucose brains typically use as fuel, is injected into the body. when regions of the brain increase in activity, they “eat” or consume more fdg, which leaves behind a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2023 trace of its radioactivity on those regions. the pet scan harmlessly measures the levels of radioactivity in the brain region, showing where parts of the brain “lit up” during the engagement of an activity or when exposed to certain stimuli (pendergraft et al., 2021). this methodology could ethically and harmlessly measure the neural activity in the brain when eurasian blue jays engage in theory of mind or when mice engage in emotional contagion, effectively mapping out the regions of the brain responsible for complex empathy and perhaps even conscious intent in an altruistic action. conclusion altruism has a clear, fundamental, biological basis and importance, persisting in its various forms despite a long evolutionary history in which it could have been discarded. it has been observed from whales in the ocean to tiny microorganisms swimming in droplets of vinegar. it is worth speculating whether it is an adaptation that under the right constraints can grow more complex in nonhuman animals, as it has in human beings. do nonhuman animals such as wild cetaceans receive a neurological benefit when they perform acts of nonreciprocal interspecies altruism? if so, is that reward system a convergently evolved trait? what were the environmental or social constraints to elicit such an adaptation? are they the same environmental and social constraints that allowed human beings to adapt complex forms of cognition? to notate empathetical acts as what separates us from nonhuman animals echoes the distant cartian hypotheses of the 1600s and, perhaps more importantly, could be like building a brick wall between the human past and the human present where there could instead be a window for scientists to peer through and garner a better understanding of our history. philosopher thomas kuhn observed that scientists sometimes get stuck viewing topics a certain way, even as they test and speculate with hypotheses. this makes the deconstruction of one paradigm and the rebuilding of another “a messy and uncertain process” (wilson, 2015, p. 35). unraveling the biological basis of empathy and altruism is a massive undertaking, and developing classification systems, such as terminology and differentiation, is a necessary part of it. however, it is important to continue to explore the line between what scientists understand about altruism and what still remains to be seen. although it is necessary for some studies to classify separations between nonhumans and humans, caution should be taken in taking those classifications as law. there are clearly exceptions to the rule, and evolutionary adaptations continually add more bends to the rules with each generation of life. to truly practice science is to forget what we think we know and find out what is true—to escape from potential biases and explore what might be missing. in doing so, we may deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 9 learn more about ourselves, and the creatures we live alongside. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2023 bibliography ackerman, j. (2016). the genius of birds. penguin press. bekoff, m. (2008). the emotional lives of animals: a leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy – and why they matter. new world library. cherry, k. (2021, april 26). why we risk our own well-being to help others. verywell mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-altruism-2794828. cottingham, j. (1978). “a brute to the brutes?”: descartes’ treatment of animals. philosophy, 53(206), 551–559. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3749880 danielli, j. (1980). altruism and the internal reward system or the opium of the people. journal of social and biological systems, vol. 3, no. 2, pp 87-94., https://doi. org/10.1016/0140-1750(80)90001-9. darwin, c. (1871). the descent of man. prometheus books. de waal., f. b. (1999). anthropomorphism and anthropodenial: consistency in our thinking about humans and other animals. philosophical topics, 27(1), 255280. https://doi.org/10.2307/43154308 elgie, j.h. (1910). altruism in animal life. nature, vol. 83, 489. https://doi. org/10.1038/083489d0 harrison, p. (1992). descartes on animals. the philosophical quarterly (1950-), 42(167), 219–227. https://doi.org/10.2307/2220217 hills, a. m. (1995). empathy and belief in the mental experience of animals. anthrozoös, 8(3), 132–142. https://doi.org/10.2752/089279395787156347 kastelein, r., et al. (2022). white-beaked dolphins (leganorhynchus albirostris) cooperating with humans and showing altruism toward harbor porpoises (phocoena phocoena). aquatic mammals, vol. 48, no. 1, pp 75-82., https://doi. org/10.1578/am.48.1.2022.75. krupenye, c., & call, j. (2019). theory of mind in animals: current and future directions. wiley interdisciplinary reviews. cognitive science, 10(6), e1503. https://doiorg.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/10.1002/wcs.1503 miller, g. (2006). signs of empathy seen in mice. sci-hub. https://bit.ly/3r1jl62. milman, o. (2016, january 15). anthropomorphism: how much humans and animals share is still contested. the guardian. https://bit.ly/3r2vkvk. okasha, s. (2013, july 21). biological altruism. stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://stanford.io/3r12ase. ostojić, l., shaw, r. c., cheke, l. g., & clayton, n. s. (2013, march 5). evidence suggesting that desire-state attribution may govern food sharing in eurasian jays. pnas. https://www.pnas.org/content/110/10/4123. deconstructing the moral animal stigma: a study of the scholarly conversation on biological altruism middle tennessee state university 11 pendergraft, lj, et al. (2021). american crow brain activity in response to conspecific vocalizations changes when food is present. frontiers in physiology, vol. 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.766345 pitman, r. l., deecke, v. b., gabriele, c. m., srinivasan, m., black, n., denkinger, j., durban, j. w., mathews, e. a., matkin, d. r., neilson, j. l., schulman-janiger, a., shearwater, d., stap, p., & ternullo, r. (2016, july 20). humpback whales interfering when mammal‐eating killer whales attack other species: mobbing behavior and interspecific altruism? wiley online library. https://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mms.12343 plotnik , j. m., waal, f. b. m. de, j, a., f, a., cp, van s., jaram, van h., la, b., pc, l., n, n., jh, p., k, s., s, s., cj, m., rw, b., j, c., fbm, de w., z, c., aka, c., ajm, van h., … m, c. (2014, february 18). asian elephants (elephas maximus) reassure others in distress. peerj. https://peerj.com/articles/278/ post, s. g. (2005). altruism, happiness, and health: it’s good to be good. international journal of behavioral medicine, 12(2), 66–77. wilson, d. s. (2016). does altruism exist?: culture, genes, and the welfare of others. yale university press. do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 115 do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs aubrey elaine keller abstract for members of a folk community, the choices of who to marry and court, when and if to reproduce in the context of those relationships, and whether to divorce or separate are largely not up to the individual. rather, community members often prominently influence relationships to which they are external, resulting in serious consequences for both married and courting people and the community as a whole. through the lens of folkloric analysis, this paper juxtaposes amy tan’s the joy luck club with lee smith’s oral history, focusing on the degree of marital and courtship choice enjoyed by characters lindo jong and dory cantrell respectively. both authors, i conclude, use marriage and courtship customs to demonstrate that relationships are significantly manipulated by folk community members. in examining how revoked choice in marriage and courtship impacts these characters, their children, and their world, i hope to demonstrate that folkloric literature illustrates the risks of curtailing the agency of real people in relationships. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2022 marriage and courtship relationships are not only unions between two individuals. folkloric criticism investigates elements of culture from a framework of not-only-ness, first recognizing categorizable aspects of life within a folk community,1 then expanding the conversation to consider what those aspects say about society. a normative relationship typically looks like two people partnering; however, the marriage and courtship customs at play in a folk group constitute an influence beyond the individuals in the relationship. through these customs, a given folk community both transforms the people in the relationships and perpetuates circumstances within their community. by investigating literary examples of community influence on marriage and courtship, scholars can approach a better understanding of limitations on choice experienced by real people in relationships. one illuminating example comes from amy tan, who incorporates chinese marriage customs into the joy luck club through lindo jong’s experiences with and responses to those customs. betrothed to another infant named tyan-yu huang at the age of two, lindo is a chinese woman born in the 1910s who navigates her way out of the marriage, remarries another chinese immigrant in the united states, and narrates her story to her american-born chinese daughter. similar to tan, lee smith incorporates appalachian courtship customs into oral history through dory cantrell’s understanding of and struggle within the framework of those customs. born in 1902, dory is a young woman of the holler2 who courts outsider richard burlage, becomes the single mother of their twin daughters once he leaves, remarries an appalachian man, and dies an either accidental or self-inflicted death when her children are young. both authors present their characters with the marriage and courtship customs of their respective communities and, in doing so, effectively convey that, as a member of a folk community, to court and to marry is to experience not an individualistic love storyin isolation but a journey paved by external influence. 1. with a conventional folkloric disciplinary understanding of the term “folk culture” as a set of elements including but not limited to values, traditions, customs, and art, i use the term “folk community” to mean a group of people who share a folk culture. jan harold brunvand’s the study of american folklore uses “folk group” instead of “folk community” in reference to sets of people who “may be identified for folklore purposes first by their distinctive fold speech and other traditions– the lingo and lore which set one group apart from others” (21). while i am writing about the same concept brunvand calls “folk groups,” i instead use the term “folk community” to emphasize that the people i am speaking about share a space. 2. the novel takes place in the fictional hoot owl holler. also called a “hollow,” in the slang of the american south, especially appalachia, a “holler” refers to a valley. the term also suggests that the area being described is particularly isolated (“hollow”). do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 117 marriage, courtship, and customs are definable terms useful in understanding lindo’s and dory’s interactions with traditional marriage. the american psychological association considers a marriage traditional “according to the historical norms of a given society, usually for the primary purpose of establishing a family,” but “prenuptial customs vary in different cultures.” while the use of words like “usually” and “primary” temper the definition as common rather than universal, those words also suggest a prescription of how the situation generally looks. also, by this definition, marriage customs are “historical,” meaning dictated by the generations who lived before, and their exigency is “establishing a family,” in other words, the grouping into units of individuals who might parent more individuals who will also be easily recognizable as members of that unit. the term “marriage,” used by lindo herself, is the best descriptor for her relationship with tyan-yu (tan 51). courtship constitutes a period leading up to the decision to marry and is a fitting term for dory’s relationship with richard burlage. folkloric customs are practices for which there is “no questioning of why they were passed down, because that is disrespectful” and, in terms of adherence to those customs, there is “no rubric, but you better know the rules” (gaitely). tan and smith use marriage, courtship, and customs as defined above to demonstrate that partnerships are often communally rather than individually orchestrated, assessed, and terminated. both authors’ presentations of their character indicates a situation where the relationship poses a challenge to the individual’s will. tan affords lindo a voice through the first-person point of view, and lindo uses her first words to introduce her marriage as the time “i once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise” (49). the strong verb of “sacrificed” in active voice paired with the first of many uses of the pronoun “i” in a chapter unified by the analogy that links lindo’s capacity to control others to “the power of the wind” seems to indicate lindo’s agency (58). however, this agency comes not from the marriage, but from lindo’s behaviors in spite of the marriage. she not only has to erase herself by accepting the invisibility of the wind, but also has to redefine the tangible objects that serve as metonyms for marriage. her community dresses her in wedding clothes to celebrate marriage, “but what [lindo] saw was even more valuable”; lindo “draped the large embroidered scarf over [her] face” and turned the garment into a tool that “covered [her self-celebrating] thoughts up. but underneath the scarf [she] still knew who [she] was” (58). the contradicting conjunction “but” punctuates lindo’s narrative as she redefines cultural items by offering opposition to their customary meaning. tan emphasizes that marriage is not a conduit to lindo’s agency but an obstacle to it by creating a clear dichotomy between culturally-defined symbols of marriage and what lindo uses them to accomplish, between garments and “what was inside me” (59). lindo scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 118 spring 2022 is presented in the novel in a manner that captures the question of her agency in the face of community intervention and orients her as an individual in opposition to the conventions of chinese marriage. smith gives a much different window into dory’s courtship experience by characterizing her not from her own point of view, but from the points of view of community members. the structure of the novel ensures that readers get others’ accounts of dory’s words, actions, and identity, but never learn how she perceives her own life. eleven of the novel’s chapters are named after characters, nine of them narrated by the named character from the first-person point of view, and the other two, the chapters named after dory’s parents, are narrated by a third-person limited narrator. despite being mentioned in every one of these chapters, dory does not have a named chapter. what results is other characters depicting dory as if she is a power source within the community, while the narrative structure itself gives her no voice. for example, sally, dory’s daughter, compares their family to a kaleidoscope “with mama at the center, not doing anything particular but not having to either, and all the rest of us falling in place around” (smith 238). sally goes as far as to say it is not only the family that is enraptured by dory, but that “the whole world just gets in line to help [her] out” (239) also. however, sally’s explanation betrays the pattern of paradoxically attributing power to dory and making her the object of external influence. she describes how dory often was “caught up in a waiting dream,” the passive voice and idea of both waiting and dreaming suggesting factors beyond dory’s control influencing her behavior (239). smith presents her audience with dory, this character that intrigues the other characters, and in this presentation demonstrates the absurdity of attributing mysterious power to community members while simultaneously excluding their voices. as for exclusionary orchestration of marriage, tan creates a cultural context where people outside of the relationship impose marriage. she demonstrates this through word choice that emphasizes lindo’s disenfranchisement in the decision of her own marriage. lindo calls tyan-yu “the boy i would be forced to marry” and remembers that whenever she would cry over the arrangement, her mother would remind her “it’s no use” because “we have made a contract” (50, 52). the word “forced” emphasizes lindo’s lack of choice, the finality of “it’s no use” in response to lindo’s crying expresses that even her retroactive opposition to the arrangement will have no effect.the ambiguous “we” further begs the question of whether the mother is referring to herself and the other adults responsible for the arrangement or indicating that the decision was made by the familial unit as a whole regardless of having excluded lindo’s input. tan crafts the clearest picture of how her character’s experience fits within the novel’s cultural context when lindo explains the do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 119 marriage practices of her city, taiyuan. she supports her assertion that “i had no choice, now or later” with the explanation that taiyuan was “always the last to give up stupid oldfashioned customs,” while “in other cities, already, a man could choose his own wife” (51). tan’s fictional cultural context seems representative of the actual cultural context of china, whose marriage reforms in the 1950s recognized a previously excessive external influence at play in the context of marriage. lawmakers reformed the institution of marriage in china into a “voluntary contract grounded in free choice and the individual’s emotional fulfillment,” and the nation later “further privatized” marriage with reforms regarding individual property rights in the case of divorce (yeung and hu 448). the real-world china that followed what would have been lindo’s generation, then, seems to be moving toward greater choice and individualism in terms of marriage, at least in the legal context. dory, on the other hand, lives in a community trending in the opposite direction of the real-world china of the early-to-mid twentieth century; in smith’s appalachia, the decision of whether or not to legally marry is traditionally the choice of the courting individuals, but community members begin challenging that tradition. granny younger, a respected elder within the community, explains that “young folks just gets them a roof and moves under it and when the circuit rider comes around he makes it legal by saying the words, or they don’t fool with it one way or another. it’s nothing but words, what i say” (62). by delivering these lines through a character representative of the traditional wisdom of the folk community and having her equate legal marriage to “words” that can be “fool[ed]” with or not, smith suggests that the appalachian community is traditionally hands-off in terms of marriage. however, granny’s account of the marriage between dory’s father and mother, almarine and pricey jane, is a mockery of outside imposition of marriage turned eerie in the context of the novel as a whole. miss lucille aston, a townsperson and outsider in that she “would up and die rathern set foot in the hollers,” insists that the couple “come right along with me” before declaring to her brother, a judge “i want you to marry them” (61-3). the scene’s tone is comical, with alamarine “a-waving to folks along the way like he’s one big parade” and the judge lying in bed in a dark room (62). however, the event takes on a dark cast when granny reveals that although “ain’t nobody heard of him marrying folks before,” the reason the judge officiated the marriage was because “he’s scared of his sister” (63). dory is born from parents who were coerced into marriage on the basis of the “want” and fear of two people outside of their relationship, the forced marriage easily serving as a metaphor for the appalachian community itself that will by the end of the novel be turned into a theme park called “ghostland” by a descendant whose desire for profit finds opportunity in a common fear that the holler is haunted (285). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 120 spring 2022 whether a relationship ends, in tan’s and smith’s worlds, is also primarily influenced by community members. specifically, the in-laws are the primary reason both relationships must be dissolved. huang taitai, lindo’s mother-in-law, is the antagonist in the chapter of the novel that is concerned with lindo’s arranged marriage.3 at the initial matchmaking session, when huang taitai expresses concern that the two-year-old lindo “had an unusually bad temper,” the matchmaker reassured huang taitai that lindo “will grow up to be a hard worker who serves you well in your old age” (50). the matchmaker, the mouthpiece for marriage customs in tan’s cultural context, addresses how lindo’s personality will impact not the man she is marrying, but the in-law whose family she is marrying into. the marriage ultimately hinges upon this issue of serving huang taitai; when lindo fails to bear grandchildren for the mother-in-law, huang taitai “flew into another kind of rage” and “became a little crazy,” at which point lindo begins planning her exit from the marriage (62). lindo’s feelings about and compatibility with her husband are secondary to her usefulness to this person who is external to the marital relationship. in dory’s case, richard recounts two conversations with individuals external to the relationship suggesting that the courtship relationship must end on the account of in-laws regardless of his or dory’s feelings. first, after richard confides in reverend aldous rife about his courtship with dory, aldous proclaims to richard that because of the family dory belongs to, “you have no choice” but to end the relationship (134). the inclusion of the word “choice” paired with the urgent and imperative statements “you must forget her” and “you must break this attachment, richard, and break it at once” suggest that aldous, someone external to the relationship, has the authority and insight to demand it be ended (134). claiming that dory’s “father is a dangerous man, a criminal” for moonshining during the prohibition era, aldous appeals to the impact of familism on individuals (smith 134). in a study about appalachia, hal seth baron argues that appalachians emerged from other americans as a distinct folk community during “the period of isolation” spanning from 1840 to 1900 (210). a major feature that distinguished appalachians as a folk community, he adds, is familism, which he defines as an economic structure divided equally between neighboring families with each family financially supporting its own members whenever necessary but discouraging individuals from prospering at the community’s expense. by pointing to dory’s father’s occupation as a reason richard should not be involved with her, aldous is making an appeal to familism. the second interaction is with ora mae, dory’s older sister, who admits later in the novel to having not given dory the letter from richard inviting her to return with him to his hometown 3. this is the third chapter of the joy luck club, titled “the red candle.” do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 121 (smith 216). immediately after richard internally monologs “oh, how i wanted dory!” ora mae informs him “she ain’t comin’ now, and she ain’t comin’ later, and she ain’t never comin’” (165). one could argue in ora’s favor, that she was right to have called off the relationship given that, in this scene, she has just walked in on richard preparing to have sex with another woman. however, that argument erroneously places the responsibility for ending a relationship in the hands of people external to the relationship. although unlike lindo’s situation in that the disruptive behavior of the inlaws is in opposition rather than in support of the relationship, dory’s situation similarly presents an instance where in-laws make it difficult for the individuals to want to remain in the relationship. another area in which both authors depict community intervention in unions between two people is over the issue of conception. tan juxtaposes lindo’s character, who has not conceived within a forced marriage, with the character of an unnamed servant, who has conceived within an unsanctioned courtship. her juxtaposition appears most clearly through the words she uses to describe these two characters’ bodies and the actions the characters take in response to their conception circumstance. ignorant of the reason that the couple have not conceived—tyan-yu has never consented to have sex with lindo—huang taitai expresses anger that lindo’s “stomach and breasts remained small and flat” (62). this physical description is nearly the opposite of that of the servant girl when lindo observes “her eyes grow bigger and her teasing voice become smaller whenever the handsome delivery man arrive[s]” while “her stomach grow[s] rounder and her face become[s] longer with fear and worry” (65). tan uses these opposite physical descriptions to set up lindo’s solution to the issue, which she devises not for herself, but to “escape this marriage without breaking [her] promise to [her] family” (63). once lindo convinces the family that the servant is tyan-yu’s true match, the servant is “so struck with this miracle of marrying tyan-yu” that she arranges for her ancestors’ graves to be swept “not just once a year, but once a day,” an exaggerated practice of custom (65). external intervention determines the light in which these women’s bodies are cast, and each responds by turning to the generation that came before them. tan’s depiction of these two characters suggests that, within the cultural context she constructs in the novel, when language prizes or belittles bodies based on pregnancy and relationship status, that language not only harms the people described, but also complicates their relationship with foregoing generations. dory is no stranger to belittling words in reference to conception. while lindo was shamed for having not conceived while partnered, dory is shamed for having conceived and being unpartnered. after richard leaves town at the behest of aldous and ora mae, dory is apparently pregnant, and the community responds with language scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 122 spring 2022 that regards her pregnancy as a shameful joke. little luther wade, the man who will eventually marry dory, expresses anger at his mother calling dory “ruint” a dialect form of the passive verb “ruined” that objectifies dory as something changed for the worse by conception (171). luther adds that another community member commented that “he wouldn’t take no man’s leftovers,” language that reduces dory to a consumable (171). ora mae blames dory for the pregnancy and equates her babies, too, to consumables, arguing that dory engaged in courtship “and i said not to, and look where it got her. two loaves of bread in the oven, i said, and the cook is out to lunch. ha!” (211). this backhanded joke reveals both the extent to which ora mae believes that her external influence should have altered dory’s choice to engage in a courtship relationship and a dehumanization of the resulting unborn children. in both circumstances, the community discounts the woman’s own feelings about conception while amplifying an external social pressure. tan and smith also situate both women in a cultural context where marriage is a given after an initial failed marriage or courtship. on the basis of choice, lindo contrasts her marriage to tyan-yu to her remarriage to tin jong, the father of her american-born chinese children, including her daughter waverly. addressing waverly in the narrative, she explains that her marriage to tin jong “was not like my first marriage, where everything was arranged. i had a choice. i could choose to marry your father, or i could choose not to marry him and go back to china” (tan 262-3). her verbally ironic tone highlights that while yes, she could choose not to remarry, the circumstances surrounding her membership in her folk community of chinese immigrants in america meant that choice would have sent her back to the country from where she had fled. dory, like lindo, does not remain single after the departure of richard, recoupling with luther, whom the community allows to extend symbolic paternity to her out-of-wedlock babies. in the family tree that lists dory and richard’s twin daughters, richard is not named in the diagram, the twins instead listed under luther’s name (231). richard’s paternity is further erased when he returns to the holler ten years after his departure, and a community member tells him “she’s a wife now, with a husband better than most, and children” (221). as a result of the conversation, when richard eventually sees the twins, he does not know they are his. both lindo and dory remarry without fanfare in a recoupling that serves as somewhat of a social replacement of the previous marriage. a history of external pressure to remarry in the folk communities tan and smith depict in their novels, first published in 1989 and 1983 respectively, is supported by sociological scholarship on real-word china and appalachia. in the twenty-first century, long-term singleness after a marriage or courtship situation is becoming less stigmatized in chinese and appalachian folk communities. social pressure is a factor that has do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 123 traditionally pushed chinese women to marry in the first place and remarry if divorced, but chinese gender discourse is beginning to push back. hannah feldshuh deconstructs the term 剩女, romanized as shèngnǚ, which translates to “leftover girl” and pejoratively refers to educated single women over the age of twenty-seven (39). she argues that this term points not to a concerning or humorous demographic, but to a societal shaming of women outside of the structure of marriage that does not consider the women’s own sense of success and fulfillment. her deconstruction pushes against the pressure to remarry and the belittling language suffered by the fictional lindo. finding a similar disconnect as feldshuh between stigma and reality, after interviewing divorced chinese women between 1998 to 2018, suet lin hung shares that although “dominant chinese cultural discourse” privileges the married over the single lifestyle for women, plenty of divorcees share a vision of post-divorce femininity characterized by strength and independence that deters them from remarrying (10). such a vision is not expressed by twentieth-century lindo, whose previously-explored comment about having a choice to marry or return to china connects the idea of marital status to maintaining a standard of living rather than to femininity or self-image. a similar trend as recognized by feldshuh and hung of questioning stigmatizing language about marriage has emerged within appalachian culture. in 2010, janis evelyn rezek interviewed eight west virginian adolescent moms. perhaps suggestive of social pressures within their folk community to be married as a mother, only one participant was single. still, rezek’s research resulted in findings indicative of a movement in literature towards condemning those who call adolescent motherhood a “social problem” in order to implement “social control” that often comes in the form of imposing marriage (131, 16). members are growing more tolerant towards young, unmarried mothers in the community described by rezek than in dory’s community where a young pregnant woman is “ruint” until marriage. conducted twenty-to-thirty years after the novels, all three of these studies offer useful perspectives on how remarriage customs are developing during the twenty-first century in folk communities similar to those portrayed in tan’s and smith’s fictional worlds. a cultural shift towards destigmatizing singleness, while positive for both chinese and appalachian women, further exemplifies that whether an individual is shamed or respected for their marital status is a community issue. the consequences of external interference extend to each woman’s daughter, who recount the resulting intergenerational trauma from their own points of view. as soon as lindo’s family arranged her betrothal, her mother “began treating [her] as if [she] belonged to somebody else,” calling her “huang taitai’s daughter” (tan 51). as a result, once lindo has a daughter, waverly, she “would proudly walk with [her],” telling scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 124 spring 2022 “whoever looked her way” that “this is my daughter wave-ly jong” (99). waverly feels embarrassed by her mother frequently claiming her, and when she tells her mother “i wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody i’m your daughter,” she awakens her mother’s woundedness at being disowned by her own mother (99). dory’s daughter, sally, experiences a similar trauma passed down from her mother’s negative experiences with courtship. starting over her storytelling several times as she struggles with the subject matter, sally recounts the evening when her mother left and was found decapitated by a train. she explains that her mother frequently wandered off to the train tracks, the greater context of the novel establishing the implication that she returns to that location since those are the tracks that brought richard out of the holler. after dory’s death, “folks came from all around to stare at [the family] house, and the family was “a tourist attraction” (smith 245). through their intervention with the courtship situation, the community is complicit in dory’s death before proceeding to treat the family in a manner that traumatizes dory’s children. tan and smith both present contexts where people outside of relationships treat individuals differently as a consequence of the relationship, and the resulting harm extends to still other people outside of the relationship. studying marriage and courtship within amy tan’s the joy luck club and lee smith’s oral history through a folkloric lens illuminates how there is much beyond the individual that is responsible for the quality of and potential fallout from relationships. in both novels, particularly in their discussion of courtship and marriage, a theme recurs of the people in relationships being led to believe by their folk community’s members or circumstances that they have no choice. with this understanding, people can proceed with caution when navigating both literary and actual cultural contexts and check themselves when tempted to hypocritically support external encroachment on relationships while placing all blame on people in relationships. considering the ways in which marriage and courtship customs are not only practiced by individuals in relationships, but often heavily influenced by community members, the folkloric orientation of not-only-ness serves to depict more fairly the institution of marriage in general. do i have a choice?: amy tan and lee smith on marriage and courtship customs middle tennessee state university 125 works cited barron, hal seth. “a case for appalachian demographic history.” appalachian journal, vol. 4, no. 3/4, 1977, pp. 208–15. jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40932158. brunvand, jan harold. the study of american folklore. w.w. norton & company, inc., 1968. feldshuh, hannah. “gender, media, and myth-making: constructing china’s leftover women.” asian journal of communication, vol. 28, no. 1, 2018, pp. 38-54. taylor & francis online, https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2017.1339721. gaitely, patricia. “syllabus review and discussion of folklore.” special topics in folklore, 23 aug. 2021, middle tennessee state university. class discussion. “hollow.” university of south carolina college of arts and sciences. https://artsandsciences. sc.edu/appalachianenglish/node/492. accessed 31 mar. 2022. hung, suet lin. “chinese women revising meanings of marriage and divorce: comparing women who divorced in the 1990s and 2000s.” international social work, may 2020. sage journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872820920339. rezek. janis e. appalachian women’s experiences of unmarried adolescent motherhood. 2010. union institute and university, phd dissertation. proquest, https://www. proquest.com/docview/756265790?accountid=4886. smith, lee. oral history. 1983. ballantine books, 2003. tan, amy. the joy luck club. 1989. penguin books, 2006. “traditional marriage.” american psychological association. https://dictionary.apa.org/ traditional-marriage. accessed 17 nov. 2021. yeung, wei-jun jean, and shu hu. “paradox in marriage values and behavior in contemporary china.” chinese journal of sociology, vol. 2, no. 3, 2016, pp. 447–476. sage journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150x16659019. middle tennessee state university 53 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith sage andrews abstract the relationship between the queer and christian communities in the united states is ever evolving and contains distinct overlap. in this overlap, queer christians are transforming their faith communities by challenging the binary that is often presumed to exist between said communities and queer individuals. this challenging is evidenced through pushes for inclusion in the church and for queer understandings of christian theology. this paper aims to demonstrate this transformative relationship and to show that it is rooted within church tradition. to accomplish these aims, this paper analyzes the published accounts of queer christian individuals through the lenses of theory, christian tradition, and biblical text. after presenting these accounts, this paper assesses the impact of this transformative relationship and its implications for the religious landscape. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 54 spring 2022 within broad western society the sacred and the profane are still seen as separate and incompatible spaces. in the united states, this perspective can be seen through the divides between the religious (sacred) and the secular (profane); the impact of this divide is that things which belong to one sphere are seen as being incompatible with the other. this divide is perhaps best illustrated by issues surrounding sexuality and most seen in the context of western christianity, as this religion has culturally influenced the united states to the extent that discussions of the religious and the secular often center on the concept of the christian church and the state. within this discourse, sex is seen as an aspect of the human condition, whether that be as a gift or a curse—a thing of the body and of earthly life. due to this, within much of christianity, sex has been turned into a taboo when it occurs outside of the boundaries of heteronormative marriage, which is seen as the only permissible outlet for sex. building on this understanding of sexual relations is the idea that sex is a desire of the flesh, and the flesh is sinful and not of god, a view that has been incorporated into the christian religious history of the united states through the puritans.1 within this mindset, therefore, sex should only be practiced in certain circumstances. much of this belief can be understood as deriving from particular interpretations and implementations of pauline epistles, which encourage marriage as an outlet for sexuality but can be understood as showing a disdain for sex and sexuality as a whole.2 as a result, christianity as an institution has developed the reputation in the eyes of many as having a negative view on sex and as attempting to control it, only permitting sexual expression within very specific outlets.3 as lgbtq+ identities relate to sex, sexuality, and gender (and deviate from the permitted expressions) they are viewed as sinful themselves—as things of the world and thus incompatible with christianity—by many who adhere to more theologically conservative sexual teachings. thus, within this worldview, christianity is sacred and the queer is profane. however, over the past several decades, an increasing number of christian-identified queer people have begun challenging the binary that lies between sex (and by association, sexuality and transgender identity) and faith. in short, queer christians are engaging in the work of queering their faith, of transforming it. this is not surprising because queer bodies are capable of queering the spaces in which they exist. queering—a type of transformation that necessitates the breaking down of categories and all binaries in movement towards 1. kathleen verduin, “‘our cursed natures’: sexuality and the puritan conscience,” the new england quarterly 56, no. 2 (1983): 222-223. 2. 1 cor. 7:6-9 nrsv 3. gunter runkel, “sexual morality of christianity,” journal of sex & marital therapy 24, no. 2 (1998): 106. middle tennessee state university 55 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith liberation4—can pose a threat to institutional power structures and thus can be interpreted by those who are supported by such power structures as something to be stopped and controlled. these attempts at control present in and of themselves a different type of transformation. christianity has often supported attempts to transform queer bodies away from queerness and into heteronormative power structures through means like conversion therapy. this reactionary response to queer bodies in religious spaces demonstrates the transformative power of queerness in religion; the reaction shows how queer presence has a strong potential for effecting transformation. when queer bodies exist in religious spaces, metamorphosis will occur. today, we can see that much of western christianity is being transformed by the presence of queer members who are seeking to transform (queer) the church. this queering of the church is rooted in a rich biblical and christian tradition of figures who have sought to challenge the status quo, demonstrating that these changes are coming from within the christian tradition itself and that the binary between christian and proudly queer is demonstrably false. methods to examine the ways queer embodied experience is transforming christianity, i will be looking at primarily qualitative data and interpreting it through the lens of theory. this qualitative data will primarily consist of stories told by individuals who self-describe as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. these stories narrate their experiences with the christian faith as it presents in the united states as described by themselves, in this instance particularly in books and articles. the three theorists that i will primarily be using to highlight the importance of embodied and performed religious experience are judith butler and her theory on performance, kimerer l. lamothe’s discussion on the body, and mary douglas’s theory surrounding purity and dirt. additionally, i will be contextualizing these experiences with biblical literature, church tradition, and theology, such as in the work of chris glaser. it is important to recognize that there are multiple different theoretical frameworks for approaching subjects of the body, religion, and queerness. one theoretical framework cannot fully encompass every expression of embodied, religious, or queer experience. rather than attempting to act as a definitive work, this research stands in conversation with other experiences, analyses, and theories as a voice that is needed, but certainly not the only voice that is needed. additionally, there are also people who have already previously engaged with the idea of connecting queer religious practices to 4. lisa isherwood, “queering christ: outrageous acts and theological rebellions,” literature and theology 15, no. 3 (2001): 252. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 56 spring 2022 christian history, tradition, and scripture. for instance, in her article “queer nuns and genderbending saints: genderf*cking notions of normativity,” jessi knippel analyzes the ethnographic book queer nuns: religion, activism, and serious parody by melissa wilcox to draw connections between the drag parody group the sisters of perpetual indulgence and gender non-conforming saints,5 such as wilgefortis, and also to jesus christ as a religious figure himself.6 what differentiates my work from such analyses is the additional focus on how this queer spirituality transforms and “queers” the christian community in the western context. embodied queer prophecy in her autobiography, a gracious heresy: the queer calling of an unlikely prophet, connie l. tuttle describes the call to live what she terms a prophetic life and to call upon the church to move towards inclusion for lgbtq christians, to appeal “for the community to return to its source. to love god. to do justice.”7 here, tuttle clearly channels imagery of prophets in the hebrew bible such as amos, who proclaimed, “i will not listen to the melody of your hearts. but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”8 prophets like amos as depicted in their respective religious texts regularly called for their people to change, to align their actions and hearts with the will of god. tuttle’s self-proclaimed prophetic identity clearly connects to the idea of queerness as a transformative force within religion and connects her experience as a queer christian seeking to change the church to a rich lineage of biblical prophets. tuttle said of her call to both pastorhood and prophethood: i wanted to hold the prophetic and the pastoral in dynamic tension. a prophet rises up from the community, stands outside its borders, and calls the people they love to repentance. contemporary christian prophets say hard things that need to be said while challenging the church to be the radical community christ called into being. i also wanted to be pastoral, to walk with those who were afraid to enter the uncharted territory of god’s grace.9 tuttle attended college at the presbyterian-affiliated agnes scott college in georgia, and during this time she began to encounter the socially constructed binary between queer and christian existence. having primarily lived in progressive neighborhoods and spaces in the preceding years, tuttle had not anticipated how 5. jessi knippel, “queer nuns and genderbending saints: genderf*cking notions of normativity,” crosscurrents 69, no. 4 (2019): 402. 6. knippel, “queer nuns,” 410. 7. connie l. tuttle, a gracious heresy: the queer calling of an unlikely prophet (eugene, oregon: resource publications, 2018), chap. 1. 8. am. 5:23-24 nrsv 9. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 26. middle tennessee state university 57 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith disturbing her presence as an open feminist and lesbian would be to many of her christian classmates at the college. she was the only open lesbian at her college of which she knew,10 and so, during this time, tuttle connected with other lesbians and gay men in off campus environments. on one such occasion, tuttle danced and flirted with a fellow lesbian and non-practicing catholic who was surprised to find out that tuttle desired to be a minister while still being comfortable with herself as a lesbian. she remarked to tuttle, “…when i came out i figured i had two choices. i could choose to be myself and go to hell. or not come out and die.”11 by simply existing as a christian lesbian without attempting to hide either part of herself, tuttle was defying the presumed binary categories to which many people expected her to conform. this refusal to sacrifice one identity for the other proved to challenge many people’s ideas of both christianity and queer people. she was queering her faith. her college classmates did not accept that a lesbian could have authentic christian faith and felt challenged by tuttle’s presence in their classes.12 similarly, many of the queer people tuttle was around struggled to comprehend someone who, rather than either rejecting the christian faith of her upbringing or accepting said faith and suppressing herself, chose instead fully to embrace both and view them as non-exclusive identities.13 one way to analyze tuttle’s embrace of identities that appeared to others to be in opposition is through the lens of performance. judith butler wrote in her book, gender trouble, “identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its result.”14 tuttle performed15 her sexuality and her christian identity during this time in a way that demonstrated that both categories were socially constructed, and this performance consciously or subconsciously worked to transform each category. tuttle rejected the idea that she must express her lesbian identity by rejecting her faith or express her faith by rejecting her lesbian identity, as the girl she once danced with had believed.16 thus, tuttle’s experiences as a christian lesbian function within and support the framework of butler’s theory of performativity as she contradicted common ideas about each category’s mutual exclusivity and subsequently reshaped them in ways that showed they could be inclusive of each other. 10. ibid., chap. 18. 11. ibid., chap. 19. 12. ibid., chap. 18. 13. ibid., chap. 19. 14. judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity (new york: routledge, 1999), 33. 15. butler, gender trouble, 173. 16. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 19. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2022 in addition to transforming ideas of each identity, tuttle also subverted larger systems at play by challenging long held, often institutionalized prejudices that sorted queer expression into what mary douglas refers to as dirt. as elaborated on by mary douglas, dirt refers to a taboo or pollution, and something being deemed as dirt often stems from a system that sorts things into that which is clean, or holy, and that which is dirty, unholy. 17 tuttle’s very existence challenged the concept that queerness is taboo to christianity and exposed the falsehood of the idea that queerness was a type of dirt that must be kept from contaminating the church. by existing as a queer christian, tuttle made it apparent that a disdain for queer sexuality and relationships did not necessarily result from christianity and that being a lesbian did not necessarily result in a disdain for christianity. performing both in subversive ways allowed tuttle to challenge what each of these identities fundamentally were in the eyes of many with whom she interacted and, further, demonstrated a need for re-evaluation of a system that labelled queerness as dirt within the church. and this was all done before she, like amos, began the act of actively and consciously proclaiming her message through her embodied experience. following her experiences at agnes scott, tuttle began attending seminary at columbia during the fall of 1983 to pursue ministry; very early into her time there, she was called to the dean of admission’s office under suspicion that she was gay. rather than deny the suspicions, back down, and continue her education without this knowledge becoming confirmed to the university, tuttle asserted her lesbian identity. when the dean pointed out that the presbyterian church did not ordain homosexuals, tuttle responded by pointing out that she had been called to ministry by the spirit and felt ready to bring the issue before the denomination’s series of course.18 as knowledge of her queerness spread through campus, she began to deal with encounters from students proclaiming she would go to hell for acting in accordance with her sexuality. while tuttle did use the “born this way” argument and cited her belief that lgbtq+ people were made that way by god,19 an argument many queer theorists have pointed out to be reductive and complacent with the oppressive rhetoric they attempt to combat,20 she explicitly rebuked the call from her male classmates to be celibate through other rhetorical appeals as well: 17. mary douglas, purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo (london; new york: routledge, 2003), 44. 18. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 22. 19. ibid, chap. 25. 20. karma chávez, “beyond complicity: coherence, queer theory, and the rhetoric of the ‘gay christian movement,’” text and performance quarterly 24, no. 3/4 (2004): 258. middle tennessee state university 59 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith “…do you assume that if someone is gay they are automatically called to celibacy? i can guarantee i have not been called to celibacy.”21 her language of calling again further places her lesbian identity and queer presence into the context of prophecy. additionally, while tuttle was verbally proclaiming her prophecy at seminary, she was also embodying her prophecy. many biblical prophets embodied their prophecies, perhaps most well-known among them the prophet hosea. hosea took a wife who was unfaithful; this was to embody his prophecy that israel had been unfaithful to god. hosea embodied god, and his wife gomer embodied israel.22 despite adversity from the presbyterian denomination, the administration of her school, and her classmates, tuttle chose to make it known that she engaged in what might be considered lesbian, or queer, sexual and romantic acts. in this way, she intentionally embodied her lesbian identity. while her classmates cited the bible as proof that god disapproved of her lesbian identity and queer embodiment, tuttle rebutted their arguments with experience. she still upheld the bible, citing opposing scriptures to the ones her classmates presented to her, but she also drew on her own experience and call to defend her position.23 in fields relating to religion and philosophy, bodily experience and reason have often been presented as opposing ends on their own dichotomy. bodily experience holds the realm of those things which can be intuited, and reason holds the realm of things which can be analyzed and scientifically studied. this debate can be seen between scholars whose work has been impactful in the field of religious studies, such as kant and schleiermacher, and readings of their works by other, contemporary theorists,24 a polarization elaborated on by kimerer l. lamothe in her book, between dancing and writing: the practice of religious studies.25 however, this dichotomy does not necessarily exist in a binary state like other binaries that have been previously addressed. the issue between the two, and the issue that lies with their supposedly binary state, can also be seen within religious circles, showing up in debates like the one tuttle had with her classmates. by not drawing exclusively on one or the other, but on a combination of both bodily experience and religious text presumed to hold authority, tuttle combatted the idea that reason and bodily experience are two opposing ends and that only one can be of value 21. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 25. 22. hos. 1:1-2 nrsv 23. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 25. 24. kimerer l. lamothe, “what bodies know about religion and the study of it,” journal of the american academy of religion 76, no. 3 (2008): 576. 25. kimerer lamothe, “chapter 1: the rift in religion: rené descartes and immanuel kant” and “chapter 2: recovering experience: friedrich schleiermacher” in between dancing and writing: the practice of religious studies (new york: fordham university press, 2004), 22-64. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2022 to someone. in this situation, she combatted the idea that bodily experience and biblical reason are two opposing concepts that are incompatible for authentic christianity. she drew not only on biblical text and interpretation, but also on her own understandings of topics such as love, consent, and her own refusal to accept the idea that her lesbian identity meant that she was being called to celibacy because such a claim did not match her lived experience and intuition.26 her queerness challenged the false binaries of queer versus christian—and of reason versus bodily experience/knowledge—in a way consistent with the hebrew prophets acknowledged by christianity to have spoken god’s will to the people. this connected her queerness to christian scripture and tradition even as she worked to transform her denomination fundamentally towards a more inclusive and queer understanding of sex and sexuality. queer sacrament this experiential understanding of queer christian faith and its connection to christian tradition goes beyond merely the call to prophecy or call to pastorship some queer christians may report experiencing. it also extends to other areas of christianity, in particular the experience of the sacraments. according to the cambridge dictionary of christian theology, within the majority of western christianity (and in both catholic and protestant traditions) a sacrament is accepted as being something that both conveys and exhibits grace. depending on the particular christian denomination, the official sacraments may vary, but baptism and the eucharist are almost always recognized.27 for those brought up in the church, many of these sacraments additionally function as rites of passage. while some sacraments, such as communion, can occur multiple times throughout a person’s life, others do not (and one’s first communion may still be commemorated). for instance, the rite of baptism often occurs only once with potential rededications or confirmation ceremonies following. moreover, a sacrament being observed on more than one occasion does not necessarily lessen its spiritual significance. for many queer christians, typical queer rites of passage can function as a sacrament— an act through which divine grace is visibly conveyed, a sacred act of significance for the individual. by understanding how queer rites of passage can function as sacraments to queer christians, we can see how queer christians are transforming the concept of outward expressions of a relationship with the divine just as christian thinkers have been doing throughout the history of the church. 26. tuttle, a gracious heresy, chap. 25. 27. ian a. macfarland, ed., “sacramentology,” in the cambridge dictionary of christian theology (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011), 452-454. middle tennessee state university 61 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith in his book aptly titled coming out as sacrament, chris glaser notes that the sacraments have not always totaled out in the two-to-seven range (depending on one’s denomination, with common sacraments including the eucharist, baptism, and confirmation), and that the early church may have had up to a hundred and fifty.28 glaser locates the sacraments as being part of an embodied experience: something that reminds those who partake in it that spirituality is an in-body or embodied rather than “out-ofbody” experience.29 keeping these ideas about sacraments in mind, glaser considers what he calls “unconventional sacraments” and how marginalized groups often have sacraments unique to their circumstances. these groups often have rituals or acts they partake in that are unique to their culture or circumstances and that allow them to embody their spirituality and acknowledge how their lives in and of themselves are expressions of the sacred and the grace of god.30 glaser goes on to argue that the rite of coming out acts as a sacrament for queer people, a “distinctive rite in which god was present, accessible, and experienced among [us]”;31 it is something that is unique and divine in its role in the lives of queer people. an example of coming out as a sacrament can be found in the coming out story of christian millennial nikko espina. in espina’s coming out narrative, he recalls realizing that god loved all of him, including his sexuality, but also how alienated he felt from his parents as he was unable to share a portion of his life with them. he wanted to come out to them in a way that showed how queerness can be healthy and beautiful. thus, rather than directly coming out, he made the choice to take them on a lady gaga tour where she would be singing the song “born this way,” a song that contains lyrics directly affirming lgbtq+ identities and experiences that spoke to espina’s experiences. espina writes of the concert, “lady gaga and her message of self-love and self-acceptance was the gift that god bestowed upon me to help me form a deeper love of myself.”32 through coming out to himself by fully accepting his sexuality and indirectly coming out to his parents, espina developed a deeper understanding of who he was and of god’s love: that he did not need to fear parts of who he was because he was a creation of god. specifically, espina uses embodied language: “i am no longer afraid of what is in my blood… i remain standing and continue to strive daily for a cherished relationship with god. though being 28. chris glaser, coming out as sacrament (louisville, ky: westminster john knox press, 1998), 4. 29. glaser, coming out as sacrament, 5. 30. ibid., 6. 31. ibid., 8. 32. nikko espina, “in my blood: born this way and worthy of love,” whosoever, september 26, 2020. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2022 gay was an obstacle for me to love myself, it was never one for the lord.”33 this embodied language relates espina’s experience not only to glaser’s work, but also to lamothe’s discussion of experience and embodiment as well. espina’s religion is subjective as it is filled with experience, which is highly compatible with kimerer l. lamothe’s theories discussing how the scholar’s encounter with a phenomenon being studied is not objective but is filled with experience. lamothe writes, “scholars reflect on their experience of phenomena—never on the phenomenon ‘itself ’; they experience what their intellectual training primes them to apprehend as ‘religion.’ there is no knowledge of ‘religion’ that can be purely objective (according to some standard of rationality) or wholly true to the phenomenon itself.”34 by reading espina’s experience in the framework of lamothe’s theory, we can see that espina’s religion is subjective as it is filled with experience. however, espina is not alone in having a subjective experience of religion. as lamothe highlights in the previous quotation, there can be no purely objective experience of a religious thing, but rather all experience is subjective as all experience is bodily;35 consequently, many elements of religion both communal and institutionalized are as subjective as individual experiences. this is perhaps most easily seen with the sacraments: they are an outward and visible sign of interior grace, an act of sacred and mysterious significance36 that reflects the presence of god.37 it is easy to see how espina’s act of coming out to himself and to his family is sacramental when we recognize his own self reporting of the experience: his account that it brought him deeper into experiencing the presence of god and god’s grace. he experienced the sacred through community with his family and fellow queer people, and through lady gaga’s music. as he writes, “i needed to be at that conference so that i could understand god’s foundational love for me as both a believer and member of the lgbt community.”38 the ability that coming out has to be experienced as a sacrament places many people’s queer experience firmly in the language and context of christianity. this challenges the boundaries placed on christian experience and sacrament and thus demonstrates that attempts to transform the church into a more inclusive, queered space (as lady gaga called for during the concert espina attended39) are completely within the boundaries of christian tradition. 33. ibid. 34. lamothe, “what bodies know,” 578. 35. ibid. 36. macfarland, ed., “sacramentology,” 452-454. 37. glaser, coming out as sacrament, 8. 38. espina, “in my blood.” 39. ibid. middle tennessee state university 63 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith considering glaser’s understanding of how coming out functions as a queer sacrament, i would also like to discuss transitioning as a sacrament for transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming individuals. glaser remarks that coming out, like other sacraments such as baptism and communion, offers a “renewal of life.”40 the same can be said of transitioning. as jennifer hasler remarked of transition during her coming out story: “for me, my gender transition was part of god calling me, and throughout the path, god has always walked with me.”41 transitioning, like coming out, baptism, or any other sacrament, can make one more aware of and more able to experience the presence of god. rev. kalie, intern pastor at first christian church of decatur in decatur, georgia, highlights how her transition and coming out transformed her in a spiritual sense and allowed her to further transform the christian community. she writes: before my physicality ever began to change, my transition started with my thoughts and positions of understanding evolving. this caused me to recognize the inconsistencies in my own hermeneutics, especially in reference to the way gender non-conforming people fit into the creation. when i let the creation story speak for itself, i was finally able to see my identity as a trans woman, and the identities of every person similar to me: we’re expressions of god’s creativity and fully embraced in the creation story.42 not only was her personal understanding of herself transformed by this new understanding of god that transition brought her, but it also transformed how she approached tasks related to her ministry as a pastor, such as her hermeneutics. thus, coming out, transitioning, and other potential queer sacraments not explored here demand a response from the community. as glaser notes, a sacrament is a reciprocal act involving both giving and receiving: the sacred found in the sacrament is given and received among those involved.43 thus, just as the individual coming out or transitioning is transformed through the presence of the sacred, so too is the community. when nikko espina brought his family to a lady gaga concert as a form of indirectly coming out, they experienced the concert and the affirming message delivered by the pop star just as their son did,44 but they likely would not have received it without him. the importance of community and the individual’s role in the community is something shared by both the church and the queer community, and espina’s experience shows a bridge through which these two communities can connect with one another. 40. glaser, coming out as sacrament, 10. 41. jennifer hasler, “a transgender meditation on the beatitudes,” whosoever, march 2, 2020. 42. kalie, “a transgender journey toward pride: a creation theology,” whosoever, june 23, 2021. 43. glaser, coming out as sacrament, 10. 44. espina, “in my blood.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2022 conclusion through the experiences of queer christians connie tuttle, nikko espina, and rev. kalie, we see that there is more in common between queer experiences and christian experiences than there is in conflict. in galatians 3:28, paul writes to an unspecified christian church in galatia, counseling them that there is no difference in the eyes of god between jew or gentile, man or woman, enslaved or free person, as each member of the church has been transformed through christ. the call for a transformation towards inclusivity from queer christians echoes passages such as this one, reminding the church of the dangers that lie in binaries. the binary between queer and straight, christian and profane, is slowly broken down with the message that the presence of christ can dwell anywhere. as testimonies from many queer christians demonstrate, this call towards inclusivity is not coming from outside. the call is coming from inside the house. this call harkens back and reminds us of past calls for change in the church, from the prophets to the writings of paul to gender non-conforming saints.45 and just as sacraments require action from the community,46 the call for transformation in the church demands response from the church itself. some congregations move into that call and others reject it, but each response creates a transformation with long-lasting effects for the church that impacts not only the broader community, but individual lives. this queering of the church is not only for abstract theological reasons. homophobia in the church directly impacted connie tuttle’s individual seminary experience, and the work by her and others to make her denomination more inclusive changed the landscape for queer christians not only in the presbyterian church, but also those wishing to enact change within their own denominations. the call for change has a direct effect on both theological beliefs and the lived-out experiences of those in christianity. 45. knippel, “queer nuns,” 410. 46. glaser, coming out as sacrament, 10. middle tennessee state university 65 the call is coming from inside the house: how queer christians are transforming their faith bibliography butler, judith. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. new york: routledge, 1999. chávez, karma r. “beyond complicity: coherence, queer theory, and the rhetoric of the ‘gay christian movement.’” text and performance quarterly 24, no. 3/4 (2004): 255-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046293042000312760. douglas, mary. purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. london; new york: routledge, 2003. espina, nikko “in my blood: born this way and worthy of love.” whosoever, september 26, 2020. https://whosoever.org/in-my-blood-born-this-way-andworthy-of-love/. glaser, chris. coming out as sacrament. louisville, ky: westminster john knox press, 1998. hasler, jennifer. “a transgender meditation on the beatitudes.” whosoever, march 2, 2020. https://whosoever.org/a-transgender-meditation-on-the-beatitudes/. isherwood, lisa. “queering christ: outrageous acts and theological rebellions.” literature and theology 15, no. 3 (2001): 249–61. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/23925131. lamothe, kimerer. between dancing and writing: the practice of religious studies. new york: fordham university press, 2004. muse.jhu.edu/book/13248. ---. “what bodies know about religion and the study of it.” journal of the american academy of religion 76, no. 3 (2008): 573-601. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/ lfn054. macfarland, ian a., ed. the cambridge dictionary of christian theology. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011. kalie. “a transgender journey toward pride: a creation theology.” whosoever, june 23, 2021. https://whosoever.org/a-transgender-journey-toward-pride-a-creationtheology/. knippel, jessi. “queer nuns and genderbending saints: genderf*cking notions of normativity.” crosscurrents 69, no. 4 (2019): 402–14. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/26851800. runkel, gunter. “sexual morality of christianity.” journal of sex & marital therapy 24, no. 2 (1998): 103-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/00926239808404924. tuttle, connie l. a gracious heresy: the queer calling of an unlikely prophet. eugene, oregon: resource publications, 2018. ebsco industries. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2022 verduin, kathleen. “‘our cursed natures’: sexuality and the puritan conscience.” the new england quarterly 56, no. 2 (1983): 220–37. https://doi. org/10.2307/365199. the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 67 the creature from the british isles: the historical and contemporary importance of thomas hobbes’s political philosophy nash meade abstract political philosophy is of central importance to much of the goings-on of a nation. even though he is commonly addressed in those works at the forefront of political theory, one man often stands on the outside: thomas hobbes. hobbes is often cited as too pessimistic or too intent on the necessity of authoritarianism. although neither point is untrue, his work encompasses much more than these two characteristics, often having far more significance than many political theorists are willing to admit. this paper gives an account of hobbes’s historical importance and the reactions that he evoked, specifically in the work of john locke and jean-jacques rousseau, before progressing into an examination of his contemporary importance by using his work as a lens through which to analyze the trump and biden administrations’ respective responses to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. hobbes believed that one of humanity’s driving factors is fear and, with the current political and social situations being created by the pandemic, his fear-based political philosophy has become strikingly significant and prescient once again, which may point to a resurging importance of security—even of the authoritarian kind—in place of freedom when the world is faced with an uncertain future. this piece was originally written in spring 2021 and has since been revised to reflect more recent developments in responses to covid-19. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2022 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marked an astounding shift in philosophy. until that point, most philosophy had been commentary on the greeks, who, in those centuries, were already over two millennia old. in fact, this system was so entrenched that the twentieth-century philosopher alfred whitehead famously observed that “the safest general characterization of the european philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to plato” (39). whether whitehead’s statement can be considered an accurate description of post-seventeenth century european philosophy is a subject for scholars and historians, but one thing is certain: the seventeenth century saw a dramatic rise in original and diverse thinking. among the explosion of newfound thinking in realms such as the philosophy of mind and mathematics was the ever-important development of political philosophy. in the seventeenth century, political philosophy took the form of social contract theory, which was spearheaded by three figures: john locke, jean-jacques rousseau, and thomas hobbes. like the three olympian brothers, these three thinkers would form a new foundation of political thought and practice that continues to this day; however, much like those three brothers, two of these figures—rousseau and locke—would continue to take precedence over the third, who was relegated to the shadows. yet, like hades in the original myth, hobbes’s importance in the establishment of the de-facto social contract system cannot be overstated, as his work is the origin point for much of the rest of social contract theory even if, by contemporary standards, his pessimism and authoritarian bent leave a bad taste in democratic society’s mouth. hobbes’s influence can reasonably be split into two historical sections. the first relates to his influence on social contract theory in the years after the publication of leviathan. as one of the originators of social contract theory and prototypical modern political philosophy, hobbes’s influence is far-reaching and clear in many of the other works that political theorists hold dear. the second section relates to his modern influence. the ongoing covid-19 pandemic gives us an incredible, present example of hobbes’s theories in action as governments exert additional authority for the sake of controlling fear, thus affecting notions of liberty and freedom. unsurprisingly, in times of great turmoil, it is the work of the one who saw fear as a driving factor of humanity that becomes most relevant to the situation. thus, we will see both the historical and contemporary value of hobbes’s work, as well as see how, despite the four centuries between its original publication and the present day, leviathan continues to be a work that the majority of the population would prefer to dismiss as pessimistic than to accept as accurate in its description of fear-driven circumstances. whether or not one agrees with the choices made regarding governance during the pandemic does not detract from the fact that those decisions were clearly influenced by fear, whether that fear be of the loss of political face, economic stability, or more lives than necessary. the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 69 the leviathan spotted thomas hobbes was born in 1588 to a middle-class family in england (duncan). he was educated at oxford before becoming a tutor to the famous cavendish family, a job he kept for most of his life while he penned his works (duncan). although a well-educated man, the majority of his philosophical work was not completed until much later in his life and was most likely prompted by a meeting and subsequent conversations with galileo (duncan). much of his political philosophy was centered around the emerging british civil war, which began the same year that he published his first work of political philosophy, de cive (1642). although hobbes is now famous—or, perhaps, infamous—for his works of political philosophy, the reality is that he was an open thinker who dove into many subjects, including the emerging divide between empiricism and rationalism, the philosophy of language, and (as it would be now termed) the philosophy of mind. his work in these areas laid a foundation for many of the thinkers who would follow him, as they strove alternatively to refute his work or to build upon it. although all of hobbes’s work is incredibly important and worth discussing, his political views are the focus of this paper. as stated in the introduction, hobbes was one of the first truly modern political theorists, and, as such, he influenced nearly every single one of those authors referred to as “social contract theorists.” one of the starkest contrasts between his thought and that of other political theorists was in how he viewed the formation of government. hobbes viewed government as something built out of fear and yet also inevitable. as he now famously decreed in his magnum opus, leviathan, mankind finds itself, when not functioning in a society, in a state of “every man against every man” (76); that is, an individual’s most basic instinct is to believe that everything in the world is out to get them, a belief which found its roots in hobbes’s own materialism. in a world based entirely in matter, the basic instincts of humanity would necessarily be animalistic, and humans would therefore resort to violence to get ahead and perceive everything other than themselves as a potential threat. if everyone is living in constant fear, then everyone wants to get rid of it. the way to get rid of that fear is to create a society bounded by rules that all persons follow; thus, hobbes believed that civil society—or, rather, a government—is a natural consequence of this basic fear-instinct in man. within this system, the “bounded by rules” is the most complicated part, as it raises a myriad of questions, such as, who keeps the rules? who makes the rules? how do societies agree on the rules? these questions led hobbes to define two different fundamental structures of society: the contract and the sovereign. the social contract the social contract is, perhaps, the most important concept in all of hobbes’s work, as it formed the basis of an entire subset of political philosophy. the contract is derived from hobbes’s two fundamental laws of nature. the first law is that described above: the state of persons existing “all against all.” hobbes himself explains this law in scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 70 spring 2022 leviathan as one “by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved” (79). in more common language, this is a state of fear, in which every person will not willingly commit actions that are self-harming, yet simultaneously expects the intent to harm from others. thus, people will act in a way which leads to their self-preservation. the second law of nature defines the contract within the terms of his natural law. as hobbes writes: from this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavor peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down his right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. (80) again, in simpler terms, the second law of nature is that people, in seeking a state in which they do not have to be afraid of everything, will attempt to arrive at a mutual agreement regarding what is “rightful” to each person. the contract, then, is whatever is mutually agreed upon to be restricted or granted to the general populace. however, a contract is fundamentally worthless without a type of enforcer, which necessitates the second aspect of government and society: the sovereign. the sovereign in a radical shift from his contemporaries, hobbes rejected any notion of “divine right” or patriarchal necessity in government. in hobbes’s view, the sovereign’s powers are granted completely by the people and by their mutual agreement to the contract. however, hobbes also recognized that sovereigns will often assume more and more power after their initial power and rights as sovereign are bestowed, becoming, as the name leviathan suggests, a living beast. in his words: this [the giving up of natural rights in contract] is the generation of that great leviathan, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal god, our peace and defense. for by his authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that by terror thereof he is enabled to conform the wills of them all to peace at home and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. (109) the sovereign—the body of government (an idiom that we trace back to hobbes) and its person-head—is but an artificial being of great power, designated via contract to protect the citizenry through all forms of governmental action. these two notions—the social contract and the sovereign—that hobbes describes are the foundation of all other social contract treatises. every other social contract thinker would either agree with or refute his initial definition of the contract, the laws of nature on which his contract is based, or the sovereign. this has, in turn, the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 71 lead to the modern branching concepts of good government that contrast with those theorized by plato and aristotle nearly two millennia before, even if some of these forms of government (such as democracy and tyranny) overlap. although hobbes delves into much greater detail regarding different modes of contract and the ways in which sovereigns act, this basic overview of the two terms serves as grounding enough for a discussion of how other contract theories differ from his original notions. the dissenters although hobbes collected a multitude of dissenters during and after his time, his most important dissenters—within the realm of political philosophy—are other social contract theorists. similar to how a distaste for freud’s theories of the unconscious led to much of modern psychology, distaste for hobbes’s work led to the formulation of a large swathe of modern political philosophy. perhaps the most famous of hobbes’s dissenters is john locke, whose name bears special significance within the conceptions of civil society held in the united states. his impact is such that he is almost directly quoted in the declaration of independence, which proclaims that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed with by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” locke himself asserted this idea nearly a century earlier in the second of his two treatises of government, stating “… and reason, which is that law [of nature], teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (271). born forty-four years after hobbes, locke also found himself entangled in political turmoil across multiple nations thanks to his justification for the glorious revolution in england and the netherlands (uzgalis). while hobbes was dealing with the internal turmoil of britain and the question of how to prevent other nations from deteriorating into a state of civil war, john locke was embroiled in the question—and ongoing political squabbles surrounding the question—of what qualified as legitimate government. locke’s most distinctive features as a philosopher are also what radically separate him from hobbes’s work. principally, locke viewed authoritarianism with disdain, whereas hobbes—though he never stated that he was pro-authoritarianism specifically—had fewer problems with authoritarianism as a form of government (locke 276). additionally, locke argued for a fundamentally less centralized government, while hobbes was in favor of a highly centralized government. these differing views are easily understood when each philosopher’s historical context is recalled. hobbes watched as a weakened monarch was overthrown during the chaos and destruction of the british civil war, while locke spent his years watching despotic kings do damage to england, an experience that led him to participate in working to overthrow england’s king and having parliament established as england’s primary governing body (“glorious revolution”). given these respective experiences, each man’s perspective is understandable. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2022 in addition to their diverging views on government, locke was very explicit in his disagreement with hobbes regarding how the natural world operates. locke was unwilling to accept that all of nature is particularly violent and instead believed the light of reason was strong enough to prevent such horror. as he phrases it in his two treatises, “the state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possession” (271). most importantly, this perspective led locke to dissent from hobbes’s view of how government is formed or what its role must be. unlike hobbes, locke believed that the governance is not to be seen as absolute because it is impossible for it to be any less human than the citizenry that grants it its power. locke explains that “absolute monarchs are but men, and if government is to be the remedy of those evils [stealing, murder, etc.]. which necessarily follow from men being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, i desire…” (276). thus, he noted that even centralized government will be fallible and endeavored to prove that, by contrast, a government with less power and more participation from the citizenry is a better safeguard against the dangers of the “state of nature.” the social contract then, for locke, is something that is much more participatory and volitional. hobbes, on the other hand, although believing contract does require some volition, thought that contracts—and the governments that spring from them—will be necessitated by the state of fear endemic to human nature. in other words, locke sees legitimate government as only coming about by reasoned contractual agreement by all parties, while hobbes holds that government can come about by necessity. hobbes and locke also held starkly different beliefs regarding what operates as a legitimate government. specifically, locke believed in the role of the majority, which is effectively non-existent in hobbes’s work. again, locke predominantly focused on decentralizing government power, while hobbes wasinterested in the reverse (uzgalis). in fact, hobbes believed that there are situations where the sovereign or government must take additional power for the sake of the society, even if the citizenry has some objections to it (leviathan, 127). locke would see such assumption of power as a warning bell that the government is falling into despotism or tyranny. the two men do, however, agree that government—and that rational contract through government—is one of the best ways to prevent war. another major social contract theorist to distance himself from hobbes was jean jacques rousseau. rousseau arguably marks an ideological midway point between locke and hobbes. locke believed in the power of the people and in a limited form of government, while hobbes attributed less power to the people and saw the sovereign as an acting figure that needed to be powerful. rousseau threads the needle of this debate, agreeing with hobbes on the laws of nature but rejecting the sovereign altogether, going the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 73 even further than locke on the issue. rousseau, like hobbes, believed that people were naturally free and that this freedom could lead to common dangers, including the danger of giving up such freedom to the wrong ends, such as a despotic government (the social contract, 64-65). although he is not nearly as adamant as hobbes about this freedom leading to a situation of all persons being self-interested and violent, rousseau does recognize that the freedom—and its attendant possibilities—are there. where rousseau is unique among the contract theorists is in his borderline proto-marxist conception of the role of government. rousseau believed that it was of such importance for individuals to be a part of the legislative and executive operations that no sovereign or representative system of government could ever accurately portray the will of the people (bertram). this directly contradicted hobbes who was certain that the sovereign was the most important aspect of the social contract. hobbes saw a contract without a sovereign as void, a state he believed would lead, eventually and inevitably, to the state of all against all once more. although both locke and rousseau held their own ideas of what the social contract should be, hobbes’s influence in their thought is clear. hobbes invited thinkers into a full revolution of political and philosophical thought, leading to branches of the social contract theory and eventually the buds of current political theory. of course, as nations have stabilized in the last couple of centuries and the “democratic peace,” as it is called, has taken shape, the discussion of “fear” and “sovereigns” has fallen out of favor. however, hobbes’s theories, like the great leviathan after which he named his book, are only resting deep beneath the surface of current discourse. with the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 to the now-slowing omicron covid variant of 2022, the leviathan has awakened once more, and its serpentine body slithers across the entire world in the form of this invisible virus. the return of the leviathan the years 2020 and 2021 have given much of the world unprecedented experience with many of hobbes’s original political theories. although not every nation has dealt with the covid-19 pandemic in the same way or experienced a serious uptick in cases, many countries are continuing to deal with the pandemic on the political level. everything from travel embargoes to the outright halt of economic trade have been put on the table, to varying degrees of success. what is most important in the context of our discussion, however, is how the actions of these various governments function within the context of hobbes’s theories. although most of the western world operates under a democratic system that more closely resembles the ideas of locke and rousseau, the growing pandemic caused a rapid, albeit subtle, shift towards a loss of democratic functions for the sake of allowing governments more active and overarching control to quell the virus and the fear associated with it. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2022 as we have previously discussed, hobbes—unlike his contemporaries—saw fear as the driving force of human action, political or otherwise. thus, from a hobbesian perspective, when a pandemic created by a highly infectious novel strain of a virus started to spread quickly, fear became the driving motivation of humanity once again. the push and pull of fear and security can be seen in nearly every societal and governmental response to the pandemic; however, that tug-of-war is particularly clear in the united states for one very important reason: presidential succession. unlike most nations during this time, the united states experienced a transition of power during the pandemic, which gave the world a display of two different approaches to the pandemic, approaches that illustrate a range of actions that can be taken in pursuit of balancing fear and security in cases such as these. indeed, the approaches of former president trump and current president biden create two intriguing responses to the political theories of hobbes. before progressing into a comparison of the features of those responses, it must be noted that president biden has succeeded president trump, meaning that his office is operating with not only more information concerning the virus but also plans that were set in motion by the previous administration, leading to an even more interesting discussion of the ideas of hobbes. it is also important to note that this is a discussion purely of the governmental response; the response of the citizenry is a non-factor here. the trump administration: the only thing to fear is fear itself the response of the trump administration through the majority of 2020 was sporadic and unfocused. this, of course, is to be expected from an initial reaction to an unknown virus. what is most important to our discussion, however, is that the initial response was within the purview of powers of an american presidential administration. although a travel embargo was placed on china and a reduction of domestic and international travel was strongly encouraged, the hypotheticals were often downplayed, for better or worse (ajmc). moving past some of the extreme rhetoric that arose from the political scene, the plan was clear: control the panic. the administration played it “cool,” if you will, neither shifting between different measures each day nor overstating the clearly dangerous aspects of the virus. this strategy only partially worked, but the plan, seemingly, was to take each day at a time and then consider the next steps. it was not until the two-week national lockdown in march 2020 that the actions of the administration expanded into any additional powers (ajmc; “federal response to covid-19”). at this time, congress imposed a national lockdown, which, although a reasonable move amid a pandemic, is beyond its purview as a governing body as it is not mentioned within the powers bestowed to it in the united states constitution (article 1, section 8). as hobbes expected nearly five centuries ago, fear showed itself to be a driving factor of the movement of government, causing it to behave in ways in which it the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 75 was not initially intended. the decision for the lockdown was informed predominantly by the perceived fear and danger of the virus, and much of the populace was willing to allow congress to impose more control for the sake of security at the time. after the lockdown, the discussion evolved into whether a national mask mandate should be imposed. although this conversation is still ongoing with the biden administration, the trump administration decided not to impose one, instead giving it to the states to mandate (which then went to individual counties in some states). the reasoning was simple: it is not in the authority of the federal government to impose such a mandate. in this case, the administration stood against hobbes, deciding not to take additional centralized power to thwart the threat, even though the populace seemed more than ready to agree to such a contract,1 which is, perhaps, a rare occurrence in the history of politics. the biden administration: walking the wire since the biden administration began its work in january 2021, one thing has become abundantly clear: the virus is still a serious threat. although vaccines have rolled out at a rapid pace and the virus itself seems to be weakening, it is still being regarded as something dangerous and to be feared. whether such rhetoric is accurate or not, it has ignited conversations on two topics that are relevant to hobbes’s theories: mandatory vaccination and the release of power. mandatory vaccination has become a hot topic since the middle of 2021 with the rollout of more readily available vaccines. like the trump administration, the biden administration (along with most major businesses) has recognized that making vaccination mandatory falls outside of its jurisdiction and has relied on “strongly encouraging” individuals to take the vaccine once it is available for their age group. as with a mask mandate, however, this action is entirely rooted in the question of whether individual freedom should be given up for the sake of national security. it may be safer for the entire nation if every individual took the vaccine, but from the standpoint of political theory, we must be concerned with questioning the type of action the government has taken against its people if safety measures are forced upon them in the name of security. the release of power is, however, the more pressing and relevant question. among some groups of people in the united states, conversations regarding the “eternal pandemic” have become mainstream (greshko; wallace-wells). a mask mandate that will continue indefinitely, a vaccine that must be regularly reapplied for new strains, and other similar precautions are all slowly being mentioned in newspapers and on news sites (cline). although this question does not initially impress as being entirely on the political radar, these thoughts and ideas are among those that hobbes saw as possible 1. consolidated research from pew over the last two years of the pandemic shows that the majority of american were in favor of restrictions and lockdowns (all things imposed by congress beyond their official authority), which includes mask mandates, during the early months (i.e., trump administration) of the pandemic (pew). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2022 several centuries ago. in situations where a government must take additional control for the sake of security, the promise of it giving back this power is never guaranteed. what will be done in the name of security? what will be done out of fear? these questions have become increasingly relevant as recent moves to crackdown on “vaccine misinformation” has led the government to consider censorship through social media platforms—a move that is, unquestionably, well outside of the federal government’s legislative and executive authority.2 however, as hobbes would ask, is it governmental overreach, or a necessary breach of contract for the security of the citizens? answering such questions as those posed in this paragraph is less important for the purposes of this paper than the single conclusion to which these questions point: hobbesian philosophy has not lost its relevancy in the twenty-first century and, on the contrary, will continue to increase in relevancy as governmental responses to the pandemic continue. conclusion the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted several of the cracks in america’s political philosophy and the dominant democratic philosophies of locke and rousseau in more ways than one. from the incredibly slow process of representative government to the ever-increasing political divide between parties and their respective ideologies, the pandemic has made it clear that, as much as we want to consider ourselves as having evolved beyond or above such matters as those of which hobbes spoke four centuries ago, we have not. as of early 2022, the political philosophy of hobbes is still strikingly valuable to our discussions of government and its reach in the face of something which instills fear. although hobbes’s is a name that seems rarely to find its way into current conversation, his work is clearly imperative to many modern modes of thought. this paper has solely discussed his influence on political philosophy, but his work in multiple areas, including the philosophy of mind, still finds relevance today. his impact on early modern european thought cannot be overstated, but his current influence, especially during a pandemic, is also important. even as politicians mull over the many possibilities that are presented to them in the face of this virus, their views, unwittingly, align or disagree with his work. this, perhaps, is the beauty of all philosophy—that one can unwittingly espouse a philosophical work in the name of something else. every time a politician or pundit employs such catch-all phrasing as “for our safety,” “for the security of the nation,” or “to neutralize the threat,” our minds ought to drift towards hobbes and his great leviathan coming out of the sea. the social contract theorists of centuries ago considered their words and the words of their sovereigns carefully for the sake of seeing whether the 2. per the 10th amendment to the united states constitution, any authority not explicitly given to congress is given to the states. national lockdown, even in the case of a public health emergency, is not a power given to congress, thereby making it beyond their purview as a governing body (the bill of rights). the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 77 leviathan was real or simply a loch ness monster hiding beneath the waters of political philosophy. as the covid-19 pandemic continues, we ought to consider the work of the social contract theorists and the words of our own governments carefully, lest we fail to see the attempted overreach of governments, leading societies to be carried into the sea in the leviathan’s unyielding, tyrannical tentacles. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2022 works cited ajmc staff. “a timeline of covid-19 developments in 2020.” american journal of managed care, 1 jan. 2021, https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19developments-in-2020. accessed 28 apr. 2021. bertram, christopher. “jean jacques rousseau.” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (winter 2020 edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/. accessed 28 apr. 2021. cline, sara. “as mask mandates end, oregon bucks trend with permanent rule.” associated press, 17 apr. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/oregon-general-newsgovernment-and-politics-business-lifestyle-6f7f919d27644d02c330da5a8648 af95. accessed 28 apr. 2021. deane, claudia et al., “a year of u.s. public opinion on the coronavirus pandemic.” pew research center, 5 mar. 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/03/05/a-yearof-u-s-public-opinion-on-the-coronavirus-pandemic/. accessed 20 mar. 2022. duncan, stewart. “thomas hobbes.” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (spring 2021 edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/. accessed 28 apr. 2021. “federal government response to the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, 20202021.” ballotpedia, last updated 28 apr. 2022, https://ballotpedia.org/ federal_government_responses_to_the_coronavirus_(covid-19)_ pandemic,_2020-2021. accessed 28 apr. 2021. “glorious revolution.” encyclopedia britannica, 15 may 2020, https://www.britannica. com/event/glorious-revolution. accessed 20 mar. 2022. greshko, michael. “covid-19 will likely be with us forever. here’s how we’ll live with it.” national geographic, 22 jan. 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic. com/science/article/covid-19-will-likely-be-with-us-forever-heres-how-welllive-with-it. accessed 28 apr. 2021 hobbes, thomas. leviathan. 1651. edited by edwin curley, hackett publishing, 1994. locke, john. two treatises of government. 1689. edited by peter laslett, cambridge university press, 1988. rousseau, jean-jacques. the social contract. 1762. translated by maurice cranston, penguin classics, 1968. “the bill of rights: a transcription.” the u.s. national archives and records administration, last reviewed 19 jan. 2022, https://www.archives.gov/foundingdocs/bill-of-rights-transcript. accessed 24 mar. 2022. “the constitution of the united states: a transcription. national archives.” the u.s. national archives and records administration, last reviewed 7 oct. 2021, https:// www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript. accessed 24 mar. 2022. uzgalis, william, “john locke.” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (spring 2020 the creature from the british isles middle tennessee state university 79 edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/. accessed 28 apr. 2021. wallace-wells, david. “what if herd immunity is out of reach?” new york magazine: intelligencer, 5 feb. 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/what-if-thecovid-pandemic-never-really-ends.html. accessed 28 apr. 2021. whitehead, alfred north. process and reality. free press, 1979. he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 47 he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus hayley rhodes wittenberg abstract homer’s iliad has been a pillar in western literature for centuries. following the story of the trojan war, the epic introduces us to achilles, the greatest warrior of greece. although in most of the epic achilles has abstained from fighting, he rejoins after the death of his dearest companion, patroclus. achilles’s relationship with patroclus has been heavily debated since antiquity, with the likes of plato arguing their status as lovers. recently, there has been a shift in the accepted dogma, with more historians accepting the fact that achilles and patroclus’s relationship was more than simply platonic. this analysis lays out the evidence to support this claim and adds to the scholarship on queer interpretations of the iliad. this article compiles direct material from the iliad, information from other scholars, and works from historical figures such as plato. there are several pieces of evidence that show that achilles and patroclus enjoyed a very close, very intimate relationship with each other. it would be inaccurate and a disservice to the works of homer to assert that there were no romantic attachments between the two. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2023 “rage—goddess, sing the rage of peleus’ son, achilles” (iliad 1.1). the opening lines to homer’s famous epic, the iliad, start the reader on a journey of rage. achilles, the fearsome warrior, is known for his godlike fury and prowess in battle. he was the person who defeated armies, bested gods, and almost single handedly caused the fall of troy. achilles’s famous rage, however, was fueled by grief. this grief was caused by the death of patroclus: his dearest friend, closest companion, and arguably, his lover. historians have often branded achilles and patroclus as merely close friends, but it is a disservice to the pair to strip their relationship of such an important aspect. now historians have begun to change their opinions, such as edith hall, saying that the iliad, “offered ancient greek men a model of idealized love between men in the relationship between achilles and patroclus” (62). assigning sexualities to historical figures is always a point of contention, because in many ways modern terms and classifications hardly capture the variety of ways sexuality was expressed in ancient times. this is largely due to the fact that, as halperin states, “no single category of discourse or experience existed in the premodern and non-western worlds that comprehended exactly the same range of same-sex sexual behaviors, desires, psychologies, and socialities, as well as the various forms of gender deviance, that now fall within the capacious definitional boundaries of homosexuality” (89). it would be inaccurate to compare the relationship of achilles and patroclus to modern homosexual relationships, or to say they were exclusively gay men. these terms hold very specific cultural meanings and have changed through time in various ways around the world. having a homosexual/gay label meant something different in london in the nineteenth century, in the united states in the 1980s, and in greece during the bronze age. being aware of this, using modern terminology offers clarity and is a convenient way to explain the nature of their relationship. however, these labels are not perfect and are not a base evaluation. who were achilles and patroclus? it is important to paint a portrait of who these heroes were individually before analyzing their relationship with each other. achilles is one of the only heroes whose life is documented quite literally from the cradle to the grave, and he is also such a larger-than-life character in homer’s iliad. achilles was the son of king peleus, who ruled over the kingdom of phthia, and thetis, an immortal sea nymph (alexander 29). within the iliad, much of what is told about achilles is his fury, and his refusal to rejoin the war effort at troy. he is sometimes portrayed as extremely egotistical and only worried about his fame and glory, which was promised to him for his participation in the trojan war (iliad 9.151). he is extremely strong-willed and obstinate, which is he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 49 exceedingly evident in the famous quarrel between achilles and agamemnon at the opening of the iliad. their argument, which sets the trajectory of the entire epic, was over the return of the daughter of chryses, a priest of apollo. because agamemnon had disrespected the god apollo by taking his priest’s daughter as a war prize, apollo had sent a plague upon the greeks. illness and death would remain until father and daughter were reunited. angered by having to return chryseis, agamemnon threatened to take achilles’s war prize, briseis. faced with being dishonored in such a public way, at that moment achilles swore he would withdraw from the fight if briseis is taken away from him. achilles states, “i am returning to phthia, since it is much better to go home again [...], i am minded no longer to stay here dishonored” (alexander 1821). achilles’s quick temper is not only evidenced in the iliad but seems to be a popular trend in epic tradition. summaries of lost trojan cycle poems indicate that achilles was often quarreling with allied heroes. in cypria, achilles argues with agamemnon over a late invitation to a feast, and in aethiopis, achilles kills thersites after being insulted by him. the odyssey also mentions a quarrel between achilles and odysseus (alexander 19). stubborn, quick to anger, quick to kill, but above all, great. repeatedly, achilles is spoken of in terms of his godlike abilities. his mother, thetis, had been given the prophecy that she was to bear a son greater than his father, a mortal who would be the best of the greeks (alexander 29). however, that greatness would cost his life; another prophecy entailed that if he were to sail to troy he would be famous, but he also would never return (iliad 9.151). these points played into his anger towards agamemnon; achilles had willingly given his life for promised honor, yet by being dishonored he had lost both. achilles is a complex character in this regard; he is already renowned as the best fighter of the greeks yet is willing to push that boundary by bargaining his life for fame. he desires it more than anything, but it is also something that brings him immense sorrow. achilles weeps to thetis after briseis is taken from him, and in his sorrow begs his mother to go to zeus and ask him to make the achaeans pay deeply for the wrong they have done to him. it is a murderous request; asking for zeus to “help the trojans and pin the achaeans back against the ships and the water” (alexander 26). he asks for them to pay with their lives, because in a sense, achilles had done the same. patroclus, despite being a key pillar in the iliad’s plot, and the driving force behind achilles’s actions, is a side character within the epic. he does not speak until book 11, when the trojans have pushed back the greeks and attacked their ships. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2023 patroclus’s first words ask achilles what he needs of him, and relatedly, patroclus’s last words are achilles’s name (clarke 390). his entire existence is within achilles’s orbit, including his death. however, he is undoubtedly one of the most important characters in the iliad, because his death is a direct cause of the climax of the story. if not for the death of patroclus, achilles would have never returned to war. he would not have sought to kill hector so ferociously, and the tides would not have turned in the greek’s favor. the proof of this can be seen in book 9, when the embassy is sent to try and convince achilles to rejoin the fight. instead of naming a price or compromise to make him fight again, achilles listens to the pleas of odysseus, and then simply tells odysseus that he plans to sail back home to phthia the next day. achilles states plainly, “since i have no desire to battle glorious hector, tomorrow at daybreak [...] you will see my squadron sail at dawn” (iliad 9:434-438). from that moment, achilles had no interest in war, and only wanted to go home. known for being gentle and kind, patroclus is seemingly an unlikely choice for achilles’s therapon, his closest companion (alexander 147). he is older than achilles and was told by his father to be good counsel to achilles as they went to war (clarke 388). achilles calls him illustrious; it is shown that he is well-liked among the men of their myrmidon camp and the rest of the greek encampment (alexander 131). patroclus’s gentle nature is evident in book 16, when the trojans are attacking the greek encampment. patroclus is sent by achilles to gather information from nestor, yet along the way he stops to help wounded soldiers (iliad 16.193-194). when he returns, he is so overcome by seeing the wounded and dead greeks that he weeps as he speaks to achilles (clarke 391). throughout the epic, achilles only speaks of patroclus as an equal to him (clarke 192). though patroclus is known for being kind, he is also an amazing warrior; since he is the companion of achilles, that fact is not surprising. homer even goes so far as to describe patroclus as looking “like mars [ares] himself,” the god of war (iliad11.188, clarification added). in many ways, achilles and patroclus are opposites. achilles is strong-willed and ill tempered, while patroclus is cool-headed and affable. but it seems that it is a kind of perfect balance; patroclus is the only person who can scold achilles without achilles lashing out, and patroclus is calm enough on achilles’s behalf to give him level-headed advice. achilles and patroclus often stayed separate from the others in order to converse with each other; when speaking to patroclus’s ghost in book 23, achilles tells patroclus that he misses their private counsel away from the rest of the soldiers (iliad 23). they have a very interesting dynamic; achilles is brash and bold, but patroclus is able to steady him, while achilles is able to bolster patroclus, who is he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 51 content to stay cool and collected. this dynamic works well within the boundaries of companionship, but even more so within the boundaries of lovers. achilles and patroclus: classical views the iliad has been popular since its fruition and has been discussed for centuries among philosophers and literary scholars alike. among the most popular discussions is that of achilles and patroclus, with the nature of their relationship being a matter of contention: was it homosexual or simply friendship? and, if it was indeed homosexual, was it pederastic? invariably, ancient scholars saw their relationship through the lens of pederasty. pederasty in ancient greece was a form of socially accepted homosexuality, wherein older men (the erastes) shared a romantic and sexual relationship with younger boys (the eromenos) (mariscal and morales 292). interestingly enough, much of the debate was on who was the erastes, the lover, and who was the eromenos, the beloved. this label was used by ancient scholars as a means to explain the relationship achilles and patroclus shared but fell apart for many reasons. plato, through the mouth of phaedrus in his symposium, speaks of achilles and patroclus as undeniable lovers (jowett 153). not only does plato explicitly call them lovers, but he also assigns achilles the role of eromenos and patroclus the role of erastes. he states, “the notion that patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error [...], for achilles was surely the fairer of the two, [...] he was still beardless, and younger far” (jowett 153). plato also stated that achilles’s willingness to die to avenge patroclus’s death shows how much achilles revered his erastes. he goes on to say that they were true lovers and were divinely approved because the gods honor the virtue of love. plato also alludes to aeschylus’ tragedy myrmidons in his symposium. aeschylus assigned achilles and patroclus opposite of plato, for which plato called him “foolish”. it is very interesting for plato to categorize them as he did, because it would put patroclus in a position of power over achilles instead of the contrary; achilles, as a prince of higher status and renowned warrior, seems to be the obvious choice as erastes (jowett 153). though ancient scholars were willing to openly claim that achilles and patroclus shared an intimate relationship, it is not entirely accurate to place them within the confines of ritual pederasty. firstly, achilles and patroclus were close in age, which went against the basis of pederasty, as it was meant to be shared between an older man and a younger boy. also, as was just previously mentioned, patroclus is technically of lower status than achilles, which would make his being the erastes unlikely. most importantly, however, is that pederasty was not practiced during the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2023 time period of the iliad; the epic was set within the greek bronze age (1750 to 1050 bc), and pederasty was not practiced until the end of the archaic period (around the fifth century bc) (chadwick 37; mariscal and morales 292). it should also be added that pederasty was not a permanent situation, and most relationships ended once the younger of the two was of marrying age. achilles and patroclus were well past marrying age, yet neither of them had taken wives, despite achilles being the only son and heir of phthia, and no doubt having plenty of options to choose from for his bride. achilles and patroclus in love much of what there is to be seen about the nature of achilles and patroclus’s relationship occurs after patroclus’s death. however, there are still examples that show their love for one another in their interactions from when patroclus is still alive. the best example is from book 16, when patroclus comes to achilles weeping, telling him of the destruction that has befallen the greeks. achilles is moved by patroclus’s words and tears, which is the first time since he withdrew from fighting that he has cared about the fate of his compatriots (iliad 16.261). patroclus convinces achilles to let him go and fight in his armor, as a way to trick the trojans into thinking achilles has rejoined the fight. the following passage shows in simple terms the exclusive intimacy that the pair share; after instructing patroclus, achilles tells him wistfully, “‘let them all perish [...] all the trojans and yes all the achaeans too, except we two; and may we two, alone, then share the ultimate glory of taking troy’” (qtd. in clarke 385, emphasis added). this passage also shows how highly achilles holds patroclus; his ruthlessness and egotism yields only to patroclus, and not only that, achilles yields it to him readily and naturally (clarke 385). the only parallel we see of such a connection in the poem is that of meleager, in a parable told by phoenix. speaking to achilles during the embassy to him in book 9, phoenix tells the story of a great warrior, meleager, who withdraws from a war with his wife, cleopatra, after feeling disrespected (clarke 394). no one can convince him to rejoin the cause, and in the end, meleager only yields to his wife, who tearfully begs him to take up arms again to save their city. achilles, in a rage at agamemnon, withdraws from the fight with patroclus. no one, not achilles’s friends or other companions, or agamemnon or odysseus, can convince achilles to rejoin the fight. only patroclus’s tearful appeal makes achilles yield, much like meleager and his wife. it can be said that the implication of comparing achilles and patroclus to meleager and cleopatra was purposeful on the part of homer. in plain words, it shows the strength of their bond and the weight of patroclus’s words to achilles, not unlike that of a wife to a husband. he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 53 throughout the epic, achilles states repeatedly that he honors patroclus above all his other companions, equal only to himself. no other hero makes such a statement about another, and again shows the exclusive intimacy of their relationship. achilles speaks as if they are one person, which is something that other characters of the iliad also recognize. besides patroclus, no other character is related to in terms of their relationship to another person, nor are they referred to as someone’s “dearest companion” so often. though that name does not exactly express a deep relationship, the frequency that it and other terms are used shows the importance of such an emphasis. after patroclus leaves for battle, achilles goes and prays to zeus to bring patroclus back to him unharmed, which is another unique and unparalleled action in the iliad (iliad 16.267). in an analysis of the men’s relationship with one another, clarke states, “the strength of achilles’s feelings for patroclus is crucial to the climax of the iliad, […] for only patroclus living can persuade achilles to forgo his determination to keep his men from the fight” (394). of course, the best examples overall of the intimacy and closeness of the two are shown through achilles’s grief. when antilochus comes to achilles and tells him what has happened to patroclus —that he was struck down by the trojan prince hector— achilles reacts violently and immediately. though achilles is known for a short temper, this outpouring of emotion is pure anguish. when briseis was taken away from him, achilles was angry enough to almost kill agamemnon. in this instance, achilles is so distraught that the people around him worry he would kill himself. after hearing the news achilles falls to his knees, pours dirt over his head and rips out his hair; wailing so loudly that his mother thetis hears him in the depths of the sea. achilles has to be held down as he screams and cries, out of fear that he will slit his own throat. achilles’s mother appears then and asks him what has happened. groaning, achilles tells her, “my dear comrade patroclus has fallen – he whom i valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life” (iliad 18.304). shortly after, he vows to slaughter hector, saying, “i will not live nor go about mankind unless hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for having slain patroclus son of menoetius [...] whom i loved so dearly” (iliad 18.304). achilles also expresses his consuming guilt, saying that he would rather “die here and now, in that i could not save my comrade. he has fallen far from home, and in his hour of need my hand was not there to help him” (iliad 18.304). achilles blames himself for not being able to save patroclus, which only adds to his grief. there is a fight over patroclus’s body on the battlefield, and it is only because of achilles that the greeks are actually able to retrieve patroclus’s body from the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 54 spring 2023 trojans; being blessed by the goddess athena, achilles screams loud enough to scare the trojans, and send them on retreat. when they bring patroclus’s body back, achilles washes it and wraps it in cloth. he refuses to eat or drink, and keeps patroclus’s body in their shared tent, where he weeps and does not sleep (iliad 18.310). achilles describes the grief of losing patroclus being worse than losing his father peleus as well as his son, neoptolemus. achilles states, “i’m sick with longing for you! there is no more shattering a blow that i could suffer. not even if i should learn of my own father’s death, [...] or the death of my dear son” (iliad 19.382-388). achilles had prepared for his own death and accepted it, since he was aware of the prophecies surrounding his life, but never had he imagined that he would live, and patroclus would die. he states as much in book 19, “till now i made sure that i alone was to fall here at troy away from argos, while you [patroclus] were to return to phthia, bring back my son with you [...] and show him the greatness of my house” (19.325, clarification added). achilles had planned for patroclus to raise his son, and to live a long life at his father’s house in phthia even if achilles would die in troy. achilles’s most overt act of grief is the brutal killing and abuse of hector. his grief-fueled rage brings him back to battle, where he kills twelve trojan princes as he hunts down hector. achilles fights the river scamander in order to reach hector, and eventually kills hector by throwing a spear into his neck (iliad 21, 22). achilles is violent and brutal, and his seething anger is evident as he berates hector as he lay dying. achilles says, “the achaeans shall give him [patroclus] all due funeral rites, while dogs and vultures shall work their will upon yourself ” (iliad 22.365, clarification added). hector begs achilles not to let dogs devour his body, and for achilles to let his family bury him properly. to this, achilles replies, “dog, talk not to me neither of knees nor parents; would that i could be as sure of being able to cut your flesh into pieces and eat it raw, for the ill you have done me” (iliad 22.365). the shift in tone within this passage is stark compared to how achilles addressed hector in book 9, when he had no interest in fighting the “glorious” hector. the rage and bloodlust achilles now possesses stems from the untimely death of his mate. though achilles has guilt because he had not been there to protect patroclus in his final moments, hector is the reason why, and so that blame fuels achilles’s punishing vengeance. although it has been made clear that if achilles were to kill hector he would also die, achilles kills him without a second thought to self-preservation. achilles is immediately at peace with that fact; after hector has died, achilles tells his corpse, “die; for my part i will accept my fate whensoever jove [zeus] and the other gods see fit to send it” (iliad 22.366, clarification added). achilles then proceeds to desecrate he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 55 hector’s body by tying it to his chariot, with a rope that was strung through the sinews of hector’s ankles. he drags hector’s body around the battlefield while hector’s father priam looks on helplessly, distraught and mortified. back at the camp, achilles still has not buried patroclus. achilles has refused to bathe, even though his body is sullied from battle, and states he will not do so until he has properly buried patroclus (clarke 393). he also says he will shave his head as a public act of mourning, “for so long as i live no such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh me” (iliad 23.372). as stated before, patroclus’s demise has struck achilles worse than if his father and son had both died, a type of despair that is deeper than anything else he has ever felt or could ever feel. what is striking about achilles’s violent grief is how it is contrasted by the tenderness in which he handles patroclus’s body, and his allusions to their shared past intimacy. the closeness shared by achilles and patroclus is unique among the heroes of the epic; the only similar acts of physicality we see between other men are in rare situations, such as the hand holding between agamemnon and his brother menelaus when menelaus was wounded (iliad 4.71). also, the other companions closest to achilles outside of patroclus, automendon and antilochus, are not evidenced to share this same form of intimacy. when thetis comes to achilles in his tent, he is embracing patroclus; he lays his hands on patroclus’s breast; he holds patroclus’s head (clarke 393). patroclus, in ghostly form, also speaks of familiar intimacy between them: “you were not uncaring of me”; “hold my hand, i am grieving”; and, in simple words, “a last request – grant it, please. never bury my bones away from yours, achilles, let them lie together” (clarke 391). of all the unparalleled moments in the iliad, patroclus’s request of achilles is the most poignant, and implies that they were so closely bonded in life that even in death they cannot be separated. achilles, in reply, tells patroclus he will do everything he asks, and says, “draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one another, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows” (iliad 23.373). achilles then opens his arms to embrace patroclus, but patroclus’s ghost disappears. he spends the rest of the night weeping. this level of loyalty and devotion between brothers in arms is unique within the iliad and greek culture. it is not paralleled until centuries later with the spartans, but they too are seen as unique, isolated incidents within the composite culture of classical greece (hall 170). when the time finally comes to bury patroclus, achilles cuts off a lock of his hair and places it in patroclus’s hands. this lock of hair is significant, not only because it is another unparalleled action on achilles’s part within the iliad, but because it is the lock that achilles had promised to his father peleus (iliad 23.374). achilles was only supposed to cut this lock of hair when he returned home from war so that he could scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 56 spring 2023 offer it to the river spercheius, one of the main rivers that fed phthia. achilles seems to sacrifice this piece of himself to patroclus instead, because patroclus’s death is now the main force driving achilles’s actions, not the promise of going home and living a comfortable life. he states, “now, therefore, that i shall see my home no more, i give this lock as a keepsake to the hero patroclus” (iliad 23.374). achilles, resigned, is ready to die. conclusion ancient scholars were correct in believing that patroclus and achilles were more than just companions. while one cannot discredit the importance of platonic relationships, it is quite clear from the source material that patroclus and achilles were lovers. divinely approved, and equally matched as half of the other. achilles’s emotions, his love and grief, drive the story of the iliad. patroclus lived his entire life within the life of achilles, and in turn he is the only person more important to achilles than himself, his own life, his ego, and honor. as aeschines stated, any “educated man” can clearly see what homer meant by the relationship of achilles and patroclus, even though it is never explicitly stated within the iliad (clark 396). after looking at ample evidence, it is safe to assume that they enjoyed a relationship that transcended friendship, that they loved each other in life with promises to continue to do so even after death. achilles and patroclus live on in a memory that is fitting for them; one cannot be separated from the other, and they will continue to remain together, just as their ashes and bones were laid together, in the underworld and beyond. he whom i loved as dearly as my own life: an analysis of the relationship between achilles and patroclus middle tennessee state university 57 works cited alexander, caroline. the war that killed achilles. viking, new york, 2009. chadwick, john. “life in mycenaean greece.” scientific american, vol. 227, no. 4, 1972, pp. 36-45. clarke, w. m.. “achilles and patroclus in love.” hermes, vol. 106, no. 3, 1978, pp. 381-396. hall, edith. introducing the ancient greeks: from bronze age seafarers to navigators of the western mind. w. w. norton & company, london, 2014. halperin, david m.. “how to do the history of male homosexuality.” glq: a journal of lesbian and gay studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 2000, pp. 87-124. homer. the iliad. translated by samuel butler. arcturus publishing limited, london, 2021. morales, manuel sanz, gabriel laguna mariscal. “the relationship between achilles and patroclus according to chariton of aphrodisias.” the classical quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, 2003, pp. 292-295. plato. the dialogues of plato. translated by benjamin jowett. the u of chicago p, chicago, 1952. suggested further reading gabriel laguna-mariscal, manuel sanz-morales. “was the relationship between achilles and patroclus homoerotic? the view of apollonius rhodius.” hermes, vol. 133, no. 1, 2005, pp. 120–23. jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4477639. graziosi, barbara, and johannes haubold. homer: the resonance of epic. london: duckworth, 2005. hubbard, t. k. homosexuality in greece and rome: a sourcebook of basic documents. berkeley, los angeles, london, 2003. lane fox, robin. traveling heroes: greeks and their myths in the epic age of homer. london: allen lane, 2009. levin, saul. “love and the hero of the iliad.” transactions and proceedings of the american philological association, vol. 80, 1949, pp. 37–49. jstor, https://doi. org/10.2307/283510. warwick, celsiana. “the chaste consecration of the thighs: post-homeric representations of achilles and patroclus in classical greek literature.” explorations: the uc davis undergraduate research journal, vol. 15, 2013. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2023 “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone harley mercadal abstract this essay examines how mildred haun uses appalachian themes and settings to bridge the melding of gothic and modernist fiction through her short story collection, the hawk’s done gone. by examining this melding of two polar genres, i seek to bring attention to an underappreciated author’s work and further expand the canon of taryn norman’s concept of “gothic modernism” into the rural literature space and beyond. i use cross-references to aid my literary analysis of several stories in haun’s collection to showcase her usage of “gothic modernism.” the hawk’s done gone is a collection of stories that merges superstition, folklore, and modern realism with dark themes of witchcraft, infanticide, and incest to create a series of darkly-themed snapshots of appalachian life ranging from the civil war era to the 1940s. despite the haunting threads connecting these stories, haun deftly injects appalachian songs, dialect, and culture into her writing to lend an appalachian spin on the expected conventions of modernism’s cityscapes or gothic literature’s rural, wealthy plantations. haun’s skillful blending creates a new, liminal space of terror, where readers feel tension from the characters, situations, and landscapes. in this essay, i show how this text combines its modernist timeliness, using ezra pound’s idea of “make it new,” while also bringing in classic gothic literature tropes (fearful weather, blood curses, and prophecy) to deepen the text’s complexity and showcase modernist concerns, fears, and horrors. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 59 the history of gothic literature “usually begin[s] in 1764 with the publication of horace walpole’s castle of otranto.”1 gothic literature is generally discussed as a means of reaction to the enlightenment period of literature that came before it. interestingly, many tropes from this classic era of gothic literature—such as a “fascination with dreams and ghosts, guilt and shame, dismemberment and death”2 as well as the more sensational aspects, like “the unconscious and subconscious, the influence of unseen agencies, and trespass, abjection, sacrifice, and extinction”—still permeate the genre to this day.3 literature later moved into an age of modernity from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries—where a focus on the internal workings of the mind, emotion, and mental deliberation often trumped the overall romanticized aspects of human life. modernist writers were particularly interested in how individuals moved through society’s challenges, such as socially-acceptable behavior. however, gothic characteristics of earlier literature returned during the modernism movement as a technique for writers to amp up the personal horrors and anxieties that living in modernity often brings. ezra pound famously named one of his books after a phrase he often said, make it new (1934). this book, combined with sigmund freud’s ground-breaking work on both the mind and dreams, had modernist writers taking the idea of making something new to heart by combining elements of multiple genres in their texts. this kind of experimentation was common—and indeed encouraged—in modernist writing. much of mildred haun’s work reflects this combination of genres to make something new. for example, haun’s short story “melungeon-colored” employs techniques where gothic elements (fearful weather, blood curses, and prophecy) and characters meet modern senses of internalization. haun then creates what taryn norman identifies as a “gothic modernism,” which is “a strain of modernism that makes use of the well-established language and conventions of the gothic terms to express recognizably modernist concerns about the nature of subjectivity, temporality, language, and knowledge”4 to make her work new. the hawk’s done gone is a collection of ballads and stories primarily linked by its narrator mary dorthula white kanipe. the collection merges superstition, folklore, and modern realism with dark themes of witchcraft, infanticide, and incest 1. nick groom, the gothic: a very short introduction (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), xiii. 2. groom, the gothic, xiii. 3. ibid., xv. 4. taryn louise norman, “gothic modernism: revising and representing the narratives of history and romance” (phd diss., university of tennessee, 2012), 2. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2023 to create a series of snapshots of appalachian life ranging from the civil war era to the 1940s. despite the haunting threads connecting these stories, haun deftly injects appalachian songs, dialect, and culture into her writing to bring mountaineer life to the surface of those blackened waters. her writing also manages to weave gothic tropes into ecologically horrifying settings, where readers feel tension from the characters and situation at hand and the very landscape. after haun’s death, editor and literary executor herschel gower edited and republished the original collection of the hawk’s done gone in 1968 with ten added stories to flesh out haun’s works even further in the hawk’s done gone and other stories.5 one impactful and complex story from mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone collection is “melungeon-colored,” a dark tale of secrets, murder, prophecies, and bad weather. the narrator, mary dorthula white kanipe, is unnamed in this particular story; however, in the introduction to the collection by mildred haun, she is listed as the primary narrator for many of the first-person narrated stories. “melungeon-colored” begins with a gothic-style prophecy after one of the main characters, the young cordia, runs off and marries mos arwood. the narrator, mary, reveals: “of course, cordia didn’t know but what me and ad were her real pa and ma. i give effena [cordia’s mother and the narrator’s daughter] a death-bed oath that i would never tell. you know, if you tell something a dying person asks you not to tell you will be haunted by that person the rest of your life. everybody you tell will be haunted too.”6 the idea of a haunting or ghostly presence is what nick groom calls a psychological gothic trope since the assumption is that ghosts cannot physically harm a person; ghosts can only haunt a mind by appearing as a physical manifestation.7 effena, cordia’s mother, is white, while cordia’s unnamed father is later revealed to be a darker-skinned mixed-race, which mary identifies as melungeon. thus, the narrator is held by an oath that she will never reveal cordia’s true parentage to anyone, especially not to cordia herself. unfortunately, effena dies soon after the promise is made, hence the “death-bed oath” the narrator mentions.8the narrator raises cordia as her child; while it is not explicitly said, it is implied in the story that cordia has white or light skin like her grandparents, mary and ad kanipe. this section of the 5. herschel gower, “introduction: mildred haun, storyteller,” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories by mildred haun, ed. herschel gower (nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968), ix. 6. mildred haun, “melungeon-colored,” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories, ed. herschel gower (nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968), 97. 7. groom, 78. 8. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 98. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 61 story acts as both the revealing of a secret as well as a gothic prophecy, predicting the narrator’s difficult choice between telling cordia the truth of her mixed-race parentage and the narrator being haunted for the rest of her life or the decision to let cordia’s future baby come and deal with the situation then. cordia’s real father, readers shortly learn after this prophecy, is a man identified as “melungeon,” a name for a person of mixed races, most commonly of caucasian, hispanic or native american, and africanamerican descent. in previous stories in the hawk’s done gone, melungeons are respected and are treated as somewhat mysteriously attractive. the appalachians in this collection believe that melungeon people “are an old race of folks, and how they were started somewhere on a ship. they had some kind of trouble on the ship and ended up here.”9 however, the common knowledge within the story’s society changes when it is revealed that melungeons have “negro blood in them.” it is implied within the story that having a different kind of darker skin and heritage, such as hispanic or indigenous blood, was acceptable to this society, but being black was not. racist ideology resurfaced in the community after this rumor was started, and therefore, “some folks were getting so they held it against a body for being a melungeon” since people now thought of them as partially black.10 effena, cordia’s mother, probably requested that the narrator never tell cordia the truth because cordia might have faced racist comments and actions against her if anyone knew. while cordia is presented in the story as light-skinned enough to pass as a white woman, she still can pass down “melungeon” features to her children, such as a darker skin color or eye color. in addition, the narrator exhibits both her medical knowledge of genetics and past experiences as a granny woman when she says, “i knowed if cordia ever had any boy youngons they would be melungeon-colored and her man might not understand.”11 presumably, a “melungeon-colored” child would greatly upset a white father due to the aforementioned hostile nature toward melungeons in this story. rather than focus on the individuality that a mixed-race character who does not know it could bring as other gothic novels do, mildred haun chooses in the quotation mentioned above to focus on the gothic aspects of family secrets, fear, and strange storms, which reflect emotional turmoil, and death. haun simultaneously gives the readers a look into the narrator’s, mary dorthula white kanipe, streamof-consciousness from the beginning of “melungeon-colored,” which becomes a 9. mildred haun, “the new jerusalem,” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories, ed. herschel gower (nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968), 81. 10. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 98. 11. haun, 98-9. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2023 favorite technique of authors in modernism. the stream-of-consciousness tool is very effective in this story because the reader can peek into the mind of mary and see her anxiety and fear; this helps build the reader’s tension as the story unfolds. the narrator warns cordia “to come right to [the narrator] and let [her] know at the first sign” of pregnancy, intending to give cordia a pennyroyal tea, even though the narrator claims, “i never have give anybody a thing to knock a youngon.”12 the pennyroyal, or mentha pulegium, tea, made from either the dried leaves or the flower itself, will supposedly induce menstruation and cause cordia to have an abortion, so the mixed-race nature of her heritage will remain a secret. due to the forethought of these actions, a plan for violence is set into motion before cordia even becomes pregnant. however, the narrator begins to see more signs of a prophecy that cordia is pregnant as she does the daily chores on the farm, and mary realizes that there is nothing she can do to prevent the truth of cordia’s mixed-race ethnicity from unearthing. omens, portents, and visions are an often-used trope in gothic fiction, presumably because the idea that someone can tell or see the future—especially when their predictions come true—is unsettling but also uncanny.13 the narrator leans heavily on her superstitions as she tells us, “[e]verything i saw made me think of a baby being born, of a ma trying to save a youngon.”14 a second prophecy comes into the narrator’s thoughts as she muses, “then i told myself again that any ma that loved her youngon wouldn’t let harm come to it.”15 after cordia announces that she is indeed pregnant, the prophecy deepens as the narrator thinks in fear, “i begun saying to myself that i wished cordia would die before it was born.”16 while cordia passes as a white woman, the narrator fears the skin color of cordia’s child will prove dark. this assumption comes from the narrator’s experiences as a granny-woman; in her experience, male babies typically had darker skin, and female babies had lighter complexions. however, the narrator also remembers that mos “had a melungeon boy . . . staying over there” at cordia and mos’ home, which the narrator “seed that [the melungeon boy] would make things worse”17 if or when the baby is born with dark skin. the narrator has another gothic-style prophecy the day cordia goes into 12. ibid, 99. 13. robert harris, “elements of the gothic novel,” spring grove area school district, accessed november 5, 2021, https://www.sgasd.org/cms/lib/pa01001732/ centricity/domain/553/frankenstein%20gothic%20and%20romantic%20notes.pdf. 14. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 100-1. 15. haun, 102. 16. ibid, 103. 17. ibid. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 63 labor: “i had a feeling it would have to happen that night, that night it did happen.”18 instead of referring directly to the birth, the narrator chooses to call the birthing event “it,” a sign that the narrator was full of dread and fear about the outcome of the birth. the narrator recalls similar ominous luck signs throughout the day: dreams of green snakes, death bells tolling in her ears, and the inability to sleep the night before.19 the sense of gloom and foreboding continues as haun uses a great gothic-style storm to reflect the narrator’s internal emotional battery the night cordia goes into labor. groom identifies this tempest-like storm as a meteorological gothic trope.20 the narrator comments, “it was the worst storm i ever saw,” and “there wasn’t any air—not enough for a body to breathe. i thought i was going to smother.”21 this description of the figuratively suffocating storm with the narrator trapped inside the house foreshadows cordia’s baby’s actual suffocation in a coffin when mos buries it alive because of its dark skin. robert harris calls this trope of the gothic-style storm “the metonymy of gloom and horror” because the storm is a metaphor for the narrator’s complicated emotional state, warring between saving herself and saving cordia and the child.22 cordia’s husband, mos, comes to fetch the narrator because, in classic gothicromantic fashion, cordia goes into labor as the aforementioned great storm comes to change the world as the characters know it. mos and the narrator fight the storm’s pounding rain and brisk wind, a flooded river, lightning strikes, and endless mud to try and get to cordia and help her give birth safely. the idea of the environment fighting against the characters themselves to prevent them from a goal is what groom identifies as a topographical gothic trope.23 however, the labor is over when the two characters arrive back at cordia’s home. the narrator throws back the quilt to cut the umbilical cord, and as she sees the baby, she speaks the words which doom cordia to her premature death: “its skin! a melungeon! i knowed it.”24 mos sees the darker skin of the baby and is enraged by the apparent infidelity between his wife and the melungeon boy they had staying at the house. mos kills cordia with a stick of firewood rather than face society’s shame; thus, he creates another familial secret—this time violently—to add to the story’s gothic sensibilities. 18. ibid. 19. ibid, 103-4. 20. groom, 77. 21. haun, 104. 22. harris, “gothic novel,” 2. 23. groom, 77. 24. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 108. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2023 mos’ actions show the violence-driven gothic reaction toward an object of fear and the modernist anxieties about life or living with a soiled reputation. the narrator blurting out cordia’s unknown secret and being too shocked to act exhibit two more tropes of gothic fiction: high, even overwrought emotion and women in distress.25 mos looms over the narrator and makes her fear that he will kill her next if she does not help him both build the coffin and carry it up the hill to be buried,26 another trope of gothic fiction that shows a woman threatened by a powerful, impulsive, or tyrannical male figure.27 the narrator and mos build a coffin for cordia, working through the night, then “break[ing] her knees to get her legs to go down.”28 mos, disgusted by the hungry, still-screaming, and not-white baby, “just picked it up and put it on in” the coffin with cordia before he and the narrator nailed the lid to the coffin shut.29 while mos digs the grave for his murdered wife and suffocating child, the supernatural elements creep in again when a cat begins clawing at the door and sounds “like a woman’s screaming” outside, signifying what cordia herself can no longer do.30 mos and the narrator eventually start to haul the coffin up the hill behind the house, where mos dug the grave mentioned above. a previously ordinary piece of land becomes cordia’s burial site in what groom notes is an architectural gothic trope, where a space becomes haunted due to the actions of gothic characters.31 finally, the cat follows the pair, jumps onto the coffin, and meows, warning of the horrible deed mos and the narrator have committed. this technique, too, is gothic: the cat represents cordia’s spirit in a supernatural element as a type of warning or begging to save the child in an echo of edgar allan poe’s similarly guilt-ridden tale, “the black cat.” the narrator reflects darkly that she “could hear the baby smothering” the entire time inside the coffin.32 the ending of this tale merges the gothic sensibility of a violent prophecy ending with cordia’s and the baby’s death, where the secret of cordia’s mixed-race blood no longer matters, to the modernist technique of showing the narrator’s emptiness. the narrator numbly tunes out her granddaughter’s funeral seven months later and thinks through her emotional justification for her actions. similarly, mos, cordia’s former husband and killer, comes to the funeral with “his new woman,” and 25. harris, “gothic novel,” 1. 26. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 108-9. 27. harris, “gothic novel,” 1-2. 28. haun, “melungeon-colored,” 109. 29. haun, 109. 30. ibid. 31. groom, 77. 32. haun, 110. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 65 the narrator notes that mos “hadn’t waited till the dirt settled on cordia’s grave” before he found a different lover.33 the idea of mos, a husband who should have been grieving, bringing his new love interest to the funeral of his recently-deceased wife, cordia, would be offensive and frankly taboo to people even today. this small detail reflects haun’s bringing in her modernist writing tropes to the story; since modernity is concerned primarily with the individual and how said individual navigates society and its pressures, haun shows us here that mos goes against the accepted social tradition of at least waiting until the first spouse is buried to marry again. the narrator ends the tale with “darkness, fire and pain. they were what i had been through. but god said he understood,” and thus, she absolves herself of all guilt, noting, “i felt peaceful as a kitten.”34 the narrator, perhaps selfishly, sees the violent end of cordia and the baby as a better fate than betraying the deathbed promise made to her daughter, effena. since the secret is kept, the narrator feels no one is returning to haunt her, despite her part in the violent acts committed against cordia and her baby. the narrator effectively sheds her guilt when she believes god understands and forgives her participation in the violence that ended cordia’s life. this strange religiousworking-through of the narrator’s hand in murder reflects the spiritual gothic, bending religious belief into a justification for an action.35 of course, “melungeon-colored” is not the only one of mildred haun’s stories full of gothic literature tropes mixed up with modernist literature techniques. haun’s story “the pit of death” still features mary dorthula white kanipe as the narrator; however, this story focuses on mary’s first child, a bastard named joe. of course, modernism is very concerned with the individual and how one navigates society and societal expectations. joe grew up playing with a neighbor’s little girl, tiny; tiny comes over before dawn to see joe one day because she had a nightmare about joe getting thrown into a hole inside a cave like a rock. this seemingly disturbing but likely innocent dream ends up being a gothic-style prophecy combined with appalachian folklore; the narrator, mary, notes that she “didn’t ask tiny if she eat breakfast before she left home. i wondered if sadie [tiny’s mother] had ever told her not to tell a dream before breakfast if she didn’t want it to come true.”36 the reader gets the narrator’s stream-of-consciousness story-telling as joe and tiny grow up; this stream-of-consciousness technique was new to modernist 33. ibid. 34. ibid, 111. 35. groom, 78. 36. mildred haun, “the pit of death,” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories, ed. herschel gower (nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968), 11. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2023 literature, but it is very effective in haun’s writing as a mode of time passing quickly. eventually, joe wants to marry tiny; however, her father says no, but tiny and joe do not stay away from each other. tiny becomes pregnant, and joe again tries to marry her, but tiny’s father refuses again. joe goes after tiny and his unborn child to try and rescue them, and he plans to bring them back to his ancestral home so his mother can help take care of the child. unfortunately, tiny’s childhood nightmare comes true: tiny’s father and joe’s stepfather kill joe and hide his body in a cave.37 the cave becomes an unvisited, inaccessible, and haunted space—a mode of both topographical and architectural gothic38—to mary as she “feared to pass that cave” because of the violence committed and hidden there.39 “a wasp sting” begins with mary reflecting on the unspoken accusation that a couple she went to heal, elzie and froney, made against her. elzie, the husband, retrieves mary under the presumption that froney is sick, and once they arrive at elzie and froney’s house, mary discovers a broom lying across the doorway. one commonly held belief in appalachia and outside of it was that “if you placed a broom over or across your front door, a witch would have to either pick-up said broom or count the bristles upon entering,” which would alert the homeowners that the guest was a witch so they could protect themselves from evil.40 of course, mary steps over the broom with no issue, and immediately the couple is embarrassed since they are so sure that mary is a witch that had cursed them. eliza and froney’s cow had begun bleeding into the milk, and they decided their cow, “old heif[,] was bewitched,” so they needed to find someone to blame.41 another superstition about witches held by the appalachians is that they could “perform curses, evoke pain or death in another person, or destroy [the] property and livestock,” which was associated with black, or evil, magic.42 since the only healer in the area is mary, she was naturally the first target; this example showcases both a spiritual and a textual trope in gothic fiction because the rumors and folk beliefs of the society meet with concerns of evil or witchcraft to create a nuanced and, to the 37. ibid., 11-24. 38. groom, 77. 39. haun, 24. 40. mildred haun, “a wasp sting,” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories, ed. herschel gower (nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968), 265. 41. ibid., 267. 42. j. tyler chadwell and tiffany d. martin, “mountain mystics: magic practitioners in appalachian witchlore.” philology and cultural studies 9, no. 1 (2016): 54. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 67 appalachian people in the story at least, a believable problem to be solved.43 froney’s sister, mallie, comes to visit the next day while mary is still there, and mallie stops at the doorway and picks up the broom before she starts asking to borrow anything she can see. however, “it was often said that if you give a witch an item from your house, even a drink of water, he or she could put a spell or curse on you,”44 and since she had already picked up the broom, everyone was suspicious of her. so, no one let mallie borrow anything from the house. later that night, after mallie supposedly left, a commotion in the chicken coop brings everyone out of the house to find a fox; elzie, being prepared for any witches that might visit, shoots the fox with a silver bullet. there is a superstition that a silver bullet is the only thing that can kill a witch and that a witch could “shed her skin, and in some occasions, even take the form of an animal.”45 so, of course, if a shape-shifted witch was hit with a silver bullet, they would die; the fox runs off, injured, but the following day, the news comes that mallie is dead from a supposed wasp sting. however, mary notes as she looks at the body that the hole was “big enough, it looked like, for me to stick my little finger into;” it is, of course, then decided as truth that mallie was the witch that cursed the family instead of mary.46 the horrifying realization that one’s own family caused harm is a classically gothic-style convention because the harm is personal and, therefore, very unsettling because that harm could come from any person. mildred haun’s short stories in the hawk’s done gone are multi-faceted collections representing folklore, superstition, and darkness via gothic modernism in an appalachian setting. several stories contain gothic manifestations of familial sin, fear, and supernatural anxieties. the text also shares numerous facets of modernism— such as the social and societal anxieties of race, focus on internalizing emotion, and real-life monsters—manifesting within the text. several characteristics of the classic gothic tropes also appear in this text, including prophecies, familial sins/blood curses, and supernatural elements such as ghosts and weather, which reflect the characters’ internal struggles. the gothic elements, such as the tempest-style storm before the murder of cordia arwood, are deliberate in showing intense emotion and anxiety in a time of modernity. this text also indicates its modernist timeliness while bringing classic gothic literature tropes to deepen its complexity and showcase modern concerns, fears, and horrors. this idea of modernist texts being both timely and complex reflects octavio paz’s view where “modernity [like the gothic] . . . is 43. groom, 77. 44. chadwell and martin, 54. 45. chadwell and martin, 55. 46. haun, “a wasp sting,” 270. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2023 always [concerned with] the other. the modern is characterized not only by novelty but by otherness.”47 haun took inspiration from other modernist creators around her as they strived to experiment and create something new. haun then created a text of gothic modernism, which taryn norman identifies as “a strain of modernism that makes use of the well-established language and conventions of the gothic terms to express recognizably modernist concerns about the nature of subjectivity, temporality, language, and knowledge”48 to make her work complex and new as modernist audiences demanded. 47. octavio paz, children of the mire: modern poetry from romanticism to the avant-garde (cambridge: harvard university press, 1991), 14. 48. norman, “gothic modernism,” 2. “everybody you tell will be haunted too”: examining the melding of gothic and modernist literature in mildred haun’s the hawk’s done gone middle tennessee state university 69 bibliography chadwell, j. tyler, and tiffany d. martin. “mountain mystics: magic practitioners in appalachian witchlore.” philology and cultural studies 9, no. 1 (2016): 49-57. ebscohost. gower, herschel. “introduction: mildred haun, storyteller.” in the hawk’s done gone and other stories by mildred haun, edited by herschel gower, ix-xxv. nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968. groom, nick. the gothic: a very short introduction. oxford: oxford university press, 2012. harris, robert. “elements of the gothic novel.” spring grove area school district. accessed october 5, 2021. https://www.sgasd.org/cms/lib/pa01001732/ centricity/domain/553/frankenstein%20gothic%20and%20romantic%20 notes.pdf. haun, mildred. the hawk’s done gone and other stories, edited by herschel gower. nashville: vanderbilt university press, 1968. norman, taryn louise. “gothic modernism: revising and representing the narratives of history and romance.” ph.d. diss., university of tennessee, 2012. paz, octavio. children of the mire: modern poetry from romanticism to the avantgarde. cambridge: harvard university press, 1991. sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 85 sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language aubrey keller abstract sagwa, the chinese siamese cat premiered in 2001, featuring both mandarin chinese and english. a year prior, dora the explorer introduced a group of linguistically diverse characters in a multilingual english-spanish program. over twenty years later, american children continue to develop relationships with non-english languages in multilingual communities. since the languages besides english that many speak face the threats of attrition and stigma, children’s television shows that highlight the value of non-english languages are timely and applicable. i respond to this current need by engaging in rhetorical analysis of language use in the first episode of sagwa and of dora as well as promotional material for each series. this analysis focuses on two features of language use that i call form and delivery, with form referring to whether the language is written or spoken, and delivery referring to which characters are using which language. i find that while sagwa highlights how those with written mandarin proficiency can preserve cultural values and enact community impact, dora frames spoken spanish fluency and multilinguality as applicable assets to everyday social situations and problem-solving. although pointing to different benefits, both cartoons express to their child audiences that non-english languages are valuable. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2023 at the beginning of the twenty-first century, two bilingual cartoon heroines made successful television debuts. under the creative direction of amy tan and based on a picture book she authored, sagwa, the chinese siamese cat (sagwa) first aired on pbs in september of 2001. set in the late qing dynasty, the show follows a family of cats who are scribes to a human magistrate and incorporates mandarin chinese.1 in the first episode, audiences learn that several of sagwa’s family members value calligraphic writing in mandarin and use their writing to make a difference in their community (tan). one year prior, dora the explorer (dora) featured its first adventure in which dora uses her combined fluency in english and spanish to overcome obstacles and meet a new friend (wiener). both shows received daytime emmys, were broadcast in both america and abroad, and, in their english versions, include phrases in a second language.2 each show’s first episode incorporates language differently in terms of two features that i call form and delivery. by form, i mean the choice to present language in writing or speech, while delivery refers to which characters are using which language. despite their differences in form and delivery, both shows demonstrate the value of non-english language to young audiences. publicists and reviewers of sagwa describe the program not as a show for language acquisition, but as a show introducing children to elements of chinese culture and strategies for navigating social situations. in their initial press release before the show’s premier, pbs publicity claims the series will empower children to make decisions and increase their cultural awareness. while the statement does not mention that the show features mandarin, in the premier episode, language is a key component of characters’ ability to exercise agency and practice cultural traditions. lu fang claims that the show’s inclusion of cultural practices, including the art of calligraphy, are especially important given that many diasporic chinese families struggle to impart chinese values on their children (fang 101-3). again, though not specifically naming mandarin as a language, fang highlights calligraphy as an art, and i perceive the program using characters’ discussions of the cultural importance of calligraphy to highlight the value of mandarin writing proficiency. sensical, a streaming service that hosts the full series, does mention mandarin directly by listing “use of chinese vocabulary” as a positive element of the show, but, in line with these 1. to avoid conflation with chinese as an ethnic or cultural identity and since mandarin is the dialect sagwa features, i will refer to mandarin chinese as mandarin for the remainder of this article. 2. for more on awards, see “dora the explorer (2000-2019) awards” and page 102 of fang. for more on international viewership, see pages 36-7 of artze and pages 100-1 of fang. sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 87 other characterizations of the show, the webpage more prominently boasts “positive messages” and “social studies” as the educational values imparted by the show. though not advertising the series as a bilingual or language-learning program, these sources celebrate features that the show achieves through its presentation of mandarin. in contrast, responses to dora from shortly after its release frequently reference the show’s bilingualism. comments like “this pint-sized latina heroine will have american families saying ‘gracias’ instead of ‘thank you’ in no time” and “it’s very empowering for kids to walk around the house saying ‘amigo’” express a belief that the show facilitates spanish language acquisition for its viewers (artze 37; navarro c1). these comments, like those regarding sagwa, have roots in the way the program presents language. in dora, both english and spanish are treated as target languages, the audience invited to repeat and use vocabulary from both languages in context. frequent mentions of an increasing spanish-speaking population in the united states also characterize initial responses to dora. writing for billboard, catherine cella suggests that paramount introduced the series as a business strategy to “capitalize” on an increased market for ethnically diverse programs (76). her analysis shifts attention away from the educational and to the financial implications of the show, but also points to the program’s profitability caused by the willingness of english-speaking audiences to watch bilingual programs. recognized as “the top-rated show for preschoolers, aged 2 to 5, in commercial television,” dora attests to the viability of a show featuring a language besides english on television (navarro c1). before analyzing the first episode of each program, i wondered whether it was useful to view these shows as language-learning resources. recent scholarship on language acquisition through television is scarce, with a glaring lack of studies on the target age for both series: preschoolers. majuddin et al. found that the use of subtitles and repetition increased adults’ retention of phrases in a target language (1001-2). ina lekkai’s study of children aged nine to twelve found that participants did acquire phrases both with and without subtitles and that repeatedly encountering the phrases paired with relevant context and visuals made acquisition more likely (85-6). neither researcher investigated mandarin or spanish as target languages. to determine whether sagwa and dora support language acquisition, research involving preschoolers and statistics on subtitle usage should be gathered. however, after examining the shows’ rhetorical use of language, i find that though these shows might or might not support children’s acquisition of target languages, these programs do beneficially communicate that proficiency in languages besides english is valuable. viewers watching the english version of the shows encounter non-english scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2023 language within the first thirty seconds of each premier. while in sagwa this initial exposure is written, in dora it is spoken, following the primary form the respective languages tend to appear in each series’s first episode. “how sagwa got her colors” begins with a preview that shows sagwa’s parents using their tails to write mandarin characters (0:03-5). they are recording a proclamation from the magistrate to ban singing, and the scene uses color to communicate meaning. one word on the proclamation, “禁,” or “jìn,” a word commonly used on mandarin signage to mean “ban” or “prohibit,” appears in red while the other words are black. here the show uses the visual element of color to communicate the meaning of the word to a non-mandarinspeaking audience, which is important for understanding the episode since this is the word sagwa later blots from the manuscript. three seconds in, the visual rhetoric signals that written mandarin will play an important role in the show. dora’s first use of spanish, on the other hand, is heard rather than seen. the theme song introduces its protagonists as “boots and super cool exploradora” (0:19-23). instead of referring to dora by her name as was done with boots, the line characterizes her as an “exploradora,” or explorer (“explorador, ra”). the syllable count of the spanish term allows this line to match the ten-syllable line that came before, which would not have been possible with the name “dora” alone. including the term clues in a first-time audience that spoken spanish will play a role in the cartoon. a further auditory message sent by the term comes from the similar sound between “exploradora,” “explorer,” and “dora.” because the spanish word sounds so similar to the other two terms that are more likely understood by an english-speaking audience, the term suggests a proximity between spanish and english. as a result, this introduction of spanish in an easily understandable, spoken form signals to the audience that they are about to hear spanish and works to demystify the challenge of understanding spanish for english speakers. an early challenge sagwa and her siblings face is understanding and articulating the value of written mandarin, with a conversation about calligraphy first establishing that the ability to write in mandarin has intergenerational, cultural value. following the theme of cultural inheritance between parent and child that overarches amy tan’s oeuvre, when sagwa’s older brother, dongwa, questions why their parents would be “proud” of their practicing calligraphy, sagwa reminds him of their “family tradition. we’ve always been calligraphers” (5:13-33). the idea of parental pride and family tradition is attached to calligraphy for sagwa and her family because, as the parents later explain, their role as the magistrate’s scribes is what allows them the privilege of living in a palace (8:01-50). sagwa’s respect for calligraphy further links her sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 89 to her parents when, after insisting that the family has “always” performed the role, dongwa complains that she “sound[s] just like [their] father” (5:48-52). besides being of value specifically to sagwa’s family, engaging in mandarin through calligraphy is also established as a cultural art. dongwa says that he would prefer to practice “gungfu,” an english transliteration that sounds closer to the mandarin “功夫” or “gōngfū” than the one more commonly used in america, “kung fu.” although protesting writing, his stated preference juxtaposes gōngfū with calligraphy as two culturally important activities. after first establishing mandarin writing proficiency as important for family and culture, the episode conveys that this proficiency also grants power to and requires responsibility from individuals. sagwa’s mother expresses displeasure about the unfairness of the law they transcribed, which bans singing. her reaction raises the question of whether individuals, even when they have the capability to use written language to write or oral language to sing, actually have agency to use these skills as desired. when sagwa falls in ink and accidentally marks out “jìn,” the chinese people sing the magistrate’s praises, leading him to change his heart and extend resources to the dynasty’s cats. these circumstances affirm her belief that “we’re not helpless just because we’re cats. we can change the world!” (14:29-35). engagement with writing in mandarin allows sagwa to make a change as an individual, but once sagwa realizes this power, she must also exercise caution. even though her altering of the manuscript had positive results, her mother clarifies that sagwa “did something she shouldn’t have” but that sometimes “mistakes” can be useful learning opportunities (23:32-47). the inclusion of this clarification adds nuance to a message otherwise suggesting that if children use their voice to stand up for what is right, there necessarily will be positive results. sagwa’s interference with someone else’s written message was risky, painting children the realistic picture that while command of language can facilitate change, writers cannot dictate how other people respond to their writing. while language also has visual importance in dora, that importance comes from the connection between images and spoken words rather than from written words. in fact, aside from when the series title is shown on-screen during the theme song, there are no written words in english or spanish throughout the episode. the choice not to include text is particularly striking when dora says that a book “is in spanish,” but, when she shows the book on-screen, it includes pictures and no words (3:00-10). because she references the book’s written language in her dialogue, but the book apparently has no text, the exclusion reads as a rhetorical choice to foreground spoken rather than written language. throughout the episode, dora implores viewers scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2023 to say english and spanish words aloud to help her and boots on their quest. these invitations to speak are often imperative commands like “you have to say ‘map,’” “we need your help to stop swiper. you have to say ‘swiper no swiping.’ say it with us,” and “remember, you have to tell señor tucán which piece will fill in the hole in the bridge… grande for big, piqueño for little” (5:00-2; 8:45-52; 11:48-12:16). the repeated “have to” suggests an importance that the child speaks, and these commands are often paired with visuals indicative of the word’s meaning. for example, dora gestures with arms wide to support understanding of the spoken word “grande” and narrows her arms to pantomime “piqueño” (11:58-12:06). while sagwa suggests that written language can solve problems, dora suggests the same of spoken language. similar to sagwa, dora supports the spoken words’ meanings with visuals. in addition to differing in the form in which they present the non-english language, these two shows also differ in their delivery of non-english lines, namely in which characters speak which language(s). sagwa features a fully bilingual englishmandarin cast of characters or at least includes no indication in the first episode that any of the characters are monolingual. in each scene where characters speak both english and mandarin, no characters express confusion or ask for translations. notably, “gungfu,” “māmā,” and “bàba” are the only mandarin words spoken by the young cats, with longer and more complicated phrases reserved to the bat fu-fu and the adult human characters. sagwa and the show’s audience are then placed in a position of listening to mandarin but not necessarily speaking it back. mandarin phrases are often accompanied by english phrases that either translate or explain meaning. a human character invites sagwa’s parents to come forward in order to act as scribes by saying “nǐ guòlái. come here” (11:56-9). these two sentences have the same meaning, the former in mandarin and latter in english. although this delivery presents the audience with both languages, in each situation where the two languages are used to express the same meaning, there is never an overt statement that the one phrase means the same as the other. all of the spoken and many of the written phrases in the episode should be understood by someone with intermediate mandarin proficiency, meaning that the inclusion of both could give language learners and children already exposed to mandarin at home representation of a familiar language on-screen. those unfamiliar with mandarin likely will understand that another language is being paired with english, but the show is not explicit that lines in mandarin are being directly translated into english. in dora, the process of translation is articulated overtly, made possible in part by the linguistic diversity among characters. dora speaks both english and spanish, sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 91 boots can understand very little spanish and otherwise speaks english, and some of the protagonists’ peers are monolingual while others are bilingual. as a result of this variety of language proficiency, while, in sagwa, the same character often delivers a line in both languages, in dora, one character usually delivers a line in one language and another character in the other. for example, directed at the audience, boots says “let’s go” before dora says “vamanos” (7:10-3). another time, dora says “gracias” before boots says “thanks” (2:46-9). notable about these two examples is that they reverse the order of speaking. if english were always to come after spanish, the delivery would act as a translation of spanish favoring a non-spanish-speaking audience. however, because the order of delivery varies, no language is prejudiced over the other in these moments. that is not to say that both languages are used equally throughout the episode, as english is used for a larger proportion of the dialogue. however, boots is not presented in a position of power as the english-speaker by translating for dora. actually, boots understands little spanish, making dora’s bilinguality a practical asset and causing the interaction between characters to capture situations children are likely to encounter in linguistically diverse environments. while sagwa does convey that there are people who speak non-english languages, dora carries that idea further, suggesting that preschoolers might meet people in their daily life who speak different languages. the protagonists’ interaction with señor tucán dramatizes, through boots’s experience, meeting someone who speaks a different language, and, through dora’s, serving as a translator in the resulting conversation. señor tucán speaks spanish, boots speaks english, and dora speaks both. boots wants to ask for señor tucán’s help fixing a bridge, since the character can fly to retrieve planks of wood from the river (11:15-33). because the characters must cross the bridge to continue exploring, the ability to have a conversation is crucial. although this particular scenario is fantastical, the reality of meeting someone who speaks a different language is likely for children in multilingual communities, and the show sends the positive message that bilinguality allows for collaboration and problemsolving. the realism of the scenario follows nickelodeon animation studios’ goal “to reflect the world children lived in” (navarro c1). in contrast, sagwa aims to depict for children “an enchanting world of customs and traditions,” phrasing that indicates an intention to demonstrate that some people have different experiences rather than to represent an experience that viewers are likely to have (publicity pbs). dora further illustrates bilingualism as an asset by resisting deficit terminology; rather than saying that a character does not speak a language, the dialogue addresses what language(s) that character does speak and presents that scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2023 language proficiency as a capability. when boots experiences a language barrier with señor tucán, rather than saying that the bird does not speak english, dora says “señor tucán speaks spanish” (11:12-26). by stating the language he speaks rather than the language he does not speak, dora models for children the behavior of highlighting language capability rather than deficiency, since speaking in terms of what language someone else does not know can be both presumptuous and hurtful. words like “can” paired with fluency further the theme of language as capability. when showing boots her book, dora tells him “the book is in spanish, but i can tell you what it says” (3:00-4). her intonation, placing emphasis on “i,” confidently expresses to bilingual children that they have a skill that not all their peers have. alisaari et al. found, in a study of teachers in finland, that while most participants viewed multilingualism positively, not all of them viewed it as an asset for learning (48, 57). dora does frame non-english language as an asset, defending the preservation of spanish as a native language among american children who too often experience first-language attrition. to be clear, dora’s exploration of bilingualism to navigate social situations does not make the program more useful than sagwa. rather, these episodes each highlight different aspects of the value of language. while dora focuses on the communicative power of non-english spoken language, sagwa highlights the cultural importance and community impact of written mandarin proficiency. both shows call the viewer to situate themselves in the narrative, ensuring that they are not passive. after the adventure, dora asks the audience “what was your favorite part of the trip?” waits for a response, then validates it with “i liked that too” (22:50-23:03). similarly conversational, in a segment after the main storyline, fu-fu and sagwa tell the audience “no matter what type of neighborhood, people all over the world live in great places. what about you?” (26:25-32). by inviting children to articulate how they relate to the episode using spoken words, both shows encourage viewers to make meaning using language. researchers should continue examining how children’s programs communicate the value of non-english languages. audiovisual media involves rhetorically shaped messages that contribute to a child’s early understanding of the world. with the current shift in popularity from network television to streaming and video-sharing platforms comes much new material worth analysis. some people who watched sagwa and dora as children are currently or about to become young educators, myself included. it is important to be conscientious when representing languages to children, as these portrayals send a message about how the child should view their own and others’ skills. sagwa and dora remain useful for their indication sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 93 that linguistic diversity is not only a reality, but that non-english proficiency is a powerful skill. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2023 bibliography alisaari, jenni, et al. “monolingual ideologies confronting multilingual realities. finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity.” teaching and teacher education, vol. 80, apr. 2019, pp. 48–58. ebscohost, https://doi-org.ezproxy.mtsu. edu/10.1016/j.tate.2019.01.003. artze, isis. “building characters.” hispanic, vol. 13, no. 10, oct. 2000, p. 36-44. ebscohost, search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true& db=asn&an=3667028&site=eds-live&scope=site. cella, catherine. “for kids’ video, ethnic titles are more than a niche market.” billboard, vol. 113, no. 23, june 2001, p. 76. ebscohost, search.ebscohost.com/login.asp x?direct=true&db=bth&an=4535233&site=eds-live&scope=site. chaston, joel d. “‘it is my earliest memory’: audience, literary adaptation, and cultural representation in amy tan’s writing for young readers.” critical insights: amy tan. edited by west, kathryn, and linda trinh moser, salem press/grey house publishing, 2021, pp. 121-36. “dora the explorer debuts today on noggin, nickelodeon’s preschool subscription service.” nickelodeon press, 1 sept. 2017, nickpress.com/ press-releases/2017/09/01/dora-the-explorer-debuts-today-on-nogginnickelodeons-preschool-subscription-service. “dora the explorer (2000-2019) awards.” imdb, m.imdb.com/title/tt0235917/ awards/?ref_=tt_awd. “explorador, ra, m. & f. (1).” the new velázquez spanish and english dictionary, velázquez press, 2003, p. 443. fang, lu. “globalization and identity formation: a cross-cultural reading of amy tan’s sagwa, the chinese siamese cat.” east-west identities: globalization, localization, and hybridization. brill, 2007. doi.org/10.1163/ ej.9789004151697.i-404.40. ina, lekkai. “incidental foreighn-langugae acquisition by children watching subtitled television programs.” tojet: the turkish online journal of educational technology, vol. 13, no. 4, oct. 2014, pp. 81-7. eric, eric. ed.gov/?id=ej1043240. majuddin, elvenna, et al. “incidental acquisition of multiword expressions through audiovisual materials: the role of repetition and typographic enhancement.” studies in second language acquisition, vol. 43, no. 5, dec. 2021, pp. 985– 1008. ebscohost, doi-org.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/10.1017/s0272263121000036. moss, marilyn. “sagwa, siamese cat.” hollywood reporter, vol. 369, no. 42, aug. sagwa, the chinese siamese cat and dora the explorer teach the value of non-english language middle tennessee state university 95 2001. ebscohost, bi-gale-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/essentials/article/ gale%7ca78360775/ec191a4ec7f919dc1e6960289bee9c0b?u=tel_ middleten. navarro, mireya. “nickelodeon’s bilingual cartoon dora is a hit.” new york times, 2 july 2001, p. c1. gale academic onefile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/a76146227/ aone?u=tel_middleten&sid=bookmark-aone&xid=ca6eebe9. pbs publicity. “amy tan’s sagwa, the chinese siamese cat, produced by cinegroup in association with children’s television workshop and if/xproductions, is coming daily to pbs kids.” pbs. 17 aug. 2020.3 pbs.org/about/about-pbs/ blogs/news/amy-tans-sagwa-the-chinese-siamese-cat-produced-bycinegroupe-in-association-with-childrens-television-workshop-and-ifxproductions-is-coming-daily-to-pbs-kids-january-19-2000/.3 “sagwa the chinese siamese cat.” sensical, sensical.tv/shows/sagwa-the-chinesesiamese-cat. tan, amy, creative consultant. “how sagwa got her colors.” sagwa, the chinese siamese cat, season 1, episode 1, cinégroupe/sesame workshop, 3 sept. 2001. sensical. weiner, eric, writer. “the legend of the big red chicken.” dora the explorer, season 1, episode 1, nickelodeon animation studios/paramount home entertainment, 14 aug. 2000. paramount plus. 3. pbs publicity first published this press release on 19 jan. 2000, before the release of the show, and last updated the article on 17 aug. 2020. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2023 investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 elizabeth kowalczyk abstract herpes simplex virus, type 1, (hsv-1) is a common viral pathogen. the majority of infections occur during childhood. people who exhibit symptoms from hsv-1 infection can experience genital/oral ulcers (cold sores), latency in sensory neurons, and necrotizing encephalitis, and once hsv has infected the host organism, the individual may be infected for life. this study investigated inhibition of the herpes simplex viruses, type 1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 (rg3), since this ginsenoside has been reported to inhibit hsv. mice were dosed with specific amounts of rg3 and infected with hsv-1. tissues including brain, spleen, liver, and serum were collected and analyzed for the presence of hsv-1 by the polymerase chain reaction. although rg3 treatment appeared to be successful in vitro, it was not successful in inhibiting the virus in the living mice. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 13 introduction herpes simplex virus, type 1 (hsv-1), is a widespread pathogen that attaches to a host’s cell, where it can enter, spread into other host cells, and replicate in epithelial cells to establish the infection (amin et al., 2011). herpes simplex virus type-1 can spread from one host cell to another utilizing viral glycoprotein and host receptors (amin et al., 2011). the infection may remain in the host organism for life, typically in its latent infectious state (amin et al., 2011). herpes simplex virus type-1 impacts a large portion of the population, having a 67% global prevalence rate (looker et al., 2015). in the united states, most adults are infected with hsv-1 with the number increasing linearly with age (mcquillan et al., 2018). a larger percentage of females have been reported to be infected than males (mcquillan et al., 2018). the prevalence of hsv was greatest in the mexican american population and lowest among non-hispanic white persons (mcquillan et al., 2018). most of the population that has contracted hsv-1 will remain asymptomatic throughout their lifetime (mcquillan et al., 2018). people who exhibit symptoms of hsv-1 infection can experience genital/oral ulcers (cold sores), latency in sensory neurons, and necrotizing encephalitis (ives and bertke, 2017). once hsv has infected the host organism, the individual may be infected for life; they will have the potential for severe complications throughout life (ives and bertke, 2017). unfortunately, there is a high infant mortality rate associated with hsv during delivery when the infant contracts the virus at birth from the mother’s infection (ives and bertke, 2017). the viral infection is particularly dangerous for at-risk populations including immunecompromised individuals, infants, and the elderly (ives and bertke, 2017). research into hsv-1 is vital to understand the infection and creating more effective treatment options. no vaccine yet exists to prevent the disease (carter, 2019). drugs, including acyclovir and penciclovir, are used for the treatment of hsv-1 and hsv-2 symptoms (piret and boivin, 2011). acyclovir and penciclovir are considered the first line of treatment once the symptoms have occurred. as drugs are more widely used and distributed, a large portion of the hsv population has become resistant, creating a need for new drugs or a potential vaccine (piret and boivin, 2011). time, effort, and money have been dedicated to producing a vaccine for hsv-1, and yet none has been successful (carter, 2019). a major issue for developers is that the hsv-1 infection can lie dormant in host cells for years before presenting symptoms (carter, 2019). all these factors make it difficult for developers to create a vaccine that is effective against the infection. alternative preventive strategies are being investigated. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2023 one way researchers approach finding cures for ailments is by turning to the past. panax ginseng (p. ginseng) is a root widely used for thousands of years in china for a variety of illnesses, typically consumed as tea (coleman et al., 2003). prior to the modern era, it was widely held that if a person had a cold sore (hsv) they could drink the tea and make the cold sore disappear (coleman et al., 2003). ginsenosides are bioactive compounds that are used in a variety of ways. researchers have established a scientific basis back in 2003 for the healing qualities of p. ginseng. the root contains 50 ginsenosides, each with the potential for medical benefits (coleman et al., 2003). early results show a correlation between p. ginseng and quality of life (assessment of an individual’s overall well-being), although more research needs to be conducted to further understand ginseng’s full potential (coleman et al., 2003). ginsenosides are naturally produced glycoside steroids and triterpene saponins that have been shown to have anti-viral properties and immune-boosting abilities (im et al., 2016). ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3, when added to hsv-1 in cell culture significantly inhibited the virus from infection (wright and altman, 2020). additional research and studies in more complex organisms must be completed to better understand the rg3 virus relationship. besides ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3, there are several other ginsenosides with promising results including extracts from korean red ginseng (krg). korean red ginseng has various benefits including a link to immune modulation in mice (cho et al., 2013). mice were given variable amounts of krg extract and were then infected vaginally with hsv. it was found that krg lowered the severity of the hsv infection, increased resistance, and accelerated clearance of the virus (cho et al., 2013). it also showed an increase in mrna expression of several mouse genes, which indicates that krg increases local natural killer cells, stimulating resistance to not just vaginal hsv but other similar infections (cho et al., 2013). the work that was conducted builds on previous studies and resources, which have been approved by middle tennessee state university’s institutional animal care and use committee, protocol id 17-3015. mice were injected with hsv-1 and specific amounts of rg3 (10 mg/kg, 3 mg/kg, 1 mg/kg, and 0 mg/kg rg3). controls did not receive either hsv-1 or rg3). serum, spleen, liver, and brain tissues were collected and evaluated for the presence of infectious hsv-1 by cell culture plaque assay. plaque assays are a widely utilized tool in virology. they are considered the single best way to ensure recombinant viruses can be isolated as a plaque (leland and ginocchino, 2007). while cell culture has long been considered the gold standard for virus detection (leland and ginocchino, 2007), others have reported better sensitivity investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 15 for the detection of hsv-1 by polymerase chain reaction (pcr) (wald et al., 2003). the study evaluated samples from mice for the presence of hsv-1 using this more sensitive method. a commonly used method involves the use of a gel electrophoresis, a technique used to separate molecules based on their size and electrical charge (wald et al., 2003). polymerase chain reaction (pcr) has become a staple in biotechnology, forensic science, and research laboratories across the world (zhu et al., 2020). polymerase chain reaction amplifies dna sequences in vitro. primers are used to amplify desired regions of dna (zhu et al., 2020). the success and failure of a pcr test largely depends on the quality of the nucleic acids (zhu et al., 2020). a polymerase chain reaction is initiated by denaturing a dna double helix into two separate single-stranded dna segments (zhu et al., 2020). the enzyme taq polymerase uses the 3’ oh of the primer bound to a ss dna template to build a complementary strand (zhu et al., 2020). the result is two identical strands of dna are repeatedly copied in subsequential rounds of amplification. the process continues exponentially until it is stopped (zhu et al., 2020). polymerase chain reaction drove modern-day forensic science. with pcr scientists can swab areas with suspected bodily fluids and then run the samples through pcr, which then are compared to a dna database or potential suspects (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). in recent years, pcr has become sensitive enough for touch dna; when individuals touch surfaces, they leave behind trace amounts of dna which can be swabbed and amplified using pcr (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). a good example of how sensitive touch dna and pcr can be is evident in the story of the phantom of heilbronn. the suspect seemingly had committed over 40 crimes in austria, france, and germany (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). following the murder of a police officer where the phantom’s dna was discovered, researchers took a closer look at the source (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). they discovered that the swabs that were being used at the various crime scenes had been contaminated with an employee’s dna (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). the employee’s contaminated dna, while seemingly insignificant, when amplified using pcr, created the nonexistent serial killer known as the “phantom of heilbronn,” (gasiorowski-denis, 2016). this illustrates the importance of precautions that need to be implemented to prevent contamination in the lab where the smallest traces can be devastating. extreme care was taken to ensure the samples amplified in this experiment were not contaminated by unwanted dna. negative controls were run with each sample to ensure no contamination occurred during processing and procedures. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2023 present study the objective of this research was to determine the impact of ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 on the replication of hsv-1 in mice determined by a polymerase chain reaction (and gel electrophoresis) analysis. materials and methods samples mouse organs were previously collected from mice infected with hsv-1, not infected with hsv-1, or infected with hsv-1 and treated with different amounts of ginsenoside rg3 (table 1 & figure 1) for days 1-3. the tissues collected included the spleen, liver, brain, and serum. a total of 100 samples were evaluated. the experiment was blind to eliminate any bias on part of the researcher. the virus used to infect the mice were hsv-1, the macintyre strain, (american type culture collection, rockville, md). each mouse receiving the virus was injected intraperitoneally with 500,000 hsv1. two samples were pooled for all hsv and rg3 samples, while a single sample was used for all others. table 1: 20(s)-rg3 treatment received by various groups. the sample’s identity and their corresponding treatment are depicted. 0 hours received no treatment, 6-hour infected hsv-1 received no rg3, 12-hour infected hsv-1 received no rg3, day 1, 2, 3: group 1 infected hsv-1 received 10 mg/kg rg3, day 1, 2, 3: group 2 infected hsv-1 received 3 mg/kg rg3, day 1, 2, 3: group 3 infected hsv-1 received 1 mg/kg rg3, and day 1, 2, 3: group 4 infected hsv-1 received 0 mg/kg rg3. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 17 figure 1: mouse treatment: brain, serum, spleen, and liver. the figure depicts the various treatment each mouse group received. from each mouse, brain (pink), serum (yellow), spleen (blue), and liver (green) were collected from each treatment group. the treatment groups were no hsv, hsv at 6and 12-hours post-injection, and hsv plus specific rg3 amounts (0 mg, 1 mg, 3 mg, and 10 mg). “n” represents the number of pooled mice samples. sample extraction purified dna was extracted from previously harvested mice organs stored at -20oc. the extraction process was completed using the ibi genomic dna mini kit (ibi scientific, peosta, ia). all samples of the same type were pooled. from each mouse’s sample, 100 μl were pipetted into a 1.5 ml microfuge tube and 30 μl proteinase k (10mg/ml; promega, madison, wi). the microfuge tubes were incubated at 60oc for scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2023 15 minutes. of the gb buffer, 200 μl from the ibi genomic dna mini kit were added to the microfuge tube and vortexed for 10 seconds. the microfuge tubes were incubated at 70oc for 15 minutes (every couple of minutes the tubes were inverted to ensure good mixing). from ice-cold absolute ethanol (thermo fisher, suwanee, ga) 200 μl were added to the microfuge tube and then vortexed for 10 seconds. the entire volume from the microfuge tube was pipetted into a gd column (ibi genomic dna mini kit) that had been placed in a 2 ml collection tube and spun at 13,000 rpm for 5 minutes. the flowthrough from the collection tube was discarded. the gd column was placed back into a collection tube. from w1 buffer 400 μl was added to the gd column and spun for 30 seconds. the flowthrough was discarded, and the gd column was placed into an empty collection tube. from the wash buffer containing ethanol (thermo fisher), 600 μl were added to the gd column and spun for 30 seconds. the flowthrough was discarded, and the gd column was placed in the empty collection tube and spun for 3 minutes to dry the column. the gd column was placed into a clean 1.5 ml tube. 50 μl of elution buffer was heated to 70oc. the 50 μl of elution buffer was then added to the gd column and allowed to absorb into the column matrix for 3 minutes. the gd column was spun for 30 seconds, and purified dna was present in the elution buffer. the samples were stored at -20oc until amplification. pcr the dna was amplified using previously verified pcr primers for hsv-1 (johnson et al., 2000). primers were manufactured by eurofins genomics, louisville, ky. positive control samples were used in a pcr reaction to ensure the reaction produced the expected fragment size for this primer pair, which was 518 base pairs. all reagents were thawed, vortexed, and spun for 5 seconds. the tubes were then kept on ice. in a 0.5 ml tube, 32.5 μl sterile dh2o, 37.5 ul of promega master mix (containing recommended concentrations of buffer, dntps, and taq polymerase), 0.5 μl forward primer, 0.5 μl reverse primer, and 4 μl dna template were pipetted into the tube. after all the reagents were added, tubes were spun for 5 seconds and kept on ice until tubes were placed in the thermocycler and the cycling began (table 4). investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 19 table 2: eurofins genomics: oligonucleotide data table. the table depicts oligonucleotide information for the hsv-1 primers including sequence name, sequence 5’ to 3’, % gc content, and tm. table 3: thermocycler program. the table depicts the thermocycler program for the pcr samples including the steps, the temperature in celsius, and the amount of time in each round with a total of eleven steps (thirty-two cycles). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 20 spring 2023 agarose gel electrophoresis the samples were evaluated by agarose gel electrophoresis to visualize the presence or absence of hsv-1. a positive result for hsv-1 is an amplicon of 518 bp (johnson et al., 2000). from nusieve agarose (fmc bioproducts, rockville, me). a 1.25% gel was prepared using 0.5g nusieve and 40 ml 1 x tae buffer (40 mm tris-acetate, 1 mm edta) was added to a 250 ml erlenmeyer flask. the mixture was heated for approximately 30-40 seconds, swirling every 10 seconds to prevent a boil-over. the solution was cooled until it was warm to the touch. the gel tray was taped on both ends and sealed with melted agarose using a pasteur pipette. the melted agarose was then poured into the tray with an 8-well comb in place. the gel solidified after 20 minutes, the tape and comb were removed, and the gel was placed into the gel box. 1 x tae containing approximately 80 μl ethidium bromide (10mg/ml; sigma, st.louis, mo) was added until it covered the gel. samples were prepared by combining1.5 μl blue 6 x gel loading dye (bioventures, murfreesboro, tn) and 8.5 μl sample pcr product into a new 1.5 ml tube. for the standard ladder, 1.5 μl blue sample buffer and 8.5 μl biomarker low (bioventures) were prepared. all samples were spun down for 10 seconds. the total volume of the ladder, a positive control, a negative control, and samples were all loaded into appropriate lanes of the gel. the gel was run for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 75 volts. bands were visualized using a uv transilluminator. fragments located at 518 base pairs were marked as positive for hsv-1. results these studies were undertaken to investigate the ability of various concentrations of rg3 to inhibit hsv in mice. in addition to evaluating different mouse tissues for hsv following infection, our analysis considered tracking the presence of hsv over 3 days. an example of how these analyses were interpreted is shown in figure 2. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 21 figure 2: gel electrophoresis. starting on the left, biomarker low depicts a ladder with known fragment sizes (fragment sizes: 1000, 700, 500/525, 400, 300, 200, 100, and 50 bp), negative control with no bands present, positive control with one band at 518 bp, followed by the four tissue types depicting positive results. an arrow points out the wells, the ladder, and where 518 base pairs appear which indicates a positive result. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 22 spring 2023 table 4 illustrates how the hsv infection takes hold within mice over a specific course of time (6 and 12 hours). this enables a baseline for all treatment groups to be compared. positive and negative results in both cell culture and pcr were collected for all treatment groups. table 4: hsv only post 6and 12-hours post injection. samples included all tissue types (serum, brain, liver, and spleen) post 6 hours or post 12 hours from the initial injection of hsv. the results were interpreted using gel electrophoresis, a positive example of each positive tissue type is depicted in figure 2. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 23 in total, 100 samples were collected and processed throughout the course of the experiment. all treatment groups, tissues, and days are depicted in the appendix. the data was compiled into noticeable trend lines depicted in figures 3, 4, 5, and 6. the goal was to illustrate any trends that were present or absent within the data set as a whole. figure 3 looks at any trends between the percent positive of each tissue type in comparison to the treatment day. over the course of three days, the brain shows a steady increase in percent positive. the brain starts with the lowest percent positive at 25% on day 1 but quickly climbs to 87.5% positive on day 2, where it remains consistent through day 3 at 87.5% positive. the liver shows a decrease in percent positive over the three days. on day 1 liver is 100% positive, falls to 87.5 % on day 2, and finally ends on day 3 at 25% positive. serum remains consistent over the course of two days at 87.5 % positive; however, no information is available for serum on day 3. spleen demonstrates a slower decreasing trend over the three days. for the spleen on day 1 and day 2, there is no difference with the percent positive being 100%, and then decreases on day 3 to 87.5 % positive. it is important to note that the liver and spleen both decreased in percentage positive over time, while never increasing. brain increased in percent positive, but never decreased. the serum remained the same. figure 3: percent positive vs treatment day (pcr). the figure depicts percent positive results in pcr directly compared to days 1, 2, and 3. a separate line illustrates the four tissue types with the brain being pink, the liver being yellow, the serum being blue, and the spleen being green. no serum samples were available for day 3 of serum. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 24 spring 2023 figure 4 further demonstrates the trends depicted in figure 3. with all the tissues combined, pcr overall increased from day 1 to day 2, before decreasing overall on day 3. pcr started with a percent positive of 78.13 % on day 1, increasing to 90.63 % positive, and finally decreasing to 66.67 % positive. cell culture overall decreased from day 1 to day 2, before increasing slightly on day 3. cell culture started with a percent positive of 43.75%, decreased to 0%, before increasing to 8.33% positive. not only does the figure illustrate the trends over the course of all three days as a whole, but it also depicts how sensitive pcr is in comparison to cell culture. figure 4: pcr and cell culture percent positive vs treatment day. pcr is represented by a pink line and cell culture is represented by a brown line. percent positive of all tissue types were directly compared to their corresponding days. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 25 figure 5 illustrates the relation between rg3 treatment on various days in comparison to percent positive. as the treatment increased, the percent positive would decrease. both 0 mg/kg rg3 and 1 mg/kg rg3 show an increase from day 1 to day 2, before decreasing on day 3. on day 1 both were 75% positive, increasing to 100% positive, before decreasing to 66.67% positive. rg3 treatment of 3 mg/kg slowly decreased over the three days. rg3 of 3 mg/kg started at 87.5 % positive, staying consistent over day 2 at 87.5 % positive, and decreasing to 66.67% on day 3. for rg3 treatment at 10 mg/kg, it slowly decreased over the three days. on day 1 10 mg/kg of rg3 was 75 % positive, staying consistent over day 2 at 75% positive, before decreasing to 66.67% positive. the 0 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg acted identically to one another, increasing before degreasing, whereas 3 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg remained consistent between day 1 and day 2, before decreasing slightly. additionally, all 4 groups ended at 66.67 % positive on day 3. figure 5: rg3 treatment percent positive vs day (pcr). the figure depicts the percent positive on each day concerning specific rg3 treatments. rg3 treatment of 0 mg/kg is depicted by a black line, however, it perfectly lines up with 1 mg/kg making it difficult to visualize. rg3 1 mg/kg is depicted as pink, 3 mg/kg rg3 is blue, and 10 mg/kg rg3 is green. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 26 spring 2023 figure 6 demonstrates the overall trend of all tissue types in comparison to rg3 treatment and percent positivity. overall pcr gradually decreased over the specific treatment groups. at rg3 treatments of 0,1, and 3 mg/kg in pcr had a percent positive of 81.82%, which decreased to 72.73%. overall cell culture increased before decreasing slightly. at rg3 treatment of 0 and 1 mg/kg, the percent positive was 13.64%, increasing to 27.27% at 3 mg/kg rg3, and decreasing to 18.18% positive at 10 mg/kg. pcr, which once again is far more sensitive than cell culture, remained the same over three days, before slightly decreasing. in cell culture, there was a slight jump before decreasing slightly. figure 6: pcr and cell culture percent positive vs rg3 treatment. the figure depicts the trends of all tissue types over the course of increasing amounts of rg3 in comparison to percent positive. pcr (pink) shows a subtle decline in percent positive as the rg3 treatment amounts increased. cell culture increased in percent positive before decreasing overall. discussion the objective of this study was to evaluate the inhibition of herpes simplex virus type 1 by ginsenosides 20(s)-rg3. the four tissue types (spleen, liver, brain, and serum) and three concentrations of rg3 were accessed using pcr and gel electrophoresis analysis (wright and altman, 2020). after all the tissue samples had been analyzed for the presence of hsv, they were compared with the plaque assay investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 27 results from the cell cultures. following the documentation of the specimens, the treatment groups were revealed (blind study). it is vital in understanding that when using pcr, only viral sequences are detected; not necessarily infectious viruses (wald et al., 2003). upon analysis of all the samples, some were unusual. pcr is far more sensitive, able to detect minute details more so than cell cultures (schrimpf et al., 2020). therefore, if a cell culture were negative and the pcr were positive, it is not surprising given the sensitivity of pcr (schrimpf et al., 2020). however, if pcr were negative and cell culture contradicted with a positive result, those samples needed reevaluation. day 1 liver samples 9-10, 11-12, 13-14, and 15-16 needed retesting due to the contradicting reports. the pcr product in these samples needed re-amplification using the same protocol (except instead of a 4μl dna template, 1μl of pcr product was used). after re-amplification, the specimens were determined to be positive. all samples’ pcr and cell culture results are shown in the appendix. the groups were then organized in figures 3, 4, 5, and 6. figure 3 examined the relationship between the tissue types over the course of three days compared to percent positive. serum remained the same, spleen and liver decreased, with liver decreasing the most, and brain increased in percent positive over the course of three days. these results were not unusual; eeckout’s research showed similar patterns for infected mice’s organs over the course of several days (eeckout et al., 1994). like this project’s research, the spleen and liver cleared out their infection relatively fast (eeckout et al., 1994). in their project serum cleared the infection similarly to the spleen and liver, while in this project’s experiment it was not witnessed, this can be explained by the lack of serum on day 3 (eeckout et al., 1994). the brain, in both studies, showed the brain takes far longer for the infection to set in, and then to clear out the infection (eeckout et al., 1994). once the specific tissue types were illustrated in figure 3, the overall trend of all the tissue types over the course of the three days is depicted in figure 4 for both pcr and cell culture. in pcr, there was an increase in percent positive from day 1 to day 2, before decreasing on day 3. it illustrates the infection taking hold within the organs between day 1 and day 2. by day 3, the tissues were starting to clear out the infection. pcr in comparison to cell culture was far more sensitive, which is nicely depicted in figure 4. figures 3 and 4 illustrate the overall trends of the infection over the course of three days, to establish the expected clearance rates for each day. this study’s focus was on how specific concentrations of rg3 impacted the infection. it was anticipated that as the amount of rg3 increased, so would the number scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 28 spring 2023 of negative results. to demonstrate this, the specific amounts of rg3 treatment over the course of three days were directly compared to the percent positivity in figure 5. rg3 at 0 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg both increased from day 1 to day 2, before decreasing on day 3. this is exactly what was illustrated in figure 4, an increase on day 2 before starting to clear the virus on day 3. rg3 at 3 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg, where it would be anticipated to see the greatest amount of change, showed very little difference. both remained the same from day 1 to day 2, before decreasing slightly. interestingly, all treatment groups ended with the same percent positive on day 3. demonstrating rg3 did not impact clearance of the virus, rather the variation is due to the days. the sample groups did not follow any trend that would lead to a correlation between treatment and infection. other research experiments showed varying amounts of success. researcher cho evaluated the effects of korean red ginseng (krg) on mice and found krg was able to render mice more resistant to hsv vaginal infection, along with other viruses (cho et al., 2013). another study found that krg and its ginsenosides were able to reduce diarrhea in mice who were infected with rotavirus (yang et al., 2018). both of these studies did not use cell culture, but they did use live animals (mice). this indicates that krg is successful in mice for a certain virus, however, there is no direct correlation made between cell culture and the live mice. although both treatments were successful in mice, these results cannot be translated to cell culture. conversely, song conducted research and reported activity against coxsackie virus, enterovirus, and rhinovirus (song et al., 2014). the researcher only used cell cultures, and never did live animal studies (song et al., 2014). this illustrates the importance of testing in both arenas. our study showed promising results in cell culture, much like song (song et al., 2014) did, however, the extra step was taken to test in animals. thus, while rg3 was successful in cell culture, the same protection was not evident in live animals, which are far more complex with more factors involved. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 29 appendix table 5: 0 mg rg3 (virus only). table depicts all samples’ pcr and cell culture results for tissues that received 0 mg rg3. light gray with a “+” represents a positive sample and dark gray with a “-” represents a negative result. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2023 table 6: treatment 1 mg rg3. table depicts all samples’ pcr and cell culture results for tissues that received 1 mg rg3. light gray with a “+” represents a positive sample and dark gray with a “-” represents a negative result. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 31 table 7: treatment: 3 mg rg3. table depicts all samples’ pcr and cell culture results for tissues that received 3 mg rg3. light gray with a “+” represents a positive sample and dark gray with a “-” represents a negative result. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2023 table 8: treatment: 10 mg rg3. table depicts all sample’s pcr and cell culture results for tissues that received 10 mg rg3. light gray with a “+” represents a positive sample and dark gray with a “-” represents a negative result. investigating the inhibition of herpes simplex virus-1 by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3 middle tennessee state university 33 references amin i, vajeeha a, younas s, afzal s, shahid m, nawa r, khan m. u, idrees m. 2011. hsv-1 infection: role of viral proteins and cellular receptors. critical reviews in eukaryotic gene expression, 29(5), 461–469. carter a. 2019. herpes vaccine: why there isn’t one. healthline [internet]. 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[cited 23 sep 2022]. available from: iso.org/news/2016. im k, kim j, min h. 2016. ginseng, the natural effectual antiviral: protective effects of korean red ginseng against viral infection. ginseng. doi: 10.1016/j. jgr.2015.09.002. ives m, bertke s. 2017. stress hormones epinephrine and corticosterone selectively modulate herpes simplex virus 1 (hsv-1) and hsv-2 productive infections in adult sympathetic, but not sensory, neurons. virology. doi:10.1128/jvi.0058217. johnson g, nelson s, petric m, tellier r. 2000. comprehensive pcr-based assay for detection and species identification of human herpes viruses. clinical microbiology. doi: 10.1128/jcm.38.9.3279.2000. leland s, ginocchino c. 2007. role of cell culture for virus detection in the age of technology. clinical microbiology. doi:10.1128/cmr.00002-06 looker j, magaret s, may t, turner m, vickerman p, gottlieb l, newman m. 2015. global and regional estimates of prevalent and incident herpes simplex virus type 1 infections in 2012. plos one. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140765. mcquillan g, kruszon-moran d, flagg e, paulose-ram r. 2018. prevalence of herpes simplex virus type 1 and type 2 in persons aged 14-49: united states, 20152016. nchs data brief. (204) 1-8. piret j, boivin g. 2011. resistance of herpes simplex virus to nucleoside analogs: mechanisms, prevalence, and management. antimicrobial agents scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 34 spring 2023 chemotherapy. doi: 10.1128/aac.00615-10. schrimpf c, ziesing s, michelmann p, rustum s, teebken e, haverich a, wilhelmi m. 2020. conventional culture diagnostics vs. multiplex pcr for the detection of causative agents of vascular graft infections results of a single centre observational pilot study. vasa zeitschrift fur gefasskrankheiten. 49(1), 43–49. song h, choi j, song h, hong h, lee r, oh r, choi k, yeo y, lee p, cho s, ko j. 2014. antiviral activity of ginsenosides against coxsackievirus b3, enterovirus 71, and human rhinovirus 3. journal of ginseng research, 38(3), 173–179. wald a, huang m, carrell d, selke s, corey l. 2003. polymerase chain reaction for detection of herpes simplex virus (hsv) dna on mucosal surfaces: comparison with hsv isolation in cell culture. infectious disease. 188:13451351. wright s, altman e. 2020. inhibition of herpes simplex viruses, types 1 and 2, by ginsenoside 20(s)-rg3. microbiology biotechnology. doi: 10.4014/ jmb.1908.08047. yang h, oh h, kim j, cho h, yoo c. 2018. ginsenoside-rb2 and 20(s)-ginsenoside-rg3 from korean red ginseng prevent rotavirus infection in newborn mice. journal of microbiology and biotechnology. 28(3), 391–396. zhu h, zhang h, xu y, laššáková s, korabečná m, neužil p. 2020. pcr past, present, and future. biotechniques. 9(4), 317–325. the retrieving memories of ganhi’s peace-mission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan middle tennessee state university 165 the retrieving memories of gandhi’s peacemission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan parvez rahaman abstract in 1946, gandhi visited the noakhali district in eastern bengal (now bangladesh) to bridge the communal rift of the hindu-muslim communities just before the british empire divided the subcontinent into two new countries: india and pakistan. this sojourn is almost forgotten now, and no concrete attempt has been made to study gandhi’s peace-mission in a muslim majority area from a historical perspective of hindu-muslim relationship as gandhi would have wanted. this article attempts to understand gandhi from the perspective of muslims who saw him and how they subsequently remember him. therefore, the article explores how muslim people recollect gandhi’s visit and his ideas as a relevant way to make harmonious relations between antagonistic communities. the aim of this article is to recall gandhi and, through recollecting him, create a reflective mindset that underscores the communal harmony embedded into core values of an equal and harmonious society. through their neglect, the partition historians have safely buried gandhi’s chapter in noakhali, but historians could potentially use this “peacemission” of dealing with communities torn apart by riots. therefore, it can be safely stressed that to have a just society in south asia and to learn from past errors, then memories of gandhi’s visit must be remembered collectively as a mode of returning to the past and reshaping the present through memories of the adults who witnessed it and passed it down to their descendants. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 166 spring 2023 literature review marian hirsch argues that the totalitarian regime and the nazis’s erasures of records was a way to suppress and eradicate history. yet the postmemory of survivors drawn from family and social groups works to counteract or to repair this loss. she also focuses on “reactivat[ing] and re-embody[ing] more distant political and cultural memorial structures by reinvesting them with resonant individual and familial forms of mediation.”1 the aim is to retrieve and engage with the generations who have been less directly affected and can be an archive of the memories of the familial descendants. this is called postmemory. public memories, as aleida assmann writes, “reflect a general desire to reclaim the past as an indispensable part of the present, and to reconsider, to revalue and to reassess it as an important dimension of individual biographies and historical consciousness.”2 telling stories is a way to transmit memories from one generation to another, but it also helps to recognize the victims, make new archives of stories, and above all, attempt to liberate the individual through sharing. sharing a story can cause the individual to let go of trauma and the past. remembering the past through memories is also a powerful weapon to eradicate disinformation, fabricated news, biased interpretation, insular narratives; it is also a weapon to heal. it is a way of interpretation and an insertion of the past that comes down to us in the present. as the british empire was withdrawing from india in 1946, riots erupted in the hindu-muslim community of noakhali, where gandhi went to restore harmony between the two communities. the hindus were victimized and targeted in noakhali as a retaliation of the great calcutta killings in 1946, where muslims were killed. their homes were pillaged and set on fire.3 women were not spared. gandhi went to noakhali with his “peace-mission” to bridge the gap between hindus and muslims. there are still memories of his visit, and these memories are being passed on from generation to generation, an act of collective remembrance and dispelling the hatred of the past. 1. marianne hirsch, the generation of postmemory: writing and visual culture after the holocaust (columbia university press, 2012), 33. 2. aleida assmann, “2. re-framing memory. between individual and collective forms of constructing the past,” in performing the past: memory, history, and identity in modern europe, ed. karin tilmans, frank van vree and jay m. winter (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2010). https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048512027-004, 39. 3. suranjan das, communal riots in bengal 1905-1947 (delhi: oxford university press, 1993), 161-205. the retrieving memories of ganhi’s peace-mission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan middle tennessee state university 167 transmitting memories across generations “for an experienced event,” wrote walter benjamin, “is finite—at any rate, confined to one sphere of experience; a remembered event is infinite, because it is only a key to everything that happened before and after it.”4 this resonates with the similar impression that i am inquiring about gandhi’s sojourn to noakhali when a communal riot flared up in 1946. right after his visit, stories about him have been elaborated, interpreted, and misinterpreted through the memory of the people in the community. much in the same way, oral historian alessandro portelli said that an event’s importance lies on the ground upon which collective memory and imagination built a cluster of tales, symbols, legends, and imaginary reconstructions. to foreground his narrative, portelli also quoted hans magnus enzensberger who stated that “history is an invention which reality supplies with raw materials. it is not, however, an arbitrary invention, and the interest it arouses is rooted in the interests of the teller.”5 through remembering gandhi, people in noakhali collectively recollect him while telling stories of his journey, often creating contesting narratives of him and passing them on to the immediate generation. it is where the strength of gandhi’s visit was grounded as people still think about it, making it a special event from many accounts and obviously making many speculations about what they saw. it has been almost 76 years since gandhi’s sojourn to noakhali in 1946 where his monument was recently erected to commemorate his memory. the villagers have shared the sojourn through storytelling, remembering about where he opened camps and the food that was served, the road he took and so on. a substantial number of people have discussed and occasionally challenged who visited with him; one particularly important mention was about his granddaughters who accompanied him. public memories are quite vibrant in the community, and researchers have long been communicating with the people who saw him and the memories they have in order to make the past into the historical present. this community was the last to see him in living memory. there are numerous people who came close to him in noakhali, and artists later painted his picture to hang up in people’s drawing rooms. some people also reiterated his ideas on religion to commemorate him. for example, lutfunnessa abbas recalls that she saw gandhi put on a loin cloth due to the deficiency of cloth in the indian subcontinent. she also recollected that gandhi wanted people to be able to eat and dress properly before he himself would put a cloth to cover his entire body.6 4. alessandro portelli, the death of luigi trastulli, and other stories: form and meaning in oral history (albany: state university of new york press, 1991), 1. 5. portelli, the death of luigi trastulli, 2. 6. tofael ahmed, mahatma gandhi in bangladesh (east bengal) (dhaka: scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 168 spring 2023 lutfunnessa also highlighted gandhi’s understanding of religion as something that should be a matter of the soul and kept out of politics. no one would intervene to hinder people from carrying out their religious duties freely. he believed that hindus and muslims must coexist together without fear of one another.7 and yet during the time of riots, religious people committed heinous acts. when riots broke out in noakhali in 1946, the mob attacked the houses of the hindu people; these stories later propagated from one person to another. many individuals do not think incidents like these could have happened during the chaotic rioting. targeted people were encircled from all directions and fire was set in the areas that people wanted to escape. moreover, a substantial number of people were not interested in believing something that they did not witness directly through their naked eyes. however, the military crackdown which followed a number of deaths in the bangladesh war of independence in 1947 convinced people to believe that people can be as heinous as they want. people believed the stories of the riots and what had happened during the time. mominul haque did not believe the stories of the riots, but he then asked his sister, asrafun yasmin, about the brutalities in noakhali during the riots. she said what he had heard was right. this is called “communicative memory” which is biographical, factual, and witnessed by someone as an adult who passed it on to their descendants. marianne hirsch remarks that family is a crucial unit of transmitting memories across generations.8 it is not my intention to compare the noakhali riots to the holocaust but to give an idea concerning how memories are transmitted; i bring up the example of maus to show how inside the family stories get told among family memories. maus is a comic book written by art spiegelman through interviewing his father who had a terrifying account of the holocaust. it is not only a story of devastation, massacre, and torture— unspeakable tragedies— but it was also about haunting stories shared between son and father. this comic books tells how children “affected by collective trauma inherit a horrific, unknown, and unknowable past that their parents were not meant to survive.”9 the noakhali riots are not comparable in any sense to the massive killings of the holocaust but can be remembered as a traumatize event related to the ideas of displacement, home, exile, and a sense of belonging. remembering the past public memories of gandhi can be used to counter disinformation and panchgaon prokashoni, 1992), 63. 7. tofael ahmed, mahatma, 63. 8. marianne hirsch, the generation of postmemory, 34-6. 9. marianne hirsch, the generation of postmemory, 34. the retrieving memories of ganhi’s peace-mission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan middle tennessee state university 169 recover the past, redefining it to understand community, which cannot be possible through traditional archives and books. this way of remembering is powerful as it exposes how masses accepted gandhi in their community. gandhi was one the most well-known people in the indian subcontinent and beyond and people irrespective of religious affiliation joined him in his prayer meetings. his recitations in the prayer meetings were taken from quran, gita, and tripitaka and bible, a way of acknowledging multiple faiths. the muslim people of noakhali talked about gandhi in a deified manner, ignoring the fact that he was just a man and instead treating him as a prophetic personality. thus, an image reverberates through time of gandhi as more than just a man who went to both hindus and muslims and preached nonviolence. he is remembered for the power of his ideas and the aura that tied people’s minds in one thread. for example, when masses of people had never chanced to see india nationalist towering leaders, let alone gandhi, they were suddenly mesmerized by him, the man of simple living who held no hate for the people who he knew were rioters. when muslims remember gandhi, they often share stories of how hindus were victimized, and this is because of gandhi’s impact. they do not hide the truth even though it casts their own community in a negative light.10 through his aura (gandhi was a spiritual energy), people who set entire villages aflame, murdered families they had lived beside, and committed unimaginable cruelties still acknowledged their depravity. gandhi had purified them just like separating clean water from polluted water through chemical reactions. in the book mahatma gandhi in bangladesh (east bengal), tofael ahmed discusses how among muslim people of noakhali, “in 1946, there was a big procession and training of rioters in the clay-drenched areas; it was drizzling, and one person directed the training of rioters in the yelling tone, a tone filled with insolence and hate. people marched to hindu houses and attacked them.”11 riots ensued and people were killed who had been living together for generations. in the upsurge, dwellings, huts, and shops were burnt and looted. the sky of the area was ablaze with smoke. people were forced to convert to islam. this happened in panchgaon, noakhali. the hindu of noakhali were forced to wear lungi (a sarong muslim men wear) instead of dhotis (a type of sarong that outwardly resembles trousers and is worn by hindus). the people who wore lungi were also forced to go the mosque for prayer. gandhi’s visit had settled many problems even before he reached there. the miscreants were scared of gandhi and went to seek vindication for their mistakes 10. mr. jitu mia and mr. abul kalam, interview with author, december 2020. 11. tofael ahmed, mahatma, 3. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 170 spring 2023 from the people upon whom they had inflicted pain.12 they were trying to repent and letting the hindus who were converted return to their own religious rituals. gandhi came with his peace-mission in the community to heal the scars left by the rioters. tofael ahmed shared13 that he was reading in class five and had no idea why gandhi came, but he and his friend named bashirullah ran diagonally through a dry canal. having reached the primary school field, they immediately saw gandhi almost without any clothing, only wearing dhotis and thin frame glasses. he shares that “the only memory i have of him is that he preached among the people. but i had no idea what he was delivering as gandhi was not speaking bengali, which is our native mother tongue.” he also said that “i have not seen any prophets or messengers but gandhi.”14 nevertheless, one person was translating it into bengali, and he went there to see him, not to listen. gandhi could instantly understand people and their problems and get a sense of the place where he was. judith brown remarks that “gandhi’s school of politics was rough and ready because there was none to help him, and he was pushed into action by the pressures of the situation in which he found himself.”15 for example, during a hearing, gandhi patiently gave mahbubur rahman, a muslim in noakhali, a full 30 minutes to speak. his choice to listen to the muslim first was crucial and made rahman feel proud. gandhi always took time to give people an opportunity to show others what they could each contribute to what was going on in the village. this demeanor is still remembered by the villagers. his voice was soft and gentle, and he allowed people to share as much as they wanted. he had lived in the muslim community as one of them and did not distinguish people based on the religion they followed. having come to noakhali, he says, “i have come to stay here with you as one of you.”16 gandhi’s version of the hindu-muslim relationship was despised by his opponents, who accused him of pro-pakistani attitudes and made a point that had outraged his assassinator, nathuram godse. the assassinator and his idea of india lies in making a hindu rashtra (state), while gandhi, through his life and acts, comprehensively countered this 12. for further reading, see shahid amin “gandhi as mahatma,” in selected subaltern studies, ed. ranajit guha and gayatri chakravorty spivak (delhi: oxford university press, 1988), 288-350. 13. tofael ahmed, mahatma, 3. 14. tofael ahmed, mahatma, 4. 15. judith brown, gandhi’s rise to power indian politics 1915-1922 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1972), 3. 16. collected works of mahatma gandhi (new delhi, publications division government of india, 1999), vol. 93, 8. all references to gandhi’s works will be abbreviated as cwmg. the retrieving memories of ganhi’s peace-mission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan middle tennessee state university 171 communal feeling. through his open politics, he marginalized the idea of a hindu rashtra (state) and reduced those people, like godse (his assassinator), as useless in the indian public life.17 he did not believe india to be a country for hindus; it was a country where muslims would also get equal respect and rights, a notion despised by his opponent. the powerful gandhi’s absence for so many people in noakhali, gandhi’s absence was as powerful as his presence. for example, noni bala bonik is a survivor of the riots who is in her nineties. she also joined gandhi’s prayer meeting once. in a personal interview, she shared that after gandhi returned to bihar from noakhali, “we have a very peaceful time and situation. none has the courage to perpetrate violence and created condition for their favor. however, we had spent few days after gandhi was assassinated thinking people would come again.”18 but nothing transpired. abul kalam, now almost 95 years of age and whom i have interviewed, joined gandhi’s prayer meetings in noakhali. he recollects that “gandhi also recited from quran and told the villagers the meaning of scripture.”19 people like kalam saw gandhi as someone impressive and he frequently shared this kind of spiritually charged moment with young people and researchers when they visited him. he had such a presence that kalam is still deeply influenced by gandhi and his teachings that he continues to follow them to this very day. he also mentioned how gandhi’s mission in noakhali quickly brought peace to the area. his presence and prayer meetings settled so many questions that people asked. gandhi’s ideals also played a large role in the concept of power and nonviolent aggression in the civil rights movement, during which dr. martin luther king said that nonviolence “does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.” king also stressed that “non-violent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist.” 20 he argued that if someone is merely lacking in violence that person is not truly nonviolent. king also used the same tactics that gandhi used in noakhali: attacking the forces of evil rather than the individual 17. dhirendra k. jha, gandhi’s assassin: the making of nathuram godse and his idea of india (india: vintage, 2021), 168. 18. noni bala bonik, interview with author, december 28, 2020. see also parvez rahaman, “gandhi’s sojourn in noakhali,” the daily star, october 3, 2022, https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/in-focus/news/gandhis-sojournnoakhali-3133786. 19. abul kalam, interview with author, december 28, 2020. 20. m. l. king, jr. stride toward freedom: the montgomery story (beacon press, 2021), 90. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 172 spring 2023 who happened to be doing the evil.21 this approach is characterized by a willingness to accept suffering rather than retaliating. it is nonviolence that is intended to endure pain without responding violently in return. it is an idea to endure the blows that come from the opponents and wait for the time when the perpetrators will change their minds. king also stated that if going to jail is necessary for nonviolence, he would go “as a bridegroom enters the bride’s chamber.”22 the violence in the united states of america during that time and now suggest we now need more of gandhi and his ideals in this country than ever. according to king, “nonviolent resistance is a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation, to accept blows from the opponent without striking back.”23 at some point, the opponent will understand and retreat from violence, and violence will breed violence, nothing else. conclusion remembering gandhi is a way of addressing concerns particularly associated with religion and race. these are two prevalent problems that the world is fighting against with the former in the global south and latter in north america. gandhi came to noakhali like a messenger, and tafazzal husain, a literary person from noakhali who wrote a book on gandhi, has compared him to a prophet.24 he gave equal respect to the women and men and only used two pieces of clothing. just like a prophet, he used a portion of white cloth without stitching. gandhi sought the true meaning of life in simple living with minimum clothing. the white cloth was meant to be a sign of purity. a monument was erected in noakhali to honor gandhi. when people see this monument of gandhi with a walking stick in his hand, they immediately have the chance to recall him. the monument gives all people a chance to remember him and his ideals of nonviolent philosophy. it also brings back the past to which we belong and allows us to envision a future that we can look forward to with hope. 21. king, stride toward freedom, 91. 22. ibid. 23. ibid. 24. tafazzal husain, smritikana [bits of memory] (dhaka: 1978), 93. the retrieving memories of ganhi’s peace-mission: noakhali riots 1946, east pakistan middle tennessee state university 173 bibliography primary research (oral interviews) interview with mr. jitu mia and mr. abul kalam in ramganj, lakshmipur, bangladesh. december 2020. interview with noni bala bonik, december 2020, ramganj, lakshmipur, bangladesh secondary research ahmed, tofael. mahatma gandhi in bangladesh (east bengal). dhaka: panchgaon prokashoni, 1992. brown, judith. gandhi’s rise to power indian politics 1915-1922. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1972. das, suranjan. communal riots in bengal 1905-1947. delhi: oxford university press, 1993. dhirendra k. gandhi’s assassin: the making of nathuram godse and his idea of india. india: vintage, 2021. hirsch, marianne. the generation of postmemory: writing and visual culture after the holocaust. columbia university press, 2012. husain, tafazzal. smritikana [bits of memory]. dhaka: 1978. guha, ranajit and gayatri chakravorty spivak. selected subaltern studies. delhi: oxford university press, 1988), m. k. gandhi. collected works of mahatma gandhi. new delhi, publication division government of india, 1999. king, martin luther, jr. stride toward freedom: the montgomery story. beacon press 2021. portelli, alessandro. the death of luigi trastulli, and other stories: form and meaning in oral history. albany: state university of new york press, 1991. rahaman, parvez. “gandhi’s sojourn in noakhali,” the daily star. october 3, 2022. https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/in-focus/news/gandhis-sojournnoakhali-3133786. tilmans, karim, frank van vree and jay m. winter, eds. performing the past: memory, history, and identity in modern europe. amsterdam university press, 2010. discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 35 discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the worldbuilding power of logos kat kolby abstract this paper begins by tracing instances throughout history wherein the fields of rhetoric and philosophy have quarreled, focusing primarily on how they define their own studies as well as language and its connection to, or lack of, an objective reality. with a close examination of the theoretical framework and definition for logos as presented in gorgias’s on the nonexistent or on nature, it is possible to flesh out a better understanding of the connections between any medium of communication and the process of creating and conveying both perceptual and virtual realities. gorgias, in the context of this paper, refers to the sophist and rhetorician, 483 to 375 bc, and is not to be confused with the character in plato’s gorgias meant to discount sophistry. in my argument, backed by game studies scholars such as ian bogost and james j. brown jr., the rhetorical impact of video games as it is relayed through the authorship of code can serve as an alternative medium that parallels rhetorical impact of speech through the authorship of logos. viewing video games as examples of virtually constructed worlds within an outer world can also help demonstrate how platonic suggestions that logos has any direct connection to objective substantiality are inherently flawed. this dismissal of the primacy of logos as truth-revealing suggests that rhetoric is an inherent part of all forms of composition and, thus, communication necessarily precedes the ability to convey any philosophical ideas. looking through the interpretive act for both the communicator and the audience, logos can be seen as its own kind of substance with a power far superior to mere persuasion or influence. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2023 the significance of rhetorical input for all communication is amplified, not by the formalistic guidebooks from the likes of cicero and aristotle, but rather through gorgias’s profound conclusions regarding logos, its limitations, and the resulting profundity of rhetorical choices. gorgias’s on the nonexistent, despite its placement in time, provides an excellent overview of one of the fundamental disagreements between the studies of philosophy and rhetoric—that of the link between logos and the dissemination of truth. ironically, some of the more modern focal points of philosophical scholarship return to the very arguments in on the nonexistent, making gorgias’s seemingly deranged, yet honestly simple stance more sensible. with a close examination of this piece, it is possible to flesh out a better understanding of the connections between speech and the process of creating and conveying both perceptual and virtual realities. there is, however, the long-standing war between style and substance that has held the exploration of this relationship at bay. although it is understandable to condemn convincing others from ignorance or for selfish gains, the issue here lies with the assumption that truth is simultaneously something that exists outside of the self, can be directly ascertained, and shared with others through an idealized, sterile dialectic method. this concept remained central for much of philosophy’s recorded history. as part of the canonical ancient greek texts, plato’s phaedrus is one of the better-known dialogues that bashes sophistry as a misguided, deceitful act akin to selling snake-oil. socrates gives an absolutely absurd number of speeches, all of which employ metaphorical, flowery language, and convinces young phaedrus of the importance of using logos to reveal truths rather than persuade others with falsehoods. he asks phaedrus if one must know the truth of what is being discussed prior to speaking (plato 46). the dire consequences of persuasion without knowledge, based on opinions of the intended audience, or with a focus on probability over actuality are exaggerated. this adds emphasis to what is at stake if we separate speech from adherence to socrates’s theory of what constitutes the good and the true. much of the argumentation in phaedrus is devoted to analogies that cast the worst light on orators and their craft while upholding dialectic as the quintessential method to gain wisdom. despite a rich history of figures attempting to rescue rhetoric from complete dismissal, peter ramus, almost two thousand years later in the sixteenth century, reinforces the belittling of sophistry found in plato’s phaedrus. though he gave some credit to the importance of eloquence, he also reattributed most rhetorical acts to dialectic, leaving only style and delivery for the orator (bizzell and herzberg 676). discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 37 with his treatment of rhetoric as closer to jewelry for one’s language than to the art of speech-making, ramus set back the study itself for quite some time. even in 2007, donald phillip verene begins his article, “philosophical rhetoric,” with a confession to having bought into this animosity. he admits that until henry johnstone “introduced [him] to the importance of rhetoric... [he] had the usual prejudice of philosophers” and even cites the harsh criticism and derision of rhetoricians from descartes, locke, and kant (verene 27). this anti-rhetoric sentiment in philosophical academia is so deeprooted that it requires him to address it prior to suggesting the mere possibility of blending the two fields. early texts from gorgias examined issues of experience and phenomena far before these were considered pillars of focus within popular philosophical schools of thought—though the pre-socratics have plenty of examples prior to the domination of dialectic. due to more recent conceptualizations of these, it may be tempting, while reading gorgias’s on the nonexistent, to fall down the rabbit hole of metaphysical dualism. by this, i am referring to a notion that there is both an internal and external world, separated by a veil of perception. the veil, in this case, introduces a very tricky issue concerning our ability to peek behind it and ever confirm or deny anyone’s sense data or experience. conceptually, this is then spun out into the crux of epistemological quandaries concerning how we can justify knowledge and what can be proven (poston). thus, arguments arise between different kinds of philosophical realism, or the view that things exist outside of our perception of them, and idealism or phenomenalism, wherein the former insists that only our perceptions exist and the latter that unperceived objects can exist because of the “continued possibility of experience” (o’brien). one can see how messy this becomes once we start considering the questionable nature of “accounting for phenomenological features of perception,” or the individual nature of each of our experiences (o’brien). what is more befuddling is the contemplation of philosophies of the mind, cartesian hangovers, intentionalism, cognitive externalism, disjunctivism, and an incredibly long list of other “isms” to contend with. the initial reference to a rabbit hole is quite apt when staring at the interconnected jumble of ideals presented here. keep in mind that plato’s focus on truth insists that “there is a realm of necessarily existing abstract objects comprising a framework of reality beyond the material world” (carder). the idea that we could ever access such a meta-reality, given all the nebulous-yet-dense content concerning only the veil and its implications, is improbable—even if it does exist. let us now return to gorgias and, as i originally suggested, sidestep these discussions with one of scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2023 my favorite stances to take: that of a pragmatic avoidance of absolute certainty and acknowledgment that the answers, to me, are moot. gorgias does not make hard-andfast truth claims about the existent or non-existent, and i do not intend to, either. instead, gorgias is playing with logos to prove its necessary disconnect from objectivity or truth. if this is so, then philosophers’ insistence that we must use logos to uncover said truth is in vain, and the “stylistic” uses for logos are far more crucial than originally assumed. gorgias lays out his argument by creating a set of syllogisms, in a way beating philosophers at their own game, to set forth a three-part, rather snarky, treatise: “first and foremost, that nothing exists; second, that even if it exists it is inapprehensible to man; third, that even if it is apprehensible, still it is without a doubt incapable of being expressed or explained to the next man” (gorgias 43). in the first and most extensive argument, gorgias explores the seemingly basic premise that “if <anything> exists, either the existent exists or the nonexistent or both the existent exists and the nonexistent” (43). based upon their definitions and the inclusion of being as part of their referents (i.e., the nonexistent referring to all that is not and the existent referring to all that is), gorgias points out the constant contradictions that unfold. for if the nonexistent exists, or is, then this would mean that all that is not is part of all that is, thus rendering both nonsensical and proving, through syllogistic opposition, that the existent does not exist. this is preposterous because that “is not, in fact, true,” as we would be collapsing both categories into one and proving that everything does not exist in any sense (gorgias 43). he makes further arguments based upon other interconnected pairs, each with mutually exclusive words, such as: generated or eternal, contained or unlimited, and one or many (43-4). it follows, in applying each word’s meaning to all that is, that the existent cannot exist if it has the qualities of any of these terms as each would unravel how we define all that is. gorgias spends half of this treatise using wordplay to make perceptually false, yet logically valid deductions, and ultimately contends that “if neither the existent exists nor the nonexistent nor both, and if no additional possibility is conceivable, nothing exists” (45). gorgias uses referents and their necessary traits to flesh out how certainty through logical syllogism cannot be based upon words, which often have amorphous, situational meanings. if this seems chaotic, that is because it purposefully is. this becomes clearer with his second argument: “if anything exists, it is unknowable and incomprehensible to man” (gorgias 45). note that gorgias is beginning with the assumption that the conclusion to his previous argument is obviously flawed, which was cleanly and discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 39 completely gleaned through one of philosophy’s favorite methods—that of syllogistic argument. he is not sticking to the assertion that nothing can exist. instead, he immediately concedes that something obviously exists, and in doing so, he exemplifies the break between logical soundness and validity. to clarify, validity concerns true/ false judgments that are entirely based on the rules of formal logic. an argument is considered sound, however, “if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually true” (anonymous, iep). although gorgias’s arguments are valid, the conclusion is clearly false, and the preferred means for possibly testing their soundness were the very ones that led to a paradoxical conclusion. the only other means of verification is through escaping the veil. in his second argumentative portion, he considers the underlying differences between external content and our internal perception, thoughts, and sensations that make objective thought impossible. looking back to verene’s “philosophical rhetoric,” we can see this same flaw of logical argumentation crop up as the focal point of the piece. the fundamental division between validity and verifiable soundness serves as the set-up towards an exploration of philosophy’s inability to resolve disagreements, as johnstone put it, “when...formally valid arguments can be produced by both sides” (verene 28). herein lies that very paradox presented through an ancient gorgias, echoing in this twentyfirst-century text; “in philosophical dispute...the nature of the thing appealed to is itself ” (28). johnstone posits using rhetoric as a necessary complement to a hegelian dialectic, which is based on “opposites in the life of the self or spirit” (31). logical argumentation “is the means to conduct the critical evaluation of ideas,” yet this stance conveniently ignores the initial process of composing sound propositions (31). verene turns to ernesto grassi to approach this new problem that “logic cannot provide its own starting points” (32). as he explores the process of creating ideas, verene follows grassi’s notion that rhetorical speech-acts are crucial to formulating concepts, then looks to cassier’s point that the synthesis and becoming of the self are also necessarily connected to this. in arriving at self-creation being inherently tied to narrative structure, verene embarks on his own quest to convince readers that all great philosophical works “are likely stories, which originate in the philosopher’s own autobiography and are attempts to move from this...to formulate the narrative of human existence in the world and to speak of things human and divine” (34). this storytelling is obviously rhetorical, and, thus, verene posits a new philosophical rhetoric that explains how the best of philosophy does not only “gain their authority...from what they say, but from how they say it” (35). this is beautifully put and undermines the very foundation and scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2023 history of plato’s socratic dialectic as the originating means to arrive at objective truth. this challenge and gorgias’s rhetoric are emphasized not only here but also in some of the biggest names in german philosophy, again thousands of years after on the nonexistent. michael macdonald’s “encomium of hegel” rather quickly points out hegel’s dancing around sophistry to try both to give credit to the likes of gorgias while maintaining that, maybe, he was just an early “subjectivist” philosopher (22). this, much like ramus, tries to reappropriate rhetoric to philosophy. hegel did face backlash for being sympathetic to rhetoric and has been accused by many of being a sophist himself (23). however, hegel is one of the founding minds of modern philosophy, and it is ironic to me that some of his “most famous chapters,” as macdonald points out, “take up and elaborate the arguments advanced by gorgias in on not being” (24). hegel is known for, among other things, idealism, fierce skepticism, and attempting to bridge the gap between objectivity and subjectivity with a direct view that the very perception of anything is its foundation, or that “appearance is the essence of being” (37). in this vein, he makes the “claim that early greek skepticism—the free thought that ’annihilates the being of the world’—reaches its most ’profound depth’ in gorgias’s on not being or on nature” (30). the complexity of consideration within on the nonexistent reveals that gorgias was way ahead of his time. in yet another clear example of brilliance, the final argument of gorgias’s piece rationally guides us down the confusing path from fantasies in the mind being existent in a separate way from sensation and perception to the content of the mind being incapable of having any similar substance to something outside of the self (45). in short, he posits that “the existent is not an object of consideration and is not apprehended” (46). following this profound conclusion, he again continues based upon the refutation of his previous logic: “even if it should be apprehended, it would be incapable of being conveyed to another” (46). after having explored the possibility of nonexistence for an external reality, then the impossibility of directly accessing it through perception or thought, his final argument now consists of the evident flaw in thinking that words are direct representations of objective substantiality (46). gorgias’s culminating point is that logos, having its own kind of substance separate from sensations and perceptions themselves, “does not, therefore, manifest the majority of substances, just as they do not manifest the nature of each other” (46). the implication here is that words, or logos, exist uniquely and cannot have direct ties to other kinds of substances—be they internal or external. even with limitations, acknowledging that words are one of the few tools, discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 41 cumbersome and complex as they may be, with which we can communicate returns us to a view of logos as sacred. this is exemplified in hegel’s much later examination, wherein he first points out “how words, not just concepts, mediate our consciousness of the world” (macdonald 37). it is speech, then, that allows us one possible way to construct and influence another’s perception of what we experience. later, and far more profoundly, macdonald shows that “the dynastic power of language creates a world, and in this case, hegel fuses the philosophic and religious senses of the logos; it is the speech of man, to be sure, but it is also the creative word of god” (39). the lingering issue, however, is in hegel’s insistence that gorgias was not a rhetorician but a philosopher. there is a fundamental difference between the two disciplines that lies directly in the act of composition, and it distinctly separates gorgias from philosophy proper—despite his engagement with the latter. i think that it is with the almosttraditional prejudice against the sophistic profession that those like hegel are so hesitant to be associated with thoughts under the “rhetoric” umbrella. as macdonald concludes, “the history of philosophy shows us that exorcising the sophist from the order of truth and reason is never a simple gesture” (40). similarly, heidegger explores the line between the necessity of speech without direct connection to referents and internal philosophical endeavors. though i have my own issues with heidegger and his possible solipsism, it is poignant that he, too, concedes that there are phenomena beyond our conceptual abilities that cannot be directly addressed with language. susan zickmund points to ways in which heidegger’s philosophy allows for rhetoric’s use to have a deliberative discourse concerning those that “resist being ’taken apart’” (411). further, it is also through rhetoric that we can lead others to be most receptive “to the call of their own conscience,” which is paramount to heidegger’s philosophy of being (414). reliance on asserting the existence of realities separate from the self is still peppered throughout, but these works cannot help but admit the obvious chasm between the object and the explanation of it. though we still see a strong resistance to admitting the use of rhetorical strategy, the works of macdonald and zickmund reveal philosophy’s inability to ignore the fundamental, culminating notion in gorgias’s on the nonexistent: that logos cannot, by definition and nature, have a direct connection to disseminating objective truth. thus, verbal communication will always boil down to rhetorical word choices, and this renders the philosophical practice of using language alone to discover transcendent essences unproductive at best and fundamentally absurd at worst. building upon all previous examples of the generative power of logos, i posit scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2023 that while philosophy concerns how we formulate and reflect on ideas internally, rhetoric is the necessary discipline to choose how best to express said ideas and create the closest thing to facsimiles of them within others’ minds. though there is always going to be a semblance of interpretation involved on the part of the audience, this merely enhances the importance of rhetorical strategy and anticipation of the reception of one’s attempted world-building. james j. brown jr. describes this relationship well: “the act of literary interpretation need not be cut off from the concerns of writing or rhetorical analysis...it will also require rhetoricians to theorize the relation between production and interpretation” (29). he explores the necessity of rhetorical choices prior to communication as it is exemplified throughout the creation and consumption of software-based virtual realities. james j. brown jr. makes the very compelling argument that “computer programs are…are compositions and sometimes even arguments...that new media technologies have opened up new modes of expression” (29). while the focus of his piece is on interdisciplinary study, he makes the crucial observations that “any interpretive effort is an authoring effort...to make sense of an object” and there is “no interpretation without production; no production without interpretation” (30). under this cyclical, constantly folding in upon itself notion, the process of honing communications to better connect with audiences and explicate experience as best as the medium allows sheds light on the relationship between logos and the existent as being inherently separate entities. the tethering of an author’s translating the internal to audience and their interactivity with the composition as required to create meaning is very well exemplified through video games. as ian bogost points out in “procedural rhetoric,” the first chapter of his book related to this concept, the interlocked relationship between composer and consumer is foundational to his whole analysis of the persuasive power of video games: rhetoric thus also came to refer to effective expression, that is, writing, speech, or art that both accomplishes the goals of the author and absorbs the reader or viewer...rhetoric “provides ways of emphasizing ideas or making them vivid.” success means effective expression, not necessarily effective influence. (19-20) bifurcating influence from expression defines rhetoric as far more powerful, despite the ominous warnings from plato’s phaedrus of all the severe consequences of nefarious persuasion. this would entail that in all mediums for communicating anything to others, one must consult rhetorical strategy to effectively express ideas. in terms of games, any rules that govern that virtual reality “are authored in code, discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 43 through the practice of programming” (29). what makes this medium an ideal example of gorgias’s relationship between logos and objective reality as opposed to platonic forms lies in the parallel connections shown through code and the player. much as we experience reality, gameplay is an exploration of “the possibility space its rules afford by manipulating the game’s controls” (bogost 43). we, too, when walking the world, are interacting with and manipulating our bodies within reality to observe and record both our experience of it and its limitations or parameters. further, a game and its “complex rules that simulate real or imagined physical space and cultural processes...[and] rely on user interaction as a mediator...earns the second spot on the continuum, directly under actual experience” (35). one does not have to write or even understand code to see or play the game, similar to gorgias’s notion that “when external reality is involved, it would not become our logos” (gorgias 46). however, if one understands the code of a game, one could find ways to warp the game’s reality. as james j. brown jr. realizes when he reveals a hidden table embedded in html code, he can bypass the program’s required interactions from the user and “just cheat” by filling out the table itself (brown jr. 27). in the first years of the twenty-first century, when i constantly played american mcgee’s alice, a first-person horror-adventure game, i would pull up the command prompt, type in cheat codes, and reshape the game’s parameters. for the sake of clarification, pressing the ’~’ key for the command prompt is accessible only in the original pc or mac version as it was removed in the later edition that came bundled with the game’s sequel, alice: madness returns. as many gamers may be familiar, i was able to use shortcut, key-phrases of code, also commonly referred to as cheat codes, to bypass perceived limitations and rules of the game’s narrative and environment. no longer held by the parameters of what one could call a basic experience of the game’s reality, my avatar of alice could become invincible, have unlimited resources, access all weapons in the game without “unlocking them,” hop around check points or levels of the game as i chose, and a whole host of other boons offered only through the game’s authored code. this is akin to how gorgias uses syllogisms based upon specific definitions of words to make the valid but seemingly impossible argument that nothing exists. the perceptible rules of both our and a game’s reality should not allow these bypasses, yet for the rhetorician, logos’ world-building and altering power reigns supreme. my favorite cheat code to type into that little command prompt had to have been “noclip.” with this, i was able to ignore all “clipping,” or the simulation of physical rules regarding collision of objects in a game. essentially, i could run through walls, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2023 sink through the ground to subterranean “floors” of a level, hover or fly in the air, and generally move about any given map’s space as i pleased. considering his use of logos to build a conception of a world wherein nothing exists, gorgias seems to be interacting within the defined parameters of a composed reality in the same way that i was when i played that game. if gorgias were to be a gamer, he would find loopholes and exploitations within code to bend reality to his will and achieve the goals he sets out for himself. he could be a speed runner, running through walls and proving that the reality we construct, rather than directly access, using logos is as malleable as collision detection in the original alice game. it is possible to counter the parallels between code/logos and virtual/ perceptual reality with the idea that code represents, not language defining a reality, but the very peeking behind the veil of the game’s playable space to view the objective reality within. while this may seem enticing on the surface, it inherently ignores the authorship required behind code—both with complex algorithms or self-sustaining rules and with more basic “chunks” of code that represent specific qualities, textures, shapes, functions etc. although there is a more direct relationship between what is written and what we experience, necessitating a connection that gorgias argues cannot exist between objectivity and logos, this is not because code is the same as some divine intentions behind reality, representative of forms. rather, code is something that was carefully constructed for a purpose that involves rhetorical decisions regarding what kind of reality to construct. the specificity of kind here and the sheer number of different game realities available point directly to the lack of formalism in code. it is moldable to communicate this reality for this rhetorical reason, just as gorgias chooses specific words with specific meanings to convey specific ideas to others. it is the same when we try to share ideas with one another, regardless of medium. our experience of gameplay, much like our interpretation of logos, is subjective. it becomes obvious that an attempt to discuss some semblance of objectivity or “forms” in reference to a digital world either devolves into discussions of categories and definitions or completely removes us from the specificity of the game at hand. attempts to categorize and define aspects of any given game would ultimately dissolve back into the initial interaction between experience and precision of language instead of ever directly accessing the reality in question—or “that by which we reveal is logos, but logos is not substances and existing things” (gorgias 46). the very act of communication will always be rhetorical as it will always require strategies involving how best to represent ideas. as represented through video games, what we perceive discovering nothing to create anything: gorgias’s on the nonexistant and the world-building power of logos middle tennessee state university 45 and how we interact with reality is separated from the platonic transcendental realm. as gorgias admits, even with direct perception and comprehension, we would still be barred from using any form of language to convey the totality of our experience to another. further, the idea that we could use code to grasp a reality beyond the game is meaningless, as “logos arises from external things impinging upon us, that is, from perceptible things” (gorgias 46). anyone familiar enough with programming can manipulate code until it matches a desired effective expression via a digital reality. this world, built by logos, is exactly like the speech acts that try to communicate our internal sense data, ideas, and even, as gorgias entertains for argument’s sake, glimpses of transcendent forms. gorgias suggests that “logos is not evocative of the external, but the external becomes the revealer of logos” (gorgias 46). by attempting to express our experiences of whatever we may have access to regarding the external, we are constantly using rhetoric and logos to build perceptual realities for others in the hopes of passing our interpretation on to them. what of the meta-experience involved in a person viewing a game’s reality from the outside? for digital worlds, the conclusion that logos is incapable of revealing objectivity remains the same even though we know beyond any doubt that there is an “external reality” that exists with regards to inside the parameters of the game versus an outside observer. to me, this is far more profound specifically because the world within a world example here mirrors the idea of perceptual reality within a transcendent reality of forms. even though i exist within the outside reality of a game, i am still woefully incapable of accessing any truths about the game at hand, no matter how fluent in its code i may be. this suggests, too, that the philosophical endeavor to connect with anything beyond perception is necessarily flawed no matter how many realities we manage to escape. no matter how different the outside of the cave is, we’re still going to be using the same faculties to interact with and describe it. without the ability to compare logos with referents in a direct, confirmable way, our rhetorical choices constitute variants in the reception of any reality that we wish to communicate to others. rhetoric is responsible for influencing an audience’s sense of the world that we are trying to convey to—or build in—their mind. thus, any expression, through any medium of language, will always result in a new conceptual, phenomenal, virtual, etc. world, and the composition of such expression is necessarily a rhetorical process. the likes of ramus and plato were sorely mistaken for dismissing the sophistic in favor of the dialectic method—which is secondary to rhetoric. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2023 works cited alice: madness returns. pc, playstation 3, and xbox 360, electronic arts, 2011. american mcgee’s alice. pc and mac, electronic arts, 2000. anonymous. “validity and soundness.” internet encyclopedia of philosophy (iep), https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/. bogost, ian. “procedural rhetoric,” persuasive games: the expressive power of videogames. mit press, 2007. ebscohost, https://search-ebscohost-com. ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat08646a&an=mtsu. d149ae0d.9b43.4160.b59c.a1e3af93233d&site=eds-live&scope=site. brown jr., james j. “crossing state lines: rhetoric and software studies.” rhetoric and the digital humanities, edited by jim ridolfo and william hart-davidson, u of chicago p, 2015. ebscohost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&an=796767&site=eds-live&scope=site. bizzell, patricia and bruce herzberg. “peter ramus.” the rhetorical tradition: readings from classical times to the present. 2nd ed., bedford/st. martin’s, 2001, pp. 674-697. carder, eddy. “platonism and theism.” internet encyclopedia of philosophy (iep), https://iep.utm.edu/pla-thei/. gorgias. “gorgias’ on the nonexistent or on nature.” the older sophists. edited by hermann diels and rosamund kent sprague, translated by george kennedy, hackett publishing company, 2001, pp. 42-46. macdonald, michael. “encomium of hegel.” philosophy & rhetoric, vol. 39 no. 1, 2006, pp. 22-44. project muse, doi:10.1353/par.2006.0007. o’brien, daniel. “objects of perception.” internet encyclopedia of philosophy (iep), https://iep.utm.edu/perc-obj/#h3. plato. phaedrus. translated by robin waterfield, oxford up, 2002. ebscohost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login. aspx?direct=true&db=cat08646a&an=mtsu.4048a562.37db.4fee. aee3.7af03e8ba100&site=eds-live&scope=site. poston, ted. “internalism and externalism in epistemology.” internet encyclopedia of philosophy (iep), https://iep.utm.edu/int-ext/. verene, donald phillip. “philosophical rhetoric.” philosophy & rhetoric, vol. 40 no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-35. project muse, doi:10.1353/par.2007.0018. zickmund, susan. “deliberation, phronesis, and authenticity: heidegger’s early conception of rhetoric.” philosophy & rhetoric, vol. 40 no. 4, 2007, pp. 406415. project muse, muse.jhu.edu/article/230054. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 99 being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva nich krause abstract jean-paul sartre was a mid-twentieth century french intellectual known for his radical politics and prolific (often opaque) philosophical musings on the human condition. at first blush, this parisian existentialist might not seem to have a lot in common with a recondite eighth-century mādhyamaka monk named śāntideva. my essay encourages a second or third blush. in it, i bridge the work of sartre with the buddhist philosopher śāntideva by looking at their respective conceptions of freedom and moral responsibility. i provide a brief characterization of each thinker’s ideas while going over some basic terrain of the modern free will debate, which includes essential definitions for terms such as “free will,” “determinism,” “libertarianism,” and “compatibilism.” i argue that sartre and śāntideva have a unique approach to freedom and moral responsibility that, on the one hand, fails to conform to the standard categories of the current academic free will debate and, on the other hand, moves the conversation forward in important ways. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2022 i feel no anger towards bile and the like, even though they cause intense suffering. why am i angry with the sentient? they too have causes for their anger. – śāntideva, bodhicaryāvatāra i am condemned to exist forever beyond my essence, beyond the causes and motives of my act. i am condemned to be free. – jean-paul sartre, being and nothingness introduction i remember sitting down and making the conscious choice to write an essay exploring existentialist and buddhist conceptions of freedom. or, at least it very much felt as though i made this choice. there are various schools of thought that would say i did not make anything worth calling a choice at all. indeed, i may have never made a legitimate free choice (as in a choice that i can be held fully responsible for making) in my entire existence. this is exactly what hard determinists would argue. this is a major position in the modern free will debate, and, unsurprisingly, it comes with its fair share of critics. there is, for instance, the worry that this type of hard determinism would render meaningless any sort of philosophical school of thought that aims at significant psychological change or social emancipation. one example of this kind of emancipatory philosophy would be buddhism, since it is written into the very bones of buddhism to strive for human awakening, i.e., the altering of consciousness to be in touch with the present moment and ultimately release oneself from the cycle of rebirth. what happens, then, when buddhism meets hard determinism? how can we square a philosophy that advocates for change but at the same time says that we are not able to make any sort of free choice? this is exactly what i intend to explore here, using the ancient thinker śāntideva as my representative buddhist determinist and jean-paul sartre as my representative existentialist who can help lead us out of this metaphysical morass. i will, in short, argue that sartre’s phenomenological conception of freedom can aid us in understanding how a philosophical school of thought (and specifically śāntideva’s path to awakening) can be both hard determinist and emancipatory. determining śāntideva’s determinism reading ancient texts and trying to frame them in the terms of modern discourse is no easy task. how does one justify arguing that, e.g., socrates was a deontologist rather than a consequentialist? how do we pull off a hegelian reading of heraclitus or a marxist reading of sun tzu? these are inherently problematic goals since these ancient thinkers were simply not familiar or equipped with the same conceptual tools. this has not, of course, prevented scholars from attempting to throw ancient being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 101 thought and thinkers into the ring of modern debate. nonetheless, there are better and worse ways of going about this. it is important, for instance, to keep in mind that these thinkers will not fit neatly into the categories constructed by the modern discourse. one can reinforce arguments as to why one thinker or school of thought is well-suited for another, or why they are not, but, ultimately, these distinctions are blurry. to be clear, i am not arguing that such readings and interpretations should be avoided. rather, i am stating what should be obvious: we must take these interpretations with a margarita’s worth of salt. with that in mind, it can be an illuminating and important project to interpret ancient thought in the light of modernity, so long as the appropriate caveats are employed. śāntideva was a buddhist monk who lived in india sometime between 685 and 763 ce.1 he was a practitioner of a form of buddhism called mahāyāna and is best known for writing a meditation manual known as the bodhicaryāvatāra, translated “an introduction to the conduct which leads to enlightenment.”2 in the bodhicaryāvatāra, śāntideva provides guidance for awakening, which includes various stances on ethics, identity, ontology, and many other philosophical mainstays. accordingly, there is much to mine in the bodhicaryāvatāra regarding the modern free will debate. indeed, many scholars have attempted to do exactly this, and the whole gamut of interpretations has been applied to buddhist thought. take hard determinism for example, which is the stance that (1) all events are the direct result of past circumstances combined with the laws of nature and (2) this fact renders robust moral responsibility irrational and indefensible. note that this is the rejection of robust moral responsibility, i.e., praising, blaming, or punishing someone exclusively because they deserve it. hard determinism has been applied to buddhism by thinkers such as charles goodman and galen strawson.3 according to these types of hard determinist readings, buddhist ontology and ethics leaves little room for free will (or consequent blame, praise, or punishment). galen strawson, for instance, argues that “at least certain schools of buddhist thought” are committed to the non-existence of free will and the incoherence of moral responsibility.4 goodman defends a similar stance, arguing that a variety of buddhist philosophers not only reject free will and moral responsibility, but that doing so “will actually help people to achieve the compassion, generosity, and 1. śāntideva, bodhicaryāvatāra, trans. kate crosby and andrew skilton (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), viii. 2. śāntideva, bodhicaryāvatāra, viii. 3. charles goodman, “resentment and reality: buddhism on moral responsibility,” american philosophical quarterly 39, no. 4 (2002): 359; galen strawson, freedom and belief (new york: oxford university press, 1986). 4. strawson, freedom and belief, 117. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2022 forbearance needed to make themselves, and others, happy.”5 goodman argues that buddhist philosophers can be read as defenders of a position that simultaneously rejects moral responsibility and at the same time embraces the human capacity for moral progress. “this view of free will,” argues goodman, “receives support from a variety of different buddhist texts, and therefore has some claim to represent the tradition generally.”6 on the other hand, philosophers such as mark siderits have argued that buddhism, with its focus on awakening and moral progress, ought to be read in more compatibilist terms.7 compatibilism is the stance that there is room for both determinism and some conception of free will that allows for robust moral responsibility. paul griffiths, conversely, argues that buddhism’s focus on change and progress toward awakening means that libertarianism, i.e., the belief in both unencumbered free choice and full moral responsibility, is only appropriate.8 there are many schools of buddhist thought, and there is not a concrete answer as to which of these interpretations is the correct one. for this paper, however, i will be aligning myself with the likes of goodman and strawson in arguing for a hard determinist reading of śāntideva. in pursuing such a reading, it is important to appeal to the original text for justification. as mentioned above, determinism can be defined as the view that every event, including all human actions, is the necessary result of the past combined with the laws of nature and that this entails a rejection of robust moral responsibility; or, as strawson puts it, “everything that happens in the universe is necessitated by what has already gone before, in such a way that nothing can happen otherwise than it does.”9 if determinism were true, it would seem that a variety of emotional reactions, even ones that are extremely commonplace, would fail to be morally or rationally justified. if, for instance, a murderer did not have choice but to be a murderer, then what sense would it make to punish them for punishment’s sake?10 or on the flip side, what sense would it make for us to feel intense pride over our achievements? aren’t these matters of pure 5. goodman, “resentment and reality,” 369. 6. ibid. 7. mark siderits, “beyond compatibilism: a buddhist approach to freedom and determinism,” american philosophical quarterly 24, no. 2 (1987): 149–59. 8. paul j. griffiths, “notes towards a critique of buddhist karmic theory,” religious studies 18, no. 3 (1982): 277–91. 9. galen strawson, “luck swallows everything,” naturalism. accessed december 6, 2021. 10. “for punishment’s sake” is an important qualification because a hard determinist could appeal to reasons for punishment that are beyond its own sake. on this account, punishment could be justified, for instance, because it deters crime or because it is the only route to reformed behaviors. notice, though, that these are not appeals to punishment simply because someone deserves it. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 103 luck? as comedian george carlin once said, “pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. being irish isn’t a skill, it’s a genetic accident. you wouldn’t say i’m proud to be 5’11”, i’m proud to have a predisposition for colon cancer.”11 but in a hard determinist universe, everything is unearned, no more achieved “on our own” than our height or eye color. a glance at the primary texts reveals that santideva would seem to be in agreement with carlin on this matter. śāntideva writes in his chapter on perfecting patience in the bodhicaryāvatāra: (vi.25) whatever transgressions and evil deeds of various kinds there are, all arise through the power of conditioning factors, while there is nothing that arises independently.12 there are two key phrases here: one, that all deeds arise through “conditioning factors” and two, that nothing arises independently. in one short sentence, śāntideva establishes rather concretely that he is arguing for a universe in which everything is causally contingent—that the world, including humans and their inner lives, exists only through factors over which they utterly lack control. in the next verse, śāntideva writes, (vi.26) neither does the assemblage of conditioning factors have the thought, “i shall produce”; nor does what is produced have the thought, “i am produced”.13 and later: (vi.31) in this way everything is dependent upon something else. even that thing upon which each is dependent is not independent. since, like a magical display, phenomena do not initiate activity, at what does one get angry like this?14 śāntideva explicitly takes care to establish that he is advocating for a purely deterministic universe where nothing has the choice to exist free from environmental and historical constraints. it seems that a pure libertarian reading of śāntideva would be off the table at this point. śāntideva makes it quite explicit that human choices are contingent and constrained. but even if that is true, it is still not clear that śāntideva is arguing that humans have no capacity for choice and thus lack moral responsibility. there is still a case to be made that śāntideva is arguing for a type of compatibilism, since compatibilists do not necessarily take issue with determinism. as briefly mentioned earlier, a compatibilist may accept a deterministic ontology; however, they would argue that this alone is not enough to justify the rejection of robust moral responsibility. a compatibilist could 11. george carlin, “george carlin – pride,” youtube, february 2, 2010, video, 4:29. 12. śāntideva, bodhicaryāvatāra, 52. 13. ibid. 14. ibid. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 104 spring 2022 argue that a deterministic universe is beside the point; there remain compelling reasons to hold people fully responsible for their actions. it may indeed be the case that a person’s moral character is the result of conditions out of their control, but only “literal compulsion, panic, or uncontrollable impulse” really removes their freedom to choose.15 so long as other factors are at play (for instance, the metacognitive ability to endorse one’s own decisions, the ability to have done otherwise, or the ability to be responsive to reasoning),16 then one can still be fully justified in blaming and punishing someone solely for the sake of blame or punishment. is there reason to believe that śāntideva could be an advocate of this type of compatibilism? is there textual evidence that he thinks one should still be held fully responsible for their actions regardless of being determined by factors outside their control? the answers to these questions are not as clear-cut as the above question of śāntideva’s determinism, as there appears to be more room for interpretation. nevertheless, there are some verses that strongly indicate that śāntideva is arguing against the type of robust moral responsibility that justifies praising or blaming someone as if they were the sole authors of their actions. take the following verse: (vi.22) i feel no anger towards bile and the like, even though they cause intense suffering. why am i angry with the sentient? they too have causes for their anger.17 these lines are of particular interest, as it seems as though śāntideva is drawing a direct analogue between bodily irritants and sentient beings. if it makes no sense to feel anger toward zits and snot and boogers and bile, says śāntideva, then it makes no sense to be angry at people. this is a pretty radical claim. but what makes bile and humans analogous for śāntideva is not just that they are both causally determined. śāntideva goes one step further by extending the analogy to justify certain moral and emotional responses. he is, in other words, not simply drawing a deterministic or causal analogy between humans and bile—he is making an argument for what types of psychological and moral attitudes we ought to have in response to their negative effects. śāntideva is making a direct appeal to mitigate the emotional weight of expectations of justice or vengeance or moral responsibility. we should get no angrier at humans than bile, as neither asked to be what they are and do what they do. indeed, in the verse i quoted at the end of the last paragraph, śāntideva states that “since, like a magical display, phenomena do not initiate activity, at what does one get angry like this?”18 this is more of the same: anger does not 15. strawson, “luck swallows everything.” 16. michael mckenna and d. justin coates, “compatibilism,” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, last updated november 26, 2019. 17. śāntideva, bodhicaryāvatāra, 52; vi.22. 18. ibid. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 105 seem like a rational or appropriate reaction to people (or possibly things in general) since nothing chose to cause that anger, nothing chose to be or to exist in the first place. in what seems to be śāntideva’s most explicit statement of this sort, he writes, (vi.33) therefore, even if one sees a friend or an enemy behaving badly, one can reflect that there are specific conditioning factors that determine this, and thereby remain happy.19 these verses appear rather incompatible with compatibilism since śāntideva demonstrates time and time again not only that people are determined beings, but also that their emotional responses (including their attitudes about moral responsibility) should respond to this determinism. there is little room for robust responsibility here. in sum, i have argued for a hard determinist reading of śāntideva. this means that śāntideva is stating not only that humans live in a deterministic universe where all actions are the consequence of factors outside of their control, but, further, that it makes little sense to hold anyone fully responsible for their actions. thus, many emotional reactions, such as anger, hatred, a desire for vengeance, punishment, and ultimate moral responsibility, are all rationally and morally unjustified. with this reading in mind, though, it might be natural to wonder how this can be harmonious with śāntideva’s overall project of helping sentient beings reach enlightenment. it might seem as though the ability to choose and the ability to hold others responsible for their choices would be requisite for creatures fully to awaken and release themselves from the cycle of suffering. the bodhicaryāvatāra does not explicitly address how to make sense of this tension. śāntideva makes a case for what kinds of moral attitudes are justified in a deterministic cosmos. at the same time, he does not argue for how one is justified in embracing an emancipatory philosophy in the face of an ontology that rejects holding anyone fully responsible for their actions. this does not appear to be a major worry for many hard determinist buddhists, since, as goodman points out, “the confidence that buddhists have in the power of their meditative practices leads them to be very optimistic about the practical possibility of such a transformation, despite the obvious difficulty of the task.”20 despite some potential incompatibility, śāntideva (and many other buddhist thinkers) take for granted that one, all human behaviors are causally determined; two, this justifies a rejection of robust moral responsibility; and three, the transformative goals of buddhism are still possible and worth pursuing. it is this tension to which i think sartre’s existentialism may be able to offer some relief. and it is to this i turn now. 19. ibid., 53 20. goodman, “resentment and reality,” 370. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 106 spring 2022 the inescapability of freedom jean-paul sartre was a prolific and renowned thinker in the mid-twentieth century, known for his political activism, his fictional works, and, most notably, being the father of modern existentialism. existentialism is a school of thought that is notoriously difficult to characterize. some trace its roots back to kierkegaard and nietzsche, although nuggets of its core ideas can be found in antiquity as well. i do not intend to provide a sweeping characterization of existentialism, as it might be impossible to do so (although there have been many attempts),21 and it is not entirely relevant to the topic at hand. what is important for now is that sartre’s existentialism was largely and explicitly concerned with freedom. in his magnum opus being and nothingness, sartre sets out to explain exactly what he means when he speaks of freedom. in this tome, he dedicates roughly 700 pages to the project of defining freedom (a reviewer once described it as “a first draft for a good book of 300 pages”).22 in it, sartre uses such provocative phrases as “i am condemned to be free” and “to be is to choose oneself.”23 so what is sartre claiming about the nature of freedom with these statements? and where does he fall in the free will debate? in light of these phrases, it would certainly appear as though he was a type of libertarian. sartre, however, refused to engage with the metaphysical/ontological debate of free will. to him, it was obvious, indeed necessary, that everything in the universe was causally determined, for if this were not the case then humans would be incapable of making anything recognizable as a meaningful choice. for sartre, “a human being is not 21. sarah bakewell, at the existentialist cafe (new york: other press, 2016), 34. bakewell provides the following helpful, tentative multi-part definition of existentialism: “existentialists concern themselves with individual, concrete human existence; they consider human existence different from the kind of being other things have. other entities are what they are, but as a human i am whatever i choose to make of myself at every moment. i am free—; and therefore i’m responsible for everything i do, a dizzying fact which causes; an anxiety inseparable from human existence itself; on the other hand, i am only free within situations, which can include factors in my own biology and psychology as well as physical, historical and social variables of the world into which i have been thrown; despite the limitations, i always want more: i am passionately involved in personal projects of all kinds; human existence is thus ambiguous: at once boxed in by borders and yet transcendent and exhilarating; an existentialist who is also phenomenological provides no easy rules for dealing with this condition, but instead concentrates on describing lived experience as it presents itself; by describing experience well, he or she hopes to understand this existence and awaken us to ways of living more authentic lives.” 22. bakewell, existentialist cafe, 152. 23. jean-paul sartre, being and nothingness, trans. hazel e. barnes (new york: washington square press, 1943/1956), 129. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 107 separable from the human condition. a person divorced from the totality of their situations is an intellectual abstraction that can only be partly achieved. i am what i am only in relation to my situations.”24 but sartre argued that determinists were getting ahead of themselves as well. in being and nothingness, he wrote the following: [a]t the outset we can see what is lacking in those tedious discussions between determinists and the proponents of free will. the latter are concerned to find cases of decision for which there exists no prior cause . . . to which the determinists may easily reply that there is no action without a cause and that the most insignificant gesture (raising the right hand rather than the left hand, etc.) refers to causes and motives which confer its meaning upon it . . . to speak of an act without a cause is to speak of an act which would jack the intentional structure of every act; and the proponents of free will by searching for it on the level of the act which is in the process of being performed can only end up by rendering the act absurd. but the determinists in turn are weighting the scale by stopping their investigation with the mere designation of the cause and motive.25 it is clear that sartre rejected metaphysical free will or pure libertarianism. it is also clear that sartre did not think that hard determinists were seeing the whole picture. both the determinists and the libertarians were looking in all the wrong places for finding anything worth calling freedom. sartre therefore argued that true freedom, radical freedom, would not come from metaphysics or science. freedom was, rather, a phenomenological experience, a way of being in the world. to understand what this means, it is important to explore two important distinctions for sartre. the first is the pour-soi (for-itself ) and the en-soi (in-itself ); the second is power and freedom.26 for sartre, the in-itself describes all things that lack consciousness: atoms, rocks, forks, toilet paper. the for-itself is that which is conscious—it is us. sartre argued that the for-itself is the negation of the in-itself.27 everything in the universe has a being, a way of existing, that just happens to it; the in-itself simply is and continues to be. the picture changes when the in-itself becomes the for-itself. it appears there is something categorically different from conscious beings and non-conscious beings. for sartre, there 24. jean-paul sartre, jean-paul sartre: basic writings, ed. stephen priest (new york: routledge, 2001), 177. 25. sartre, basic writings, 177. 26. these concepts are addressed throughout part 2: being-for-itself in being and nothingness (1956) and specifically his section on “immediate structures of the for-itself ” (73-105). 27. sartre, being and nothingness, 97. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2022 is indeed a categorical difference—viz., freedom. the emergence of the for-itself from the in-itself results in a total annihilation of something merely existing;28 the for-itself is what arises from this annihilation—it is now a lack, a nothingness, faced with unavoidable options of ways to exist in any given moment.29 our consciousness is nothing but a tendency to reach out and point to things in the world, and thus must navigate and traverse existence. “if i look into myself and seem to see a mass of solidified qualities, of personality traits, tendencies, limitations, relics of past hurts and so on,” writes bakewell, “all pinning me down to an identity, i am forgetting that none of these things can define me at all. in a reversal of descartes’s ‘i think, therefore i am,’ sartre argues, in effect, ‘i am nothing, therefore i am free.’”30 the unconscious in-itself, on the other hand, is not intentional in the sense of reaching into the world: it just is. but, again, if we are freedom by merit of how consciousness exists in the world, then how is sartre’s view distinct from libertarianism? how is it, in other words, that sartre is not simply advocating for a pure freedom independent of the chains of causation? it is here that sartre’s division between freedom and power comes into play. as mentioned above, sartre takes it as a given that everything we are and everything we do is causally contingent on past circumstances. sartre identifies the unique contingencies that have resulted in who we are today as our “situation.”31 we are all situated in the world based on things outside our control, and it is our situations that determine how much power we have in any given moment.32 this is an important distinction for sartre because it seems rather obvious that people can be more or less restricted given their circumstances.33 to say that there is no difference between an overprivileged white male in an upper-class u.s. suburb compared to a prisoner of war would strike most as an absurdity. indeed, it would have for sartre as well. he would argue that the former has much more power over his situation than does the latter. interestingly though, for sartre, neither person is limited in their freedom.34 indeed, sometimes people who are most constrained are those who are able most clearly to recognize their freedom. sentience or 28. ibid., 16-21. 29. in existentialist café, 154, bakewell writes about an old joke regarding the something-ness of nothingness in sartre’s philosophy: “sartre walks into a café, and the waiter asks what he’d like to order. sartre replies, ‘i’d like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream.’ the waiter goes off, but comes back apologizing. ‘i’m sorry, monsieur sartre, we are all out of cream. how about with no milk?’” 30. ibid. 31. sartre, being and nothingness, 79. 32. ibid., 97-98. 33. sartre, basic writings, 177. 34. ibid. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 109 consciousness is freedom, and so long as a being is conscious, it is free, regardless of any external constraints. because of this, “only death brings an end to freedom.”35 this might seem paradoxical on the face of it, as many people’s intuitions would say that a prisoner of war does not have any type of freedom, or at least not any type of freedom worth having. not so for sartre. existentialist freedom is not meant to be comforting; it is not the freedom magically to choose different situations or to cure ourselves of our ailments. rather, freedom is a dizzyingly, nauseatingly, overwhelming responsibility that requires us to acknowledge how many potential options we have in any given moment—even when those options are awful or painful or deadly. the prisoner of war is free to choose a bullet to the head, for instance. just because his power is constrained does not mean that he is not free; freedom cannot be escaped.36 it is the gravity of this responsibility, according to sartre, that drives each of us to deny the totality of our freedom. we are all psychologically predisposed to reject how free we actually are. our chains give us comfort. the world is a much more soothing place if we are each born with a purpose, with an essence, that is chosen for us. i can sleep at night knowing that my decisions will amount to something important or that nothing that bad can occur because of what i do. sartre says that our tendency to take refuge in such delusions results in “bad faith.”37 to live in bad faith is to live as though we are not free; it is to shirk our responsibility and hoist it onto the shoulders of others. sartre sees it as a matter of fact that most of us, most of the time, live in a state of bad faith, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.38 our brains are not equipped always to handle the intensity of our freedom. nevertheless, it is our responsibility, when we can handle it, to acknowledge all the potential things we could do. by doing this, we are able to increase our power, to enrich our lives with a more authentic purpose. we, humans qua humans, consciousness qua consciousness, are, through our nothingness, our elimination of en-soi, rendered radically, inescapably free; we do not possess freedom, we are freedom. we are not metaphysically free because we are never able to make choices free of our necessary situation. but we do not lack any sort of freedom either, as we are categorically different from inert, unconscious middle-sized dry goods, even in light of the fact that both are causally determined. compatibilism does not quite work here either, as compatibilists would argue that people are free to choose so long as they are meet certain conditions of freedom, such as not being unreasonably 35. ibid., 181 36. as stephen priest puts it in basic writings, 177, “freedom, for sartre, is not comfortable. it is a capacity to choose that never leaves us so long as we exist.” 37. sartre, being and nothingness, 47-48. 38. ibid., 49. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 110 spring 2022 constrained or being able to respond to reason. sartre would say that unreasonable constraints do not lessen our freedom at all, and it may in fact make our freedom all the more palpable.39 thus, sartre does not fit neatly into the language of the modern free will debate. sartre is concerned with how we exist in the world, how we experience freedom, and what that means for each individual person. in recognizing both our constraints and our freedom, we should, it is hoped, own up to the responsibility of defining ourselves for ourselves, thus increasing our power. an existentialist path to awakening with a basic analysis of each model of freedom in hand, we are now in a position to look at how sartre’s existentialism can aid śāntideva’s project of leading people to awakening, despite his arguments for a deterministic universe. the question of how people can motivate others and strive for progress and change if determinism is true has been well-explored. some thinkers think that determinism provides a substantial obstruction to motivating change, maybe even rendering it hopeless or absurd, while others have argued that the truth of determinism makes no difference on this matter. some have attempted to take on this challenge in a specifically buddhist context. riccardo repetti, for instance, argues that buddhists such as śāntideva can strive toward awakening, and motivate others to do the same, because humans possess “metavolitions,” or “volitions about volitions.” this is a type of compatibilism that allows for śāntideva to work toward enlightenment while maintaining his deterministic views. “[v ]olitional actions are free if the agent approves of them,” argues repetti. “for buddhists . . . one has mental freedom if one is able to control one’s mental states, and to the extent one has mental freedom when choosing, one has free will.”40 repetti’s goal of discovering how buddhists can choose to go on a path toward awakening is aligned with my argument. however, for reasons explored at the outset, compatibilism will not work for śāntideva because he rejects full moral responsibility. i want to look, therefore, at how sartre might be able to handle this quandary. śāntideva provides many passages that appear to reinforce his belief that all human actions, just like all of nature, are sculpted by circumstance and thus fully determined. he argues that, consequently, certain reactions are morally and rationally unjustified. śāntideva is not only making claims about how the universe is, but also about how best to internalize and utilize these facts to make us live better lives, i.e., lives that 39. in basic writings, 177, stephen priest recalls a notorious example of this: “after the war [world war ii] sartre caused outrage by saying that the french people had never been so free as during the nazi occupation.” 40. ricardo repetti, “meditation and mental freedom: a buddhist theory of free will,” journal of buddhist ethics 17 (2010): 166. being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 111 put us on a path toward awakening. it is this focus on lacking moral responsibility that makes śāntideva incompatible with compatibilism. but sartre’s existentialism seems to require each of us to take full responsibility for who we are and what we do. does this not make existentialism incompatible with śāntideva in the same fashion as compatibilism? this seems unlikely to be the case because, for one, sartre’s conception of responsibility is different from the moral responsibility that śāntideva rejects. sartre is not in line with the compatibilists and libertarians regarding their flavor of moral responsibility. their type of moral responsibility seems to hinge on people making unconstrained choices, meaning that someone is fully responsible for their circumstance, including the situation in which they reside. sartre, on the other hand, recognizes the fact that we do not, in any way, choose our situations. rather, we are thrown into the world, and it is within our situations that we find ourselves. this means that we are at any given moment responsible for seizing our responsibility, for recognizing our situation and owning it. that does not mean that we are subject to the type of buck-stopping moral responsibility demanded by the libertarian. what it means is that if our situation allows for it, we may be lucky enough to be able to recognize our “thrownness,” and thus our all-encompassing freedom.41 our ability to recognize our situation and thus challenge our inertial states of bad faith is, too, a matter of luck. but there are nevertheless individuals who will never recognize that they exist in perpetual bad faith. they are still free, utterly free, but they do not have the power to recognize their freedom and thus have not taken on the weight of responsibility. an implication of this is that we should be sympathetic to and concerned with the well-being of those less lucky than ourselves. sartre was a big advocate of this type of thinking, as much of his philosophy was targeted at helping the oppressed. sartre’s existentialism was thus dialectical in the sense that we must face the responsibility of choosing who we are to become, acknowledge that most people will not recognize and realize this responsibility, and therefore extend understanding and compassion. only a small number of people can ever live authentically, i.e., with a full recognition of freedom, and it is the job of those authentically living to stand up for the oppressed. because of this, sartre and śāntideva would be aligned both in their admittance of determinism, and of the potential practical benefits of understanding others’ denial of responsibility. śāntideva and sartre are both, nevertheless, striving intently to better themselves and to hold themselves responsible for what they do, not because they chose to be who and where they are, but because they are who and where they are. the recognition of this 41. sartre, basic writings, 191-195 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 112 spring 2022 fact, for both men, means that they must work with what they have and own up to that responsibility. śāntideva uses his hard determinism to be more forgiving and understanding of others and to motivate mindset changes that will aid in his awakening. what he does not do is use his determinism to let himself off the hook, to shrug his shoulders as if he has no power to change, to accept some sort of imagined “fate” over which humans have no influence. similarly, sartre’s freedom demands those who are able to recognize it, to do exactly that—recognize their freedom—and accept the entailed responsibility. sartre’s existentialism is also allied with śāntideva’s buddhism in that both views focus on nothingness or emptiness and the denial of a reified “self.” it is commonly accepted in buddhist thought that there is not a true self or ego, that we are constantly in flux and, ultimately, empty. śāntideva uses these beliefs to reinforce some of the abovementioned arguments for how to live well. the lack of self and the lack of moral responsibility go hand in hand for śāntideva. there is a distinction in buddhism between “ultimate” and “conventional” reality, the latter being pure emptiness (at least in some schools of thought) and the former the realm in which humans perceive and navigate. in regard to sense of self, buddhists would argue that we may perceive a type of psychological continuity, for instance, which may constitute a sense of self, but this self only exists conventionally; ultimately, there is no self at all, only emptiness. similarly, sartre argues that we do not have a static self. the only ‘self ’ worth having is the one we create, and even that one is impermanent. a rallying cry of sorts for existential thought is “existence precedes essence.” this is meant not only to illustrate the anti-essentialist attitude of existentialism, but also to show that we must choose who we truly want to be. further, human awareness is no more than the negation of the in-itself, meaning that there is only nothingness when we look deep inside of ourselves. this is not to say that there are not important differences between the ontologies and / or ethics of existentialists and buddhists, as there surely are important differences. after all, buddhism is an ancient and incredibly diverse spiritual systemthat has changed and branched in innumerable ways over a millennium. existentialism, too, has very diverse and even conflicting branches. for sartre and śāntideva, however, it is in their overlap that what is important comes to light. conclusion ultimately, śāntideva and sartre are both determinists, in that they believe that everything that exists is contingent or dependent on other factors. they both deny the existence of a permanent self or essence; they both agree that nothingness or emptiness is what underlies each of us; and they both agree that it is a moral and practical duty to being and emptiness: sartre meets śāntideva middle tennessee state university 113 help those who are suffering.42 existentialism offers a way for śāntideva to maintain his determinism but still adhere to the bodhisattva path and to train others in its pursuit. existentialism admits that we are determined, but that this doesn’t limit our freedom. it does limit a specific type of freedom—viz., metaphysical freedom—but sartre argues that this is an absurd position in any case. simply by merit of being a being “for-itself,” we are immersed in freedom, confronted with choices at every step of our existence. this freedom is not comforting, but it is there nonetheless, and once we recognize it, we are responsible for choosing what we do and who we become. with this in mind, śāntideva can maintain his ontological and ethical commitments and then use existential freedom to justify holding himself responsible for his actions and for motivating change in others. it is in this way that existentialism carves pathways toward awakening. 42. n.b. there is no necessary connection between the denial of robust moral responsibility and the advocacy of moral duty. one can deny the existence of moral responsibility while at the same time arguing that we still have duties to try to make the world a better place; however, a skeptic of moral responsibility would not be justified in, for instance, claiming that someone deserves to be blamed (or punished or praised for that matter) for failing to adhere to a moral duty. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2022 bibliography bakewell, sarah. at the existentialist cafe. new york: other press, 2016. carlin, george. “george carlin – pride.” youtube, february 2, 2010. video, 4:29. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=-onwnwwxnpa. griffiths, paul j. “notes towards a critique of buddhist karmic theory.” religious studies 18, no. 3 (1982): 277–91. jstor, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0034412500014128. goodman, charles. “resentment and reality: buddhism on moral responsibility.” american philosophical quarterly 39, no. 4 (2002): 359-372. https://www.jstor. org/stable/20010085. mckenna, michael and d. justin coates. “compatibilism.” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (fall 2021 edition), last updated, november 26, 2019. https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/compatibilism/. repetti, ricardo. “meditation and mental freedom: a buddhist theory of free will.” journal of buddhist ethics 17 (2010): 166-212. https://philarchive.org/archive/ repmamv1. śāntideva. bodhicaryāvatāra. translated by kate crosby and andrew skilton. oxford: oxford university press, 1995. sartre, jean-paul. jean-paul sartre: basic writings. edited by stephen priest. new york: routledge, 2001. —. being and nothingness. translated by hazel e. barnes. new york: washington square press, 1943/1956. siderits, mark. “beyond compatibilism: a buddhist approach to freedom and determinism.” american philosophical quarterly 24, no. 2 (1987): 149-59. www. jstor.org/stable/20014186. strawson, galen. freedom and belief. new york: oxford university press, 1986. —. “luck swallows everything.” naturalism. accessed december 5, 2016. http://www. naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/luck-swallows-everything. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 7372 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in (william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet cori mathis abstract this paper examines the ways in which baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet explores the gender concerns addressed in the original play. luhrmann’s film picks up on the theme of performativity—a term that this paper uses in the manner of judith butler—that runs throughout romeo and juliet and foregrounds the ways in which romeo and juliet perform a feminine and masculine gender, respectively. their first meeting in the text acts as the impetus for a permanent performance; they are agents of change in each other’s lives. romeo chooses a feminine performance to inhabit more fully the identity of the petrarchan lover that he prefers, while juliet enacts masculinity to gain more agency over her own life. luhrmann takes this preoccupation of the text and amplifies it in his film. his changes and casting choices also help to highlight the issues of performativity; leonardo dicaprio’s more feminine appearance and claire danes’s peculiar mix of naiveté and intelligence telegraph the message luhrmann hopes to send. in addition, luhrmann chooses to make the families part of rival gangs who divide the city based on race and socioeconomic class. juliet’s family is hispanic, which adds another layer to her defiance of patriarchal values. in the past, the film has been dismissed by many scholars as “just a teen film,” but it is clear that luhrmann’s careful attention to the thematic concerns of the text demand a reconsideration of the film’s place in adaptation studies. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 75 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2014 baz luhrmann has had a difficult time as an adapter of shakespeare. at first glance, he has a number of strikes against his name: to produce 1996’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, he teamed up with fellow australian rupert murdoch, someone who has been quite vocal in his anti-english establishment opinions; luhrmann has spent his career making spectacles, some of which have fairly silly-sounding plots; and most importantly, because he relies on both mise en scène and dialogue to tell his stories, his style requires a great deal of audience attention to the film rather than knowledge of the play. in a luhrmann film, there is as much silent acting as loquaciousness. he feels that much can be accomplished with a look, an evocative setting, or creative editing. this is a potentially problematic pairing with some of the greatest speeches an actor can deliver. because luhrmann is so atypical in terms of shakespeare adaptations, he had a number of naysayers from the beginning—and, though he has gained some important critical attention, an overwhelming number of scholars are still decrying luhrmann’s contribution. what these critics fail to recognize, however, is that by updating the setting to make it more familiar to contemporary audiences, he places more emphasis on the intricacies of the story. luhrmann’s adaptation is concerned with the words shakespeare gave us and what they tell us about his characters; the goal is to replicate these people and their concerns as accurately as possible. though some critics may disagree, luhrmann succeeds in the majority of his efforts—his water imagery and exploration of romeo and juliet’s religion of love are highlights—but his best connection to the text is the way in which the film explores gender. though william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet is generally either dismissed by critics or simply examined in light of its clear postmodernity, the real value of the film lies in its interest in performativity.1 whether or not he did it consciously, romeo and juliet was an opportune place for shakespeare to explore gender concerns; any text that deals with teenagers and their attempts to carve out their own identities independent from their parents and larger societies will engage gender performance at some point. it forms the basis of a number of teen television dramas today; in fact, some series are exclusively concerned with how their characters negotiate gender. while the play may not seem at first glance to engage gender performance in any significant way, a closer examination of romeo and juliet leads to some interesting conclusions. first, consider romeo: though his name has become synonymous with a romantic, daring lover—a young man who would do anything for his beloved, even risk death—his actions in the play do not present him as such. romeo, though the elder of the pair, still functions very much as a child who is attempting to understand the complexities of being a man. from the beginning, his appearances are guided by others’ need of him; his first scene comes about because his parents are concerned about him and send his cousin benvolio to find him. in typical teenage fashion, he resists his parents’ invitation to come home and chooses to continue his brooding over rosaline. while this resistance and commitment to following his own interests might mark romeo’s performance as 1 i am, of course, using judith butler’s gender trouble as my reference point, particularly her ideas about gender being a “stylized repetition of acts” (179) that is real only to the extent that it is performed. masculine, his subsequent decisions show these initial moments to be discrepancies in an otherwise feminine performance, one that he ultimately chooses for himself, though others often feminize him. after his parents leave him with benvolio, romeo shows the audience who he has been up until this point: a moping teenager, convinced he is in love with rosaline but not really doing anything about it beyond consistently ruminating on his situation. even worse, his musings are taken from stereotypical expositions on thwarted love, something shakespeare draws primarily from petrarchan conventions. he is a “lover languishing over his hopeless infatuation for his lady” (pearson 291), who not only rejects him, but is quite severe in doing so. as a result, romeo spends much of much of act i complaining—and not creatively. we can infer that these verses are subpar because romeo’s love for rosaline is not true. still, benvolio—and the audience—is subjected to them in the first scene. romeo: here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. why then, o brawling love, o loving hate, o anything of nothing first create, o heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep that is not what it is. this love feel i that feel no love in this. (1.1.173-80) romeo’s verses about rosaline’s rejection are rather pedestrian; however, familial bonds— and perhaps benvolio’s general good nature—lead to commiseration rather than the rebuke or outright hilarity romeo receives from his other friends, specifically mercutio. however, this scene serves to illuminate something crucial about romeo’s character at the beginning of the play: he is not an active agent in his own life, and that passivity marks him as feminine. he fell in love with rosaline sometime before the action of the play and was rejected for a reason that truly has nothing to do with him: rosaline intends to live chastely. she would turn down any suitor. instead of recognizing this, romeo mopes about what he has lost. it never occurs to him to accept what he cannot change and move on. in fact, he only attends the ball that will change his life because he wants to prove to his friends that rosaline is the only one he will ever love. though he takes a more proactive role in his pursuit of juliet, one that reduces his reliance on petrarchan conventions, at his core, he still remains the petrarchan lover, one who maintains that “most essential characteristic of petrarchism […] adoration of the loved one” (pearson 252). when romeo meets juliet, one might assume that truly being in love would lead to a more masculine performance, one in which romeo begins to make his own choices rather than reacting to the choices of others. with the exception of going to juliet’s window— admittedly, a brave act, since there is a real threat of death in doing so—this is not the case. romeo encounters juliet, just as he planned, but she quickly turns the meeting to her advantage. while romeo appears to have intended simple wooing, juliet extracts a marriage proposal by the end of their assignation. after this, romeo’s entire life is inverted because whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 75 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2014 baz luhrmann has had a difficult time as an adapter of shakespeare. at first glance, he has a number of strikes against his name: to produce 1996’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, he teamed up with fellow australian rupert murdoch, someone who has been quite vocal in his anti-english establishment opinions; luhrmann has spent his career making spectacles, some of which have fairly silly-sounding plots; and most importantly, because he relies on both mise en scène and dialogue to tell his stories, his style requires a great deal of audience attention to the film rather than knowledge of the play. in a luhrmann film, there is as much silent acting as loquaciousness. he feels that much can be accomplished with a look, an evocative setting, or creative editing. this is a potentially problematic pairing with some of the greatest speeches an actor can deliver. because luhrmann is so atypical in terms of shakespeare adaptations, he had a number of naysayers from the beginning—and, though he has gained some important critical attention, an overwhelming number of scholars are still decrying luhrmann’s contribution. what these critics fail to recognize, however, is that by updating the setting to make it more familiar to contemporary audiences, he places more emphasis on the intricacies of the story. luhrmann’s adaptation is concerned with the words shakespeare gave us and what they tell us about his characters; the goal is to replicate these people and their concerns as accurately as possible. though some critics may disagree, luhrmann succeeds in the majority of his efforts—his water imagery and exploration of romeo and juliet’s religion of love are highlights—but his best connection to the text is the way in which the film explores gender. though william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet is generally either dismissed by critics or simply examined in light of its clear postmodernity, the real value of the film lies in its interest in performativity.1 whether or not he did it consciously, romeo and juliet was an opportune place for shakespeare to explore gender concerns; any text that deals with teenagers and their attempts to carve out their own identities independent from their parents and larger societies will engage gender performance at some point. it forms the basis of a number of teen television dramas today; in fact, some series are exclusively concerned with how their characters negotiate gender. while the play may not seem at first glance to engage gender performance in any significant way, a closer examination of romeo and juliet leads to some interesting conclusions. first, consider romeo: though his name has become synonymous with a romantic, daring lover—a young man who would do anything for his beloved, even risk death—his actions in the play do not present him as such. romeo, though the elder of the pair, still functions very much as a child who is attempting to understand the complexities of being a man. from the beginning, his appearances are guided by others’ need of him; his first scene comes about because his parents are concerned about him and send his cousin benvolio to find him. in typical teenage fashion, he resists his parents’ invitation to come home and chooses to continue his brooding over rosaline. while this resistance and commitment to following his own interests might mark romeo’s performance as 1 i am, of course, using judith butler’s gender trouble as my reference point, particularly her ideas about gender being a “stylized repetition of acts” (179) that is real only to the extent that it is performed. masculine, his subsequent decisions show these initial moments to be discrepancies in an otherwise feminine performance, one that he ultimately chooses for himself, though others often feminize him. after his parents leave him with benvolio, romeo shows the audience who he has been up until this point: a moping teenager, convinced he is in love with rosaline but not really doing anything about it beyond consistently ruminating on his situation. even worse, his musings are taken from stereotypical expositions on thwarted love, something shakespeare draws primarily from petrarchan conventions. he is a “lover languishing over his hopeless infatuation for his lady” (pearson 291), who not only rejects him, but is quite severe in doing so. as a result, romeo spends much of much of act i complaining—and not creatively. we can infer that these verses are subpar because romeo’s love for rosaline is not true. still, benvolio—and the audience—is subjected to them in the first scene. romeo: here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. why then, o brawling love, o loving hate, o anything of nothing first create, o heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep that is not what it is. this love feel i that feel no love in this. (1.1.173-80) romeo’s verses about rosaline’s rejection are rather pedestrian; however, familial bonds— and perhaps benvolio’s general good nature—lead to commiseration rather than the rebuke or outright hilarity romeo receives from his other friends, specifically mercutio. however, this scene serves to illuminate something crucial about romeo’s character at the beginning of the play: he is not an active agent in his own life, and that passivity marks him as feminine. he fell in love with rosaline sometime before the action of the play and was rejected for a reason that truly has nothing to do with him: rosaline intends to live chastely. she would turn down any suitor. instead of recognizing this, romeo mopes about what he has lost. it never occurs to him to accept what he cannot change and move on. in fact, he only attends the ball that will change his life because he wants to prove to his friends that rosaline is the only one he will ever love. though he takes a more proactive role in his pursuit of juliet, one that reduces his reliance on petrarchan conventions, at his core, he still remains the petrarchan lover, one who maintains that “most essential characteristic of petrarchism […] adoration of the loved one” (pearson 252). when romeo meets juliet, one might assume that truly being in love would lead to a more masculine performance, one in which romeo begins to make his own choices rather than reacting to the choices of others. with the exception of going to juliet’s window— admittedly, a brave act, since there is a real threat of death in doing so—this is not the case. romeo encounters juliet, just as he planned, but she quickly turns the meeting to her advantage. while romeo appears to have intended simple wooing, juliet extracts a marriage proposal by the end of their assignation. after this, romeo’s entire life is inverted because whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 77 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2014 of his love for juliet; for romeo, love leads to effeminacy rather than a more masculine performance, something that is commented on throughout the play. his first meeting with tybalt after his marriage to juliet is tinged with romeo’s reluctance to fight, for which he blames juliet: “o sweet juliet, / thy beauty hath made me effeminate / and in my temper softened valour’s steel!” (3.1.115-17). friar laurence is frustrated with romeo’s reactions to distress, noting with disappointment romeo’s tears and immature behavior over his banishment and juliet’s reaction to tybalt’s death when, as a newly married man, he should be concerned with protecting his wife, not weeping over the injustices done to their love. romeo’s attempt to stab himself proves to be the friar’s breaking point. friar laurence: hold thy desperate hand! art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art. thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast. unseemly woman in a seeming man, and ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! thou hast amazed me. by my holy order, i thought thy disposition better tempered. ………………………………………… fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, which, like a usurer, abound’st in all, and usest none in that true use indeed which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. thy noble shape is but a form of wax digressing from the valour of a man.... (3.3.107-26) friar laurence sees romeo as casting off a preferred masculine performance for a feminine one. this weeping and moping around is “womanish” and unbecoming; it even denotes a possibility of hermaphroditism as romeo becomes an “unseemly woman in a seeming man.” most importantly, romeo rejects his divine formation—as someone graced with an attractive male form, he is expected to perform an admirable type of masculinity. his feminine acts, along with his cowardice, are shameful. thomas moisan notes that, in the friar’s remarks about romeo’s feminine performance, there “is the fear that frequents much of the literature of petrarchan love, the fear that for a man to worship a woman is to deny his masculine self ” (130). romeo is concerned about this denial early in the text, but comes to accept it as the type of man he is meant to be; loving juliet is worth any changes she forces in him. romeo and juliet are the agents of change in each other’s lives, though the change she brings to him is less drastic than the one he brings to her. her gender performance shifts over the course of the play, like romeo’s, but instead of being mildly feminine with masculine tendencies—the reverse of which is true of romeo—juliet begins the play as a young woman who is hiding her preference for masculine performance in order to protect herself in a social order that only allows female agency within marriage—and even then, only a very small degree. from her first entrance, juliet is shown to be inwardly resistant to her parents’ wishes while outwardly acquiescing to their requests; her mother must call for her multiple times before she appears, apparently frustrated to have been pulled away from what she was doing. still, she responds prettily to lady capulet’s questions about courtship, while using her rhetorical skill never actually to agree to marriage itself. her answer to her mother—“i’ll look to like, if looking liking move / but no more deep will i endart mine eye / than your consent gives strength to make it fly” (1.3.98-100)—is just a nod to convention. lady capulet, spun by juliet and the nurse’s quick wits, forgets that her original purpose was to persuade juliet to look favorably upon paris. this is how juliet has to deal with her parents; she is powerless in this society, but she still knows what she wants. marriage is on her horizon, but she wants to choose for herself. juliet’s rhetorical ability is clearly her most masculine trait, and it is one in which she seems to develop and delight, though in shakespeare’s time, it was patently unfeminine. lynette hunter and peter lichtenfels explain that juliet’s own skill with words and rhetoric would mark her out, in elizabethan society, as having masculine traits. such skill was supposed to be found and encouraged only in men, and one argument is that it was recognized that men were socially formed, while women were “natural.” a person being “natural” does not need rhetorical devices to present themselves. on the other hand, this is a convenient theory to prevent women from entering into social discourse. (134-35) juliet knows very well that her wit will be seen as unnaturalness on her part, and because her safety is entirely predicated on being a good, natural daughter, she goes through her life only exhibiting that wit when she needs to steer her parents in another direction. juliet is intelligent enough to understand that her world is one of patriarchal power, and she must be careful not to challenge her father’s wishes overtly, so her cleverness makes rare but powerful appearances in her first scenes. however, when she meets romeo, her rhetorical skills emerge in full force. falling in love with romeo sets her free; she is no longer a daughter but a young woman contemplating marriage. she feels like an adult and therefore should finally be herself. her first conversation with romeo is a battle of wits, during which the audience is treated to some of shakespeare’s most interesting conceits. romeo begins his pursuit by comparing juliet to an object of worship, calling her a “holy shrine” (1.5.92); while elizabethan society would expect his beloved to simply accept the object position and listen, juliet breaks into romeo’s speech with her own contributions, admonishing her “good pilgrim” (1.5.96) and eventually helping to form a sonnet that is enriched by her continuation of the religion of love conceit. juliet’s masculine skill with words is obvious to romeo, and he encourages her to exhibit it in their courtship. however, there is one aspect of juliet’s verbal dexterity of which romeo does not seem to be aware. mary bly has pointed out that, after meeting romeo, juliet’s rhetorical skill involves another unfeminine aspect: erotic innuendo. generally, when this is exhibited by women, it is reserved for more marginal characters, like the nurse, who seems to fall back on it as a matter of course; after all, she swears by her “maidenhead at twelve year whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 77 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2014 of his love for juliet; for romeo, love leads to effeminacy rather than a more masculine performance, something that is commented on throughout the play. his first meeting with tybalt after his marriage to juliet is tinged with romeo’s reluctance to fight, for which he blames juliet: “o sweet juliet, / thy beauty hath made me effeminate / and in my temper softened valour’s steel!” (3.1.115-17). friar laurence is frustrated with romeo’s reactions to distress, noting with disappointment romeo’s tears and immature behavior over his banishment and juliet’s reaction to tybalt’s death when, as a newly married man, he should be concerned with protecting his wife, not weeping over the injustices done to their love. romeo’s attempt to stab himself proves to be the friar’s breaking point. friar laurence: hold thy desperate hand! art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art. thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast. unseemly woman in a seeming man, and ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! thou hast amazed me. by my holy order, i thought thy disposition better tempered. ………………………………………… fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit, which, like a usurer, abound’st in all, and usest none in that true use indeed which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. thy noble shape is but a form of wax digressing from the valour of a man.... (3.3.107-26) friar laurence sees romeo as casting off a preferred masculine performance for a feminine one. this weeping and moping around is “womanish” and unbecoming; it even denotes a possibility of hermaphroditism as romeo becomes an “unseemly woman in a seeming man.” most importantly, romeo rejects his divine formation—as someone graced with an attractive male form, he is expected to perform an admirable type of masculinity. his feminine acts, along with his cowardice, are shameful. thomas moisan notes that, in the friar’s remarks about romeo’s feminine performance, there “is the fear that frequents much of the literature of petrarchan love, the fear that for a man to worship a woman is to deny his masculine self ” (130). romeo is concerned about this denial early in the text, but comes to accept it as the type of man he is meant to be; loving juliet is worth any changes she forces in him. romeo and juliet are the agents of change in each other’s lives, though the change she brings to him is less drastic than the one he brings to her. her gender performance shifts over the course of the play, like romeo’s, but instead of being mildly feminine with masculine tendencies—the reverse of which is true of romeo—juliet begins the play as a young woman who is hiding her preference for masculine performance in order to protect herself in a social order that only allows female agency within marriage—and even then, only a very small degree. from her first entrance, juliet is shown to be inwardly resistant to her parents’ wishes while outwardly acquiescing to their requests; her mother must call for her multiple times before she appears, apparently frustrated to have been pulled away from what she was doing. still, she responds prettily to lady capulet’s questions about courtship, while using her rhetorical skill never actually to agree to marriage itself. her answer to her mother—“i’ll look to like, if looking liking move / but no more deep will i endart mine eye / than your consent gives strength to make it fly” (1.3.98-100)—is just a nod to convention. lady capulet, spun by juliet and the nurse’s quick wits, forgets that her original purpose was to persuade juliet to look favorably upon paris. this is how juliet has to deal with her parents; she is powerless in this society, but she still knows what she wants. marriage is on her horizon, but she wants to choose for herself. juliet’s rhetorical ability is clearly her most masculine trait, and it is one in which she seems to develop and delight, though in shakespeare’s time, it was patently unfeminine. lynette hunter and peter lichtenfels explain that juliet’s own skill with words and rhetoric would mark her out, in elizabethan society, as having masculine traits. such skill was supposed to be found and encouraged only in men, and one argument is that it was recognized that men were socially formed, while women were “natural.” a person being “natural” does not need rhetorical devices to present themselves. on the other hand, this is a convenient theory to prevent women from entering into social discourse. (134-35) juliet knows very well that her wit will be seen as unnaturalness on her part, and because her safety is entirely predicated on being a good, natural daughter, she goes through her life only exhibiting that wit when she needs to steer her parents in another direction. juliet is intelligent enough to understand that her world is one of patriarchal power, and she must be careful not to challenge her father’s wishes overtly, so her cleverness makes rare but powerful appearances in her first scenes. however, when she meets romeo, her rhetorical skills emerge in full force. falling in love with romeo sets her free; she is no longer a daughter but a young woman contemplating marriage. she feels like an adult and therefore should finally be herself. her first conversation with romeo is a battle of wits, during which the audience is treated to some of shakespeare’s most interesting conceits. romeo begins his pursuit by comparing juliet to an object of worship, calling her a “holy shrine” (1.5.92); while elizabethan society would expect his beloved to simply accept the object position and listen, juliet breaks into romeo’s speech with her own contributions, admonishing her “good pilgrim” (1.5.96) and eventually helping to form a sonnet that is enriched by her continuation of the religion of love conceit. juliet’s masculine skill with words is obvious to romeo, and he encourages her to exhibit it in their courtship. however, there is one aspect of juliet’s verbal dexterity of which romeo does not seem to be aware. mary bly has pointed out that, after meeting romeo, juliet’s rhetorical skill involves another unfeminine aspect: erotic innuendo. generally, when this is exhibited by women, it is reserved for more marginal characters, like the nurse, who seems to fall back on it as a matter of course; after all, she swears by her “maidenhead at twelve year whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 79 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2014 old” (1.3.2)—the last time she had one—to attest to lady capulet that she has already bid juliet to attend her mother. this type of wit is certainly not typical of young, virginal heroines, as it would be unbecoming for a lady of the aristocracy to speak this way. why, then, is juliet’s masculine expression of desire appropriate? bly’s interrogation of the text proves helpful here: “if a blunt expression of lust is an inappropriate statement for a virginal heroine, what is the position of a witty expression of desire? the nature of the expression is clearly important…. if desire is revealed in clever puns, does that wit protect the heroine from a charge of immodesty?” (53). it could be argued that because these erotic puns are an expression of juliet’s wit and made in soliloquy, they are not potentially immodest; after all, romeo speaks of juliet in more worshipful terms, calling her beauty “too rich for use” (1.5.46). juliet obviously disagrees. it is juliet’s masculine rhetorical ability that allows for a more overt gender performance, so that lines such as “what’s montague? it is nor hand nor foot, / nor arm nor face nor any other part / belonging to a man” (2.2.39-41) can be delivered with a knowing smile without hurting juliet’s status as virginal heroine. at this point in the play, the audience is a little more comfortable with juliet’s more masculine tendencies and she can exhibit them comfortably in her next encounter with romeo. in the window scene, juliet’s unconventional performance of gender comes into full focus. while romeo seeks juliet out, it is she who rules their conversation. her masculine mindset steers the scene and the speeches they make to each other. while romeo simply intended to come woo juliet, she wants something more permanent and makes sure she gets it. juliet is mature enough to know that she cannot risk her father’s wrath for a mere dalliance. she tests romeo to see if he is the man she hopes he is, a man who truly loves her for who she is and who will accept her performance of masculinity, rather than the flighty lover he appears to be. she begins by using her words to feminize romeo; hunter and lichtenfels note that her lines feature metaphors that tie him to common symbols of women’s sexuality and frailty, the rose and the moon (134). when these prove acceptable to romeo, juliet moves to a more assertive position, telling romeo what must happen between the two of them—marriage, not the tryst romeo seemed to be envisioning. she speaks of herself as the falconer and romeo as her bird, though she is ever mindful that though romeo seems to accept her more dominant position, larger society will not. when she acknowledges this and moves to a more modest position as a “wanton,” romeo still casts himself as in her thrall. juliet: ‘tis almost morning. i would have thee gone, and yet no farther than a wanton’s bird, that lets it hop a little from his hand, like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silken thread plucks it back again, so loving-jealous of his liberty. romeo: i would i were thy bird. juliet: sweet, so would i, yet i should kill thee with much cherishing. good night, good night. parting is such sweet sorrow that i shall say goodnight till it be morrow. (2.2.176-85) shakespeare’s bird imagery places romeo and juliet firmly in their categories; she is the masculine, assertive partner while he is more passive and feminine, a relationship that hunter and lichtenfels call “part of a reciprocal relation that challenges accepted gender definitions of male and female” (134). juliet’s performance has become cemented. her love for romeo has confirmed her desire to perform a masculine performance regularly and she does so throughout the rest of the play. juliet chooses to enact her chosen gender more powerfully after she meets romeo— when she finally finds something she wants for herself. after her marriage, she does not abandon this behavior; in fact, her actions more directly mirror those of the men in her life, though she marries those decisions with the maturity most of them lack. while romeo will risk all for love, juliet is more careful in her pursuit of happiness. romeo’s immaturity leads him to engage in some fairly dangerous behavior; climbing up to the window of the daughter of his family’s sworn enemy is not the smartest thing to do. juliet reminds him of this, but romeo shrugs off her warnings. juliet: how cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? the orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find thee here. romeo: with love’s light wings did i o’erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt; therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me. juliet: if they do see thee, they will murder thee. (2.2.62-70) juliet is frustrated with romeo’s refusal to see the truth of their situation, though she does not dismiss him for it. this sets the tone for their relationship; romeo makes rash decisions that indicate his immaturity—coded as feminine in the text—and juliet makes more measured ones, though even she falls prey to too-quick reactions. still, she understands that to get what she wants, she must enact a masculine gender performance; this is true even when she exhibits more feminine attributes, such as when she goes to see friar laurence after her father tells her she must marry paris. while she weeps with desperation, juliet’s purpose in seeking out the friar is not to cry, but to make a plan. she begs him for an answer—any answer will do, as long as she can do something. again, juliet is an active agent in her own life. friar laurence also points out that this agency is a necessity. whereas he encourages romeo to act as the man god made him, the friar admonishes juliet to avoid “womanish fear” (4.1.119) in her deception of her parents. for him, masculine performance seems to be the only way for those who defy veronese society to survive it. baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet takes a similar position and develops these aspects of romeo and juliet’s performances of gender. though the film is often dismissed for what critics see as a refusal properly to adapt the play—the updated whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 79 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2014 old” (1.3.2)—the last time she had one—to attest to lady capulet that she has already bid juliet to attend her mother. this type of wit is certainly not typical of young, virginal heroines, as it would be unbecoming for a lady of the aristocracy to speak this way. why, then, is juliet’s masculine expression of desire appropriate? bly’s interrogation of the text proves helpful here: “if a blunt expression of lust is an inappropriate statement for a virginal heroine, what is the position of a witty expression of desire? the nature of the expression is clearly important…. if desire is revealed in clever puns, does that wit protect the heroine from a charge of immodesty?” (53). it could be argued that because these erotic puns are an expression of juliet’s wit and made in soliloquy, they are not potentially immodest; after all, romeo speaks of juliet in more worshipful terms, calling her beauty “too rich for use” (1.5.46). juliet obviously disagrees. it is juliet’s masculine rhetorical ability that allows for a more overt gender performance, so that lines such as “what’s montague? it is nor hand nor foot, / nor arm nor face nor any other part / belonging to a man” (2.2.39-41) can be delivered with a knowing smile without hurting juliet’s status as virginal heroine. at this point in the play, the audience is a little more comfortable with juliet’s more masculine tendencies and she can exhibit them comfortably in her next encounter with romeo. in the window scene, juliet’s unconventional performance of gender comes into full focus. while romeo seeks juliet out, it is she who rules their conversation. her masculine mindset steers the scene and the speeches they make to each other. while romeo simply intended to come woo juliet, she wants something more permanent and makes sure she gets it. juliet is mature enough to know that she cannot risk her father’s wrath for a mere dalliance. she tests romeo to see if he is the man she hopes he is, a man who truly loves her for who she is and who will accept her performance of masculinity, rather than the flighty lover he appears to be. she begins by using her words to feminize romeo; hunter and lichtenfels note that her lines feature metaphors that tie him to common symbols of women’s sexuality and frailty, the rose and the moon (134). when these prove acceptable to romeo, juliet moves to a more assertive position, telling romeo what must happen between the two of them—marriage, not the tryst romeo seemed to be envisioning. she speaks of herself as the falconer and romeo as her bird, though she is ever mindful that though romeo seems to accept her more dominant position, larger society will not. when she acknowledges this and moves to a more modest position as a “wanton,” romeo still casts himself as in her thrall. juliet: ‘tis almost morning. i would have thee gone, and yet no farther than a wanton’s bird, that lets it hop a little from his hand, like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, and with a silken thread plucks it back again, so loving-jealous of his liberty. romeo: i would i were thy bird. juliet: sweet, so would i, yet i should kill thee with much cherishing. good night, good night. parting is such sweet sorrow that i shall say goodnight till it be morrow. (2.2.176-85) shakespeare’s bird imagery places romeo and juliet firmly in their categories; she is the masculine, assertive partner while he is more passive and feminine, a relationship that hunter and lichtenfels call “part of a reciprocal relation that challenges accepted gender definitions of male and female” (134). juliet’s performance has become cemented. her love for romeo has confirmed her desire to perform a masculine performance regularly and she does so throughout the rest of the play. juliet chooses to enact her chosen gender more powerfully after she meets romeo— when she finally finds something she wants for herself. after her marriage, she does not abandon this behavior; in fact, her actions more directly mirror those of the men in her life, though she marries those decisions with the maturity most of them lack. while romeo will risk all for love, juliet is more careful in her pursuit of happiness. romeo’s immaturity leads him to engage in some fairly dangerous behavior; climbing up to the window of the daughter of his family’s sworn enemy is not the smartest thing to do. juliet reminds him of this, but romeo shrugs off her warnings. juliet: how cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? the orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, if any of my kinsmen find thee here. romeo: with love’s light wings did i o’erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt; therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me. juliet: if they do see thee, they will murder thee. (2.2.62-70) juliet is frustrated with romeo’s refusal to see the truth of their situation, though she does not dismiss him for it. this sets the tone for their relationship; romeo makes rash decisions that indicate his immaturity—coded as feminine in the text—and juliet makes more measured ones, though even she falls prey to too-quick reactions. still, she understands that to get what she wants, she must enact a masculine gender performance; this is true even when she exhibits more feminine attributes, such as when she goes to see friar laurence after her father tells her she must marry paris. while she weeps with desperation, juliet’s purpose in seeking out the friar is not to cry, but to make a plan. she begs him for an answer—any answer will do, as long as she can do something. again, juliet is an active agent in her own life. friar laurence also points out that this agency is a necessity. whereas he encourages romeo to act as the man god made him, the friar admonishes juliet to avoid “womanish fear” (4.1.119) in her deception of her parents. for him, masculine performance seems to be the only way for those who defy veronese society to survive it. baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet takes a similar position and develops these aspects of romeo and juliet’s performances of gender. though the film is often dismissed for what critics see as a refusal properly to adapt the play—the updated whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 81 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2014 setting and the guns are generally the targets of this criticism—it does have a place in the canon of adaptations of shakespeare. patricia tatspaugh asserts that the anachronistic elements actually qualify luhrmann’s work as a good adaptation, writing that “directors must also place romeo and juliet ...in a social context that illuminates their characters and mediates between the renaissance play and the target audience—and between the renaissance play and the extended audience watching in film archives and videotape” (135). douglas brode agrees, explaining that films such as luhrmann’s do important cultural work, bringing shakespeare back down to the people and proving that his stories are timeless (57). why, then, are some critics still reluctant to recognize the film as a good adaptation? the answer lies in prejudice against the teen film, a category that outwardly traces the many attempts contemporary teenagers make to amuse themselves or rebel against their parents but is truly, at its core, devoted to portraying various ways in which young people struggle to create an adult identity. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, a multigenre postmodern piece, fits into this genre much more neatly than any other. luhrmann creates a world that feels like miami, los angeles, and mexico city all at once and is characterized by gang violence, drug use, and excess. above all, however, this world feels real to teenagers—not real in terms of spectacle and theatricality, but in how it deals with the limitations of a world built to satisfy one’s parents rather than oneself and the ways in which teenagers work to define themselves apart from their families. romeo and juliet struggle against outside forces that control their lives but care little about the effect it has on them; in response, they come to their own understanding of what it means to be a functional adult. in showing this, luhrmann handles the thematic material of the text quite deftly; from casting to final editing, the film examines a number of integral issues in romeo and juliet, though none perhaps as well as gender performance. because william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet was marketed as a teen film, even its preproduction was crafted to appeal to teenage girls—the genre’s primary focus—so that they would anticipate the film’s release, regardless of its shakespearean source. by casting teen idol leonardo dicaprio as romeo, luhrmann ensured that teenage girls would track the film throughout its production and flock to its premiere.2 however bankable dicaprio was at the time—and still is—the real impulse in casting him lies in his physicality. in 1995, dicaprio was twenty-one years old and still looked like a teenager, something that would continue well into his twenties; part of his appeal in the 1990s was that he fit into the prevailing aesthetic created by designers like calvin klein, who used male models with androgynous looks. until his late twenties and early thirties, dicaprio kept a rather feminine appearance, with blue eyes, blond hair worn a little long, a fairly thin body, and features that could only be termed “pretty.” luhrmann found a perfect romeo for all of his purposes: he could believably play seventeen years old; he was a physical type the audience 2 and flock, they did: in the us alone, the film made $11,133,231 on its opening weekend and $46,338,728 overall. the film’s budget was an estimated $14,500,000 ( jackson 5). luhrmann certainly chose some bankable stars. would find appealing, enough so that juliet’s feelings for him would make sense to them; and most importantly, his feminine appearance created a space in which luhrmann could more easily highlight the play’s concerns with performativity. in the director’s commentary to the special edition dvd of the film, baz luhrmann explains his inspiration for romeo: “he’s a rebel without a cause who is also an ultraromantic. so he’s a bit like james dean, he’s a bit like byron, he’s a bit like kurt cobain— we’re constantly ratifying this message. he’s a sort of universal antihero” (luhrmann). one point that luhrmann does not address is what these figures have in common— unconventional gender expression. james dean is often conflated with his most famous role, rebel without a cause’s jim stark, a figure often noted in film criticism as marking a change to a more sensitive, sometimes feminine hero; lord byron’s personal life is full of moments that demand examination from a gender studies scholar; and kurt cobain had a well-known penchant for cross-dressing. romeo may be luhrmann’s rebel without a cause, but he is more obviously a figure of difference, one whose expression of gender is in direct contrast to those around him, particularly his friends, who generally help construct a young man’s idea of correct gender performance. from romeo’s first entrance, luhrmann draws attention to his difference. while his friends had opened the film with a shoot-out sequence reminiscent of a john woo film or a sergio leone spaghetti western—using guns and boasting to emphasize their masculinity—romeo’s first scene shows him in a rather opposite way. in shakespeare on film, judith buchanan identifies the moments that can be coded as feminine in this scene: sentimentally lit by the dawn light, he sits perched on the edge of a broad stage lost in an indulgent reverie as, in internalised voice-over, he rehearses his paradoxical platitudes about his love for rosaline…. it is a moment that iconises the particular variety of fragile, almost androgynous, sex appeal that characterised its star…. this is, in effect, the first moment of peace in the film. taken by the poeticism of his own lacklustre words, romeo even jots them down in a notebook for future reference. (232) the staging of this scene makes it clear that romeo would have been terribly out of place in the gas station gunfight. even his costuming marks him differently; his friends have wildcolored, punk-reminiscent hair3—one has none at all, choosing instead to have a tattoo of ted montague’s company logo on the back of his head—and sampson even sports a residual black eye, presumably from a previous fight with the capulets.4 in the pool hall scene, we see that even benvolio, a more moderate character, constantly wears his guns—he has a tan line from the holster. in contrast, romeo wears a black suit and a white shirt. through costuming, we see that romeo takes life more seriously than his friends, even 3 it should be noted that benvolio’s hair is an orangish red; while still bright, it seems to be actor dash mihok’s natural color. the combination of mihok as romeo’s blood relative and brian dennehy as ted montague— each parent has been given a first name; romeo’s mother is called caroline—leads one to speculation that the montagues are meant to be an irish gang in contrast to the capulets’ clear hispanic origins. 4 luhrmann and pearce’s screenplay misspells samson’s name and puts him and gregory on the side of the montagues; it also makes abraham into abra capulet. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 81 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2014 setting and the guns are generally the targets of this criticism—it does have a place in the canon of adaptations of shakespeare. patricia tatspaugh asserts that the anachronistic elements actually qualify luhrmann’s work as a good adaptation, writing that “directors must also place romeo and juliet ...in a social context that illuminates their characters and mediates between the renaissance play and the target audience—and between the renaissance play and the extended audience watching in film archives and videotape” (135). douglas brode agrees, explaining that films such as luhrmann’s do important cultural work, bringing shakespeare back down to the people and proving that his stories are timeless (57). why, then, are some critics still reluctant to recognize the film as a good adaptation? the answer lies in prejudice against the teen film, a category that outwardly traces the many attempts contemporary teenagers make to amuse themselves or rebel against their parents but is truly, at its core, devoted to portraying various ways in which young people struggle to create an adult identity. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, a multigenre postmodern piece, fits into this genre much more neatly than any other. luhrmann creates a world that feels like miami, los angeles, and mexico city all at once and is characterized by gang violence, drug use, and excess. above all, however, this world feels real to teenagers—not real in terms of spectacle and theatricality, but in how it deals with the limitations of a world built to satisfy one’s parents rather than oneself and the ways in which teenagers work to define themselves apart from their families. romeo and juliet struggle against outside forces that control their lives but care little about the effect it has on them; in response, they come to their own understanding of what it means to be a functional adult. in showing this, luhrmann handles the thematic material of the text quite deftly; from casting to final editing, the film examines a number of integral issues in romeo and juliet, though none perhaps as well as gender performance. because william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet was marketed as a teen film, even its preproduction was crafted to appeal to teenage girls—the genre’s primary focus—so that they would anticipate the film’s release, regardless of its shakespearean source. by casting teen idol leonardo dicaprio as romeo, luhrmann ensured that teenage girls would track the film throughout its production and flock to its premiere.2 however bankable dicaprio was at the time—and still is—the real impulse in casting him lies in his physicality. in 1995, dicaprio was twenty-one years old and still looked like a teenager, something that would continue well into his twenties; part of his appeal in the 1990s was that he fit into the prevailing aesthetic created by designers like calvin klein, who used male models with androgynous looks. until his late twenties and early thirties, dicaprio kept a rather feminine appearance, with blue eyes, blond hair worn a little long, a fairly thin body, and features that could only be termed “pretty.” luhrmann found a perfect romeo for all of his purposes: he could believably play seventeen years old; he was a physical type the audience 2 and flock, they did: in the us alone, the film made $11,133,231 on its opening weekend and $46,338,728 overall. the film’s budget was an estimated $14,500,000 ( jackson 5). luhrmann certainly chose some bankable stars. would find appealing, enough so that juliet’s feelings for him would make sense to them; and most importantly, his feminine appearance created a space in which luhrmann could more easily highlight the play’s concerns with performativity. in the director’s commentary to the special edition dvd of the film, baz luhrmann explains his inspiration for romeo: “he’s a rebel without a cause who is also an ultraromantic. so he’s a bit like james dean, he’s a bit like byron, he’s a bit like kurt cobain— we’re constantly ratifying this message. he’s a sort of universal antihero” (luhrmann). one point that luhrmann does not address is what these figures have in common— unconventional gender expression. james dean is often conflated with his most famous role, rebel without a cause’s jim stark, a figure often noted in film criticism as marking a change to a more sensitive, sometimes feminine hero; lord byron’s personal life is full of moments that demand examination from a gender studies scholar; and kurt cobain had a well-known penchant for cross-dressing. romeo may be luhrmann’s rebel without a cause, but he is more obviously a figure of difference, one whose expression of gender is in direct contrast to those around him, particularly his friends, who generally help construct a young man’s idea of correct gender performance. from romeo’s first entrance, luhrmann draws attention to his difference. while his friends had opened the film with a shoot-out sequence reminiscent of a john woo film or a sergio leone spaghetti western—using guns and boasting to emphasize their masculinity—romeo’s first scene shows him in a rather opposite way. in shakespeare on film, judith buchanan identifies the moments that can be coded as feminine in this scene: sentimentally lit by the dawn light, he sits perched on the edge of a broad stage lost in an indulgent reverie as, in internalised voice-over, he rehearses his paradoxical platitudes about his love for rosaline…. it is a moment that iconises the particular variety of fragile, almost androgynous, sex appeal that characterised its star…. this is, in effect, the first moment of peace in the film. taken by the poeticism of his own lacklustre words, romeo even jots them down in a notebook for future reference. (232) the staging of this scene makes it clear that romeo would have been terribly out of place in the gas station gunfight. even his costuming marks him differently; his friends have wildcolored, punk-reminiscent hair3—one has none at all, choosing instead to have a tattoo of ted montague’s company logo on the back of his head—and sampson even sports a residual black eye, presumably from a previous fight with the capulets.4 in the pool hall scene, we see that even benvolio, a more moderate character, constantly wears his guns—he has a tan line from the holster. in contrast, romeo wears a black suit and a white shirt. through costuming, we see that romeo takes life more seriously than his friends, even 3 it should be noted that benvolio’s hair is an orangish red; while still bright, it seems to be actor dash mihok’s natural color. the combination of mihok as romeo’s blood relative and brian dennehy as ted montague— each parent has been given a first name; romeo’s mother is called caroline—leads one to speculation that the montagues are meant to be an irish gang in contrast to the capulets’ clear hispanic origins. 4 luhrmann and pearce’s screenplay misspells samson’s name and puts him and gregory on the side of the montagues; it also makes abraham into abra capulet. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 83 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2014 friar laurence—their everyday clothes are shorts and unbuttoned hawaiian shirts.5 other than his suit, the only thing that codes him as masculine—particularly in the teen film tradition—is that while he broods about rosaline, a slim cigarette hangs from his mouth, a traditional signifier of a “bad boy.” this seems to be mere posturing, a gesture toward a more traditional masculinity while he indulges in feminine reflection; the cigarettes only reappear when he writes in his journal again in exile in mantua. while the play presents romeo as different, even special, this film also shows romeo to be fundamentally opposed to the other male characters’ performance of masculinity from his first appearance. he is much more comfortable alone in the sycamore grove beach playground than he is in his interactions with other men, even with his group of friends. even though it is obvious that they love each other, there is always a tension between romeo and the montague gang, particularly with mercutio. harold perrineau adds an underlying tone of rage to mercutio’s character so that every decision romeo makes that does not express the prevailing type of masculinity leads to conflict between the two of them.6 mercutio’s reactions are always too big for the current situation; when the nurse comes to sycamore grove to give romeo a message from juliet, romeo leaves his friends for a moment to speak with her. mercutio deems a gunshot in the air the necessary means of regaining romeo’s attention. the disappointed look he receives in response makes it clear what romeo thinks about mercutio’s posturing and bravado. even when romeo is not around, his friends are shown to be enacting a problematic masculinity. this showy, antagonistic expression causes nothing but trouble, as evidenced by the opening scene. without romeo as an indicator of how the audience should feel about this fight, luhrmann inserts comedy to show the absurdity of the gang’s conflict; sampson tries to war valiantly, but in attempting to hide from abra’s gunshots, he takes refuge in a car full of women, one of whom beats him about the head with her purse because of the trouble he is causing her. this is no way to express one’s masculinity, and because—with the exception of friar laurence—this is romeo’s example, he chooses to eschew their performance altogether and pursue a more feminine style. this tension between romeo and other male characters is also explored in the additions and deletions that luhrmann makes to the text. one of the most significant changes comes in romeo’s confrontation with tybalt; this scene is given an entirely different tone. while the text specifies that romeo fights tybalt on the strength of his “fire-eyed fury” (3.1.126) at mercutio’s death and makes quick work of the struggle between them, dicaprio’s romeo is powered by grief and the incident stretches over three minutes, a significant length for a filmic version of this scene. until this point, he has taken a great deal of abuse from tybalt—not just the verbal abuse the play indicates, but a painful physical beating that leaves him with bruises, cuts, and cracked ribs. in luhrmann’s vision, romeo and tybalt’s 5 they are dolce and gabbana hawaiian shirts, however. still, the only time romeo’s hawaiian shirt is unbuttoned is when he plays a form of solitary baseball during his banishment in mantua. 6 this is very interesting in light of the film’s portrayal of mercutio as a drag queen; the organization of his party performance makes it clear that he does this often. however, this topic deserves its own examination elsewhere. duel is marked by emotional pain; john leguizamo even plays tybalt as seemingly sorry for the outcome of his fight with mercutio, as if tybalt is just a young man playing at violence and not really aware of the potential effects of this feud.7 as romeo pursues tybalt in a high-speed car chase and catches up to him at the base of a statue reminiscent of rio de janeiro’s christ the redeemer, tears are streaming down romeo’s face, left over from his weeping over mercutio’s prone body. even as he corners tybalt, there is no shift to rage or even satisfaction; instead, dicaprio’s eyes glitter with tears as he shoots tybalt. he looks shocked, as if he had not realized he was emptying a clip into the young man. another change comes in the tomb scene; whereas romeo kills him in the text, this paris does not make an appearance beyond his visit to the friar to arrange his and juliet’s wedding, and he is apparently alive by the end of the action. this removal of intentional, rage-driven violence further serves to feminize romeo. luhrmann’s changes show romeo to be more comfortable with a more passive, feminine performance of gender. luhrmann’s juliet also prefers an unusual expression of gender, though for different reasons. unlike romeo, she is not reacting to the performances around her but creating a performance that enables her to navigate her isolated world. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet makes juliet the privileged only daughter of an hispanic gangster, hidden away from the world and highly prized by her father for what she can bring him, not for who she is. in reaction to this, juliet cultivates a masculine gender performance to help her in her dealings with others. as portrayed by claire danes, juliet is a delicate beauty, generally costumed in white or an extremely childlike, innocent rendition of a catholic uniform because this is the image her parents wish her to present. however, underneath this is a young woman who is very certain about what she wants and how things should go; one could even term danes’s portrayal stubborn. this is a natural understanding of the subtext of the screenplay; both of her parents are written as determined to get their way. even her first appearance, after her mother runs throughout the mansion calling for her, is on her own terms. juliet is in the bath, daydreaming under the water, and comes to her mother when she feels like it, a mildly irritated look on her face. she was busy, her expression says. fulgencio and gloria capulet also seem to recognize their daughter’s rhetorical ability in luhrmann’s vision; for example, when juliet’s response to gloria’s request to consider paris is “i’ll look to like, if looking like move. but no more deep will i endart mine eye than your consent give strength to make it fly” (luhrmann), gloria huffs, rolls her eyes, and storms out, realizing that juliet is evading her question. it is clear that though the play’s juliet has a great deal of verbal acumen, this juliet has wielded her words against her parents many times. gloria does not seem surprised at juliet’s response. juliet’s moments of submissiveness are just for show; she is more comfortable directing her own life. the most interesting aspect of danes’s performance, however, is that her juliet is both the most innocent and one of the most mature characters in the film, something that grows from her decisive nature—and by extension, her masculine gender expression. luhrmann 7 his earlier gunfight only left a montague wounded in the shoulder. tybalt and benvolio are shown in a standoff before captain prince calls an end to the brawl. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 83 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2014 friar laurence—their everyday clothes are shorts and unbuttoned hawaiian shirts.5 other than his suit, the only thing that codes him as masculine—particularly in the teen film tradition—is that while he broods about rosaline, a slim cigarette hangs from his mouth, a traditional signifier of a “bad boy.” this seems to be mere posturing, a gesture toward a more traditional masculinity while he indulges in feminine reflection; the cigarettes only reappear when he writes in his journal again in exile in mantua. while the play presents romeo as different, even special, this film also shows romeo to be fundamentally opposed to the other male characters’ performance of masculinity from his first appearance. he is much more comfortable alone in the sycamore grove beach playground than he is in his interactions with other men, even with his group of friends. even though it is obvious that they love each other, there is always a tension between romeo and the montague gang, particularly with mercutio. harold perrineau adds an underlying tone of rage to mercutio’s character so that every decision romeo makes that does not express the prevailing type of masculinity leads to conflict between the two of them.6 mercutio’s reactions are always too big for the current situation; when the nurse comes to sycamore grove to give romeo a message from juliet, romeo leaves his friends for a moment to speak with her. mercutio deems a gunshot in the air the necessary means of regaining romeo’s attention. the disappointed look he receives in response makes it clear what romeo thinks about mercutio’s posturing and bravado. even when romeo is not around, his friends are shown to be enacting a problematic masculinity. this showy, antagonistic expression causes nothing but trouble, as evidenced by the opening scene. without romeo as an indicator of how the audience should feel about this fight, luhrmann inserts comedy to show the absurdity of the gang’s conflict; sampson tries to war valiantly, but in attempting to hide from abra’s gunshots, he takes refuge in a car full of women, one of whom beats him about the head with her purse because of the trouble he is causing her. this is no way to express one’s masculinity, and because—with the exception of friar laurence—this is romeo’s example, he chooses to eschew their performance altogether and pursue a more feminine style. this tension between romeo and other male characters is also explored in the additions and deletions that luhrmann makes to the text. one of the most significant changes comes in romeo’s confrontation with tybalt; this scene is given an entirely different tone. while the text specifies that romeo fights tybalt on the strength of his “fire-eyed fury” (3.1.126) at mercutio’s death and makes quick work of the struggle between them, dicaprio’s romeo is powered by grief and the incident stretches over three minutes, a significant length for a filmic version of this scene. until this point, he has taken a great deal of abuse from tybalt—not just the verbal abuse the play indicates, but a painful physical beating that leaves him with bruises, cuts, and cracked ribs. in luhrmann’s vision, romeo and tybalt’s 5 they are dolce and gabbana hawaiian shirts, however. still, the only time romeo’s hawaiian shirt is unbuttoned is when he plays a form of solitary baseball during his banishment in mantua. 6 this is very interesting in light of the film’s portrayal of mercutio as a drag queen; the organization of his party performance makes it clear that he does this often. however, this topic deserves its own examination elsewhere. duel is marked by emotional pain; john leguizamo even plays tybalt as seemingly sorry for the outcome of his fight with mercutio, as if tybalt is just a young man playing at violence and not really aware of the potential effects of this feud.7 as romeo pursues tybalt in a high-speed car chase and catches up to him at the base of a statue reminiscent of rio de janeiro’s christ the redeemer, tears are streaming down romeo’s face, left over from his weeping over mercutio’s prone body. even as he corners tybalt, there is no shift to rage or even satisfaction; instead, dicaprio’s eyes glitter with tears as he shoots tybalt. he looks shocked, as if he had not realized he was emptying a clip into the young man. another change comes in the tomb scene; whereas romeo kills him in the text, this paris does not make an appearance beyond his visit to the friar to arrange his and juliet’s wedding, and he is apparently alive by the end of the action. this removal of intentional, rage-driven violence further serves to feminize romeo. luhrmann’s changes show romeo to be more comfortable with a more passive, feminine performance of gender. luhrmann’s juliet also prefers an unusual expression of gender, though for different reasons. unlike romeo, she is not reacting to the performances around her but creating a performance that enables her to navigate her isolated world. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet makes juliet the privileged only daughter of an hispanic gangster, hidden away from the world and highly prized by her father for what she can bring him, not for who she is. in reaction to this, juliet cultivates a masculine gender performance to help her in her dealings with others. as portrayed by claire danes, juliet is a delicate beauty, generally costumed in white or an extremely childlike, innocent rendition of a catholic uniform because this is the image her parents wish her to present. however, underneath this is a young woman who is very certain about what she wants and how things should go; one could even term danes’s portrayal stubborn. this is a natural understanding of the subtext of the screenplay; both of her parents are written as determined to get their way. even her first appearance, after her mother runs throughout the mansion calling for her, is on her own terms. juliet is in the bath, daydreaming under the water, and comes to her mother when she feels like it, a mildly irritated look on her face. she was busy, her expression says. fulgencio and gloria capulet also seem to recognize their daughter’s rhetorical ability in luhrmann’s vision; for example, when juliet’s response to gloria’s request to consider paris is “i’ll look to like, if looking like move. but no more deep will i endart mine eye than your consent give strength to make it fly” (luhrmann), gloria huffs, rolls her eyes, and storms out, realizing that juliet is evading her question. it is clear that though the play’s juliet has a great deal of verbal acumen, this juliet has wielded her words against her parents many times. gloria does not seem surprised at juliet’s response. juliet’s moments of submissiveness are just for show; she is more comfortable directing her own life. the most interesting aspect of danes’s performance, however, is that her juliet is both the most innocent and one of the most mature characters in the film, something that grows from her decisive nature—and by extension, her masculine gender expression. luhrmann 7 his earlier gunfight only left a montague wounded in the shoulder. tybalt and benvolio are shown in a standoff before captain prince calls an end to the brawl. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 85 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2014 together, an inclination juliet quickly squashes. whenever he reaches for her, juliet brings the conversation back to love. ultimately, she wants adult interaction, not adolescent lust. when romeo asks, “o wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” (luhrmann), juliet gives him a mildly incredulous look, an amusing interpretation on danes’s part. even in their more sedate conversation in this scene, juliet emerges as the more mature partner, fully enacting masculinity in order to move her life in the direction she chooses. she has decided that she wants to marry romeo, and she takes steps to make sure that happens. first, she moves into the typically male position of protector. juliet’s home is atop a hill and surrounded by a large fence, trees, and various shrubs; this proves fairly easy for romeo to scale, and though he makes a great deal of noise, juliet is still surprised when he appears. this turns to fear when she realizes that the capulets’ security cameras will have picked up romeo’s visit, and she works to hide him from both the cameras and the guard that appears when they fall into the pool. juliet tries to make romeo realize the danger he is in, asking him how he even got inside her father’s compound. the actors’ delivery of these lines makes romeo and juliet’s attitudes clear. danes’ tones are hushed and urgent, while dicaprio loudly declares romeo’s disbelief that the capulet’s guards could keep him from her, only quieting when juliet drags him underwater, hiding him from the security guard that hurries to check on her. it is only juliet’s quick thinking that saves him. at the end of their encounter, she firmly gives him instructions on how their relationship might continue and romeo simply smiles in acquiescence. he is perfectly all right with juliet holding the reins if that is what it takes to be with her. the actors’ interpretations of the text serve to help illuminate the characters’ respective expressions of gender. luhrmann’s changes to the text give clues as to juliet’s preferred gender performance as well. this is particularly evident in the events that follow her marriage, when her masculine expression becomes even clearer to those around her as she becomes more outwardly assertive. in the text, juliet agonizes over what tybalt’s death means for her and romeo’s marriage, pouring her heart out to the nurse. the film’s juliet is alone for all of this, though the nurse’s dialogue shows that she has witnessed at least some of juliet’s mourning. but juliet’s most revealing speech is done in secret—and internally, using a voiceover through juliet’s prayers to the virgin mary. juliet does not need a mediator for her thoughts; her own counsel is enough to help her understand her situation, though she hopes the virgin hears her and offers aid. this comes up again in her confrontation with her father; juliet is determined to be heard and knows that if her father will only listen to her, she might find a way out of this situation. to draw fulgencio’s attention, juliet treats him as he treats everyone else—she releases her opinions in anger, screaming at him while he screams at her. when tears come, she forces them away, wanting her father to notice only her assertive, masculine performance. only when she is left alone with the nurse does she cry in earnest; still, her first question to the nurse regards what could be done to prevent these things. this enaction of a more assertive, masculine performance is not limited to juliet’s family. her encounter with friar laurence is shortened when compared with the play, as is most of the film’s action, but what is interesting here are the words luhrmann chooses illustrates juliet’s difference through a number of filmic techniques, the most common of which is to situate her first appearances among people with loud, frantic personalities; romeo receives this treatment to a lesser degree because benvolio is a calmer presence. in her examination of the film for the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film, barbara tatspaugh offers a careful reading of romeo and juliet’s relationship, contending that romeo and juliet alone possess a stillness and serenity, which luhrmann conveys through symbols associated with them (the tiny cross juliet wears on a chain about her neck and an engraved ring), by filming their scenes in softer focus and longer sequences, by making their theme a lyrical torch song and by contrasting their love with the absence of love in verona beach and sycamore grove. (143) romeo does have a certain serenity in his character, though this is sometimes disrupted in juliet’s presence, and he does not begin the second act as innocently as juliet. he enters her father’s party in an ecstasy haze and has to retreat to the washroom to clear his head. after dunking his head in a sink full of water, romeo looks up and sees juliet through the aquarium that separates two rooms. now that he has been cleansed—baptized, really—he is worthy of juliet’s presence. still, he is presented as clumsy in comparison to juliet’s stillness and grace. in the balcony scene, luhrmann highlights juliet’s maturity and serenity in comparison to romeo; whereas juliet quietly descends from her room on the second floor in an elevator that opens out onto the pool area, romeo comes to her window only after tripping the motion-sensored lights and breaking a lamp near the pool.8 he mistakenly begins his soliloquy to the nurse and reels away in disgust, having to cling to the rose trellis or plunge two stories to the patio below. romeo’s expressions in these moments are comical. in contrast, juliet glides out of the elevator, sighing prettily and launching into a careful consideration of her situation. romeo is frozen against the trellis, quietly asking himself whether or not he should interrupt her. this attitude makes sense in light of their earlier meeting, where juliet makes it clear that her opinions on their relationship’s direction matter just as much as his—truthfully, they matter more. after juliet meets romeo, he attempts to steer their interaction, as this is the accepted nature of courtship. juliet, however, does not agree; she is accustomed to being in charge, something that romeo sees bubbling to the surface even during her dance with dave paris. when he is able to get close enough to her to talk—holding her hand from the other side of the pillar she is resting against—she quickly responds to his teasing seduction, matching him line by line and delighting him with her quick mind. however, romeo is also a seventeen-year-old boy, and luhrmann adds more physical intimacy to their flirtation, having romeo try to kiss her in the middle of the courtship sonnet, before the text indicates it should happen. juliet reinforces her assertive personality here as well, denying him this kiss because she is not finished talking. she is interested in romeo physically, too, dashing about the party to find a secluded place to extend their time together. later, during the balcony scene, romeo seems to feel this initial agreement extends to all of their time 8 according to the director’s commentary, leonardo dicaprio did this accidentally, but luhrmann found it so fitting that he kept it in the final cut of the film (luhrmann, martin, pearce, and mcalpine). whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 85 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2014 together, an inclination juliet quickly squashes. whenever he reaches for her, juliet brings the conversation back to love. ultimately, she wants adult interaction, not adolescent lust. when romeo asks, “o wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” (luhrmann), juliet gives him a mildly incredulous look, an amusing interpretation on danes’s part. even in their more sedate conversation in this scene, juliet emerges as the more mature partner, fully enacting masculinity in order to move her life in the direction she chooses. she has decided that she wants to marry romeo, and she takes steps to make sure that happens. first, she moves into the typically male position of protector. juliet’s home is atop a hill and surrounded by a large fence, trees, and various shrubs; this proves fairly easy for romeo to scale, and though he makes a great deal of noise, juliet is still surprised when he appears. this turns to fear when she realizes that the capulets’ security cameras will have picked up romeo’s visit, and she works to hide him from both the cameras and the guard that appears when they fall into the pool. juliet tries to make romeo realize the danger he is in, asking him how he even got inside her father’s compound. the actors’ delivery of these lines makes romeo and juliet’s attitudes clear. danes’ tones are hushed and urgent, while dicaprio loudly declares romeo’s disbelief that the capulet’s guards could keep him from her, only quieting when juliet drags him underwater, hiding him from the security guard that hurries to check on her. it is only juliet’s quick thinking that saves him. at the end of their encounter, she firmly gives him instructions on how their relationship might continue and romeo simply smiles in acquiescence. he is perfectly all right with juliet holding the reins if that is what it takes to be with her. the actors’ interpretations of the text serve to help illuminate the characters’ respective expressions of gender. luhrmann’s changes to the text give clues as to juliet’s preferred gender performance as well. this is particularly evident in the events that follow her marriage, when her masculine expression becomes even clearer to those around her as she becomes more outwardly assertive. in the text, juliet agonizes over what tybalt’s death means for her and romeo’s marriage, pouring her heart out to the nurse. the film’s juliet is alone for all of this, though the nurse’s dialogue shows that she has witnessed at least some of juliet’s mourning. but juliet’s most revealing speech is done in secret—and internally, using a voiceover through juliet’s prayers to the virgin mary. juliet does not need a mediator for her thoughts; her own counsel is enough to help her understand her situation, though she hopes the virgin hears her and offers aid. this comes up again in her confrontation with her father; juliet is determined to be heard and knows that if her father will only listen to her, she might find a way out of this situation. to draw fulgencio’s attention, juliet treats him as he treats everyone else—she releases her opinions in anger, screaming at him while he screams at her. when tears come, she forces them away, wanting her father to notice only her assertive, masculine performance. only when she is left alone with the nurse does she cry in earnest; still, her first question to the nurse regards what could be done to prevent these things. this enaction of a more assertive, masculine performance is not limited to juliet’s family. her encounter with friar laurence is shortened when compared with the play, as is most of the film’s action, but what is interesting here are the words luhrmann chooses illustrates juliet’s difference through a number of filmic techniques, the most common of which is to situate her first appearances among people with loud, frantic personalities; romeo receives this treatment to a lesser degree because benvolio is a calmer presence. in her examination of the film for the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film, barbara tatspaugh offers a careful reading of romeo and juliet’s relationship, contending that romeo and juliet alone possess a stillness and serenity, which luhrmann conveys through symbols associated with them (the tiny cross juliet wears on a chain about her neck and an engraved ring), by filming their scenes in softer focus and longer sequences, by making their theme a lyrical torch song and by contrasting their love with the absence of love in verona beach and sycamore grove. (143) romeo does have a certain serenity in his character, though this is sometimes disrupted in juliet’s presence, and he does not begin the second act as innocently as juliet. he enters her father’s party in an ecstasy haze and has to retreat to the washroom to clear his head. after dunking his head in a sink full of water, romeo looks up and sees juliet through the aquarium that separates two rooms. now that he has been cleansed—baptized, really—he is worthy of juliet’s presence. still, he is presented as clumsy in comparison to juliet’s stillness and grace. in the balcony scene, luhrmann highlights juliet’s maturity and serenity in comparison to romeo; whereas juliet quietly descends from her room on the second floor in an elevator that opens out onto the pool area, romeo comes to her window only after tripping the motion-sensored lights and breaking a lamp near the pool.8 he mistakenly begins his soliloquy to the nurse and reels away in disgust, having to cling to the rose trellis or plunge two stories to the patio below. romeo’s expressions in these moments are comical. in contrast, juliet glides out of the elevator, sighing prettily and launching into a careful consideration of her situation. romeo is frozen against the trellis, quietly asking himself whether or not he should interrupt her. this attitude makes sense in light of their earlier meeting, where juliet makes it clear that her opinions on their relationship’s direction matter just as much as his—truthfully, they matter more. after juliet meets romeo, he attempts to steer their interaction, as this is the accepted nature of courtship. juliet, however, does not agree; she is accustomed to being in charge, something that romeo sees bubbling to the surface even during her dance with dave paris. when he is able to get close enough to her to talk—holding her hand from the other side of the pillar she is resting against—she quickly responds to his teasing seduction, matching him line by line and delighting him with her quick mind. however, romeo is also a seventeen-year-old boy, and luhrmann adds more physical intimacy to their flirtation, having romeo try to kiss her in the middle of the courtship sonnet, before the text indicates it should happen. juliet reinforces her assertive personality here as well, denying him this kiss because she is not finished talking. she is interested in romeo physically, too, dashing about the party to find a secluded place to extend their time together. later, during the balcony scene, romeo seems to feel this initial agreement extends to all of their time 8 according to the director’s commentary, leonardo dicaprio did this accidentally, but luhrmann found it so fitting that he kept it in the final cut of the film (luhrmann, martin, pearce, and mcalpine). whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 87 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2014 performances that romeo and juliet choose; they are not set up to allow teenagers truthful expression, and the lovers die in their quest to pursue their relationship as well as a more honest gender performance. to excise. whereas in the play juliet enters laurence’s cell saying, “come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help” (4.1.45), luhrmann’s juliet begins by asking how she may circumvent her marriage to paris. she storms into his cell angrily, pulling a gun from her purse and putting it to her temple—a much more startling action than the play’s simple showing of a knife, and a more masculine weapon in the world of the film. pointing it at the friar, she mirrors her cousin tybalt’s posture with a firearm as she continues to rant, screaming in a way that the play does not call for friar laurence: hold, daughter! juliet: be not so long to speak! i long to die! friar laurence: i do spy a kind of hope, which craves as desperate an execution as that is desperate which we would prevent. if, rather than to marry with this paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, then it is likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame. (luhrmann) compare this to the original text, where juliet, though armed with a knife, simply pleads with the friar to find her any alternative to marrying count paris; the knife is a last resort. juliet: be not so long to speak. i long to die, if what thou speak’st speak not of remedy. (4.1.66-67) also, luhrmann has made another small but crucial change in this scene. friar laurence does not tell juliet to avoid “womanish tears,” but simply asks if she has the will to kill herself; in fact, in romeo’s first visit, the friar’s lines about romeo’s mischosen gender performance are gone as well. this production does not need this interference from him; here, romeo and juliet’s chosen gender performances are not something that needs encouragement or permission. in baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, audiences are given an adaptation that attempts not simply to film the text, but bring it alive on screen. in pursuit of this, luhrmann highlights the play’s thematic concerns, particularly the ways in which performativity is addressed. shakespeare’s romeo and juliet are clearly marked for elizabethan audiences as enacting unusual gender performances; romeo’s passivity and posturing are indicative of a more feminine expression while juliet’s performativity comes from a society that only grants agency and purpose to those who enact masculinity. juliet’s rhetorical skills are her most obvious masculine attribute, and the feminized romeo revels in her abilities and submits to her will. in luhrmann’s adaptation, the physicality of leonardo dicaprio does much to lend credence to a more feminine performance, but the film itself also makes it clear that romeo is rejecting the problematic masculinity he sees enacted among his friends in favor of enacting femininity, something he finds both more effective and comfortable. romeo gladly lets juliet steer him and their relationship, and she uses her inclination to masculine performance to help her navigate her closed, patriarchal world and exert her will where she sees fit. ultimately, both veronas cannot tolerate the whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 87 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2014 performances that romeo and juliet choose; they are not set up to allow teenagers truthful expression, and the lovers die in their quest to pursue their relationship as well as a more honest gender performance. to excise. whereas in the play juliet enters laurence’s cell saying, “come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help” (4.1.45), luhrmann’s juliet begins by asking how she may circumvent her marriage to paris. she storms into his cell angrily, pulling a gun from her purse and putting it to her temple—a much more startling action than the play’s simple showing of a knife, and a more masculine weapon in the world of the film. pointing it at the friar, she mirrors her cousin tybalt’s posture with a firearm as she continues to rant, screaming in a way that the play does not call for friar laurence: hold, daughter! juliet: be not so long to speak! i long to die! friar laurence: i do spy a kind of hope, which craves as desperate an execution as that is desperate which we would prevent. if, rather than to marry with this paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, then it is likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame. (luhrmann) compare this to the original text, where juliet, though armed with a knife, simply pleads with the friar to find her any alternative to marrying count paris; the knife is a last resort. juliet: be not so long to speak. i long to die, if what thou speak’st speak not of remedy. (4.1.66-67) also, luhrmann has made another small but crucial change in this scene. friar laurence does not tell juliet to avoid “womanish tears,” but simply asks if she has the will to kill herself; in fact, in romeo’s first visit, the friar’s lines about romeo’s mischosen gender performance are gone as well. this production does not need this interference from him; here, romeo and juliet’s chosen gender performances are not something that needs encouragement or permission. in baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet, audiences are given an adaptation that attempts not simply to film the text, but bring it alive on screen. in pursuit of this, luhrmann highlights the play’s thematic concerns, particularly the ways in which performativity is addressed. shakespeare’s romeo and juliet are clearly marked for elizabethan audiences as enacting unusual gender performances; romeo’s passivity and posturing are indicative of a more feminine expression while juliet’s performativity comes from a society that only grants agency and purpose to those who enact masculinity. juliet’s rhetorical skills are her most obvious masculine attribute, and the feminized romeo revels in her abilities and submits to her will. in luhrmann’s adaptation, the physicality of leonardo dicaprio does much to lend credence to a more feminine performance, but the film itself also makes it clear that romeo is rejecting the problematic masculinity he sees enacted among his friends in favor of enacting femininity, something he finds both more effective and comfortable. romeo gladly lets juliet steer him and their relationship, and she uses her inclination to masculine performance to help her navigate her closed, patriarchal world and exert her will where she sees fit. ultimately, both veronas cannot tolerate the the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review middle tennessee state university 89 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2014 the link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease: a literature review holly plemons abstract cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the united states. according to the american academy of periodontology, one half of people over the age of thirty, approximately 64.7 million americans, have periodontal disease. the purpose of this literature review is to examine existing studies that document a link between cardiovascular disease and periodontal disease in order to determine if the connection extends beyond shared risk factors. to further support the relationship of the heart and oral environment, research was reviewed to determine if the treatment and subsequent improvement of periodontal status would improve cardiovascular health. research supports the relationship between the two conditions, although there is no evidence that has established a causal connection. patients with periodontal disease have higher serum levels of inflammatory markers implicated in cardiovascular disease as compared to patients who are periodontally healthy. elevated salivary amounts of periodontal pathogens have been found in patients with coronary artery disease when compared to patients without cardiovascular concerns. nonsurgical treatment of periodontal disease has been shown to decrease the amount of inflammatory markers circulating in the bloodstream and to reduce the thickness of the coronary arteries. the systemic improvement from periodontal therapy is not permanent and supports the current standard of care, calling for long-term interventions. the established link between systemic and oral health adds urgency to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and maintenance of periodontal disease. works cited bly, mary. “bawdy puns and lustful virgins: the legacy of juliet’s desire in comedies of the early 1600s.” shakespeare survey 49 (1996): 97-109. rpt. in shakespeare and sexuality as “the legacy of juliet’s desire in comedies of the early 1600s.” ed. catherine m. s. alexander and stanley wells. cambridge: cambridge up, 2001. 52-71. print. brode, douglas. “star crossed lovers: romeo and juliet.” shakespeare in the movies: from the silent era to shakespeare in love. oxford: oxford up, 2000. 41-59. print. buchanan, judith. “leaves of brass and gads of steel: cinema as subject in shakespeare films, 1991-2000.” shakespeare on film. harlow: pearson education, 2005. 220-60. print. butler, judith. gender trouble. 1990. new york: routledge, 1999. e-book. hunter, lynette and peter lichtenfels. negotiating shakespeare’s language in romeo and juliet: reading strategies from criticism, editing and the theatre. farnham: ashgate, 2009. print. jackson, russell. “introduction: shakespeare, films, and the marketplace.” the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film. ed. russell jackson. cambridge: cambridge up, 2000. 1-12. print. luhrmann, baz, dir. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet. perf. leonardo dicaprio, claire danes, john leguizamo, and pete postlethwaite. 20th century fox, 1996. dvd. luhrmann, baz, catherine martin, craig pearce, and don mcalpine. audio commentary. william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet: special edition. dir. luhrmann. perf. leonardo dicaprio, claire danes, john leguizamo, and pete postlethwaite. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. moisan, thomas. “‘o any thing, of nothing first create!’: gender and patriarchy and the tragedy of romeo and juliet.” in another country: feminist perspectives on renaissance drama. ed. dorothea kehler and susan baker. metuchen: scarecrow, 1991. 113-36. print. pearson, lu emily. elizabethan love conventions. u of california p, 1933. print. shakespeare, william. romeo and juliet. ed. rené weis. london: bloomsbury, 2012. print. tatspaugh, patricia. “the tragedies of love on film.” the cambridge companion to shakespeare on film. ed. russell jackson. cambridge: cambridge up, 2000. 135-59. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 70 spring 2023 “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin* caroline laplue abstract while much victorian literature has been adapted into films that carry an appeal for a modern audience, the 1994 adaptation of george macdonald’s 1872 novel the princess and the goblin cannot claim the same popular triumph as other successful victorian children’s adaptations over the past century such as alice in wonderland, black beauty, or treasure island. though interest in macdonald’s work fell off dramatically after his death in 1905 and his writing has received criticism for being long-winded and didactic (though he is certainly not the only victorian to share those characteristics), many of his stories contain delightful elements found regularly in popular children’s stories: princesses, goblins, absent fathers, magic, heroism, family, and a transferrable moral or lesson. here, i look at józsef gémes’s film alongside macdonald’s original novel and use comparative methodology to explain why it did not live up to its potential. i argue that macdonald’s imaginative world retains potential for success in a new, well-funded and well-produced film adaptation, given the necessary time, money, and motivation. *winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 71 introduction despite being largely forgotten by the general populace and ignored by critics after his death in 1905, victorian author george macdonald’s literary contributions helped to lay groundwork for much of the development of both literary fantasy and children’s literature. the scottish poet was an important part of the “golden age” of children’s literature, publishing alongside such authors lewis carroll and robert louis stevenson. his more artistic, fantastic publications left a much longer-lasting footprint on the literary community in his influence on authors who would come to far outstrip his renown, such as j.m. barrie and c.s. lewis, as well as more recent authors such as madeline l’engle and neil gaiman. much victorian literature has been adapted into successful films that carry an appeal for a modern audience, but macdonald’s work has been cinematically neglected, with few recorded adaptations attempts, and those adaptations that exist restricted by limited resources. perhaps one of macdonald’s most naturally adaptable novels, though, is the princess and the goblin (1872), and in the early 1990s, jozsef gemes set out to do just that. the princess and the goblin tells the story of a princess named irene who lives in a castle with a magical invisible grandmother and a loving (if pre-occupied) widower father, the king. as the tale develops, young irene must join forces with a local miner boy, curdie, to save the kingdom from the encroaching forces of smallminded goblins who live in the depths of the earth and want nothing more than to be rid of the “sun people.” warding off the goblin invasion and saving the people from a torrential flood caused by the machinations of the scheming goblins, irene and curdie (with assistance from her grandmother’s magic) ultimately protect the kingdom, and the goblins are finally vanquished by their own folly. princesses, goblins, and magic are all fantastic and imagination-friendly elements that are common to children’s stories and suggest potential for a smashing box office success for a film adaptation. potential for success notwithstanding, the 1994 animated film adaptation was a spectacular financial failure. my goal is to analyze józsef gémes’s film alongside macdonald’s original novel using comparative methodology in order to understand why it did not live up to expectations. the novel and its reception from 1870-1872, george macdonald served as editor for the new children’s magazine good words for the young, and there he first released the princess and the goblin in serial form (macdonald, greville 377). by all accounts, the story was met with enthusiasm in both the united kingdom and the united states, with reviewers calling the story “genius” and “charmingly told” alongside claims “that all the little folks are scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2023 going wild over” it (“periodicals, &c.,” “christmas gift books,” “new magazines”). in 1874, after the novel’s complete publication, the sheffield and rotherham independent newspaper even included a letter to the editor from a parent who described his child’s distress upon receiving an edition of good words for the young: “oh, the naughty man,” the girl purportedly exclaimed, “there is nothing about the princess and the goblin and he promised it. papa, i wish you would write and tell him [alexander strahan] to put in the princess and the goblin” (“spectator in hallamshire”). godey’s lady’s book wrote in 1872 that “this book would be sufficient to gain [mr. macdonald more] popularity as a writer” and that it was “a book young and old will read with equal delight” (“literary notices” 383). the novel was successful and, coming on the heels of at the back of the north wind—which had also been serialized in the magazine—only served to more firmly establish macdonald’s name and influence in victorian children’s literature. macdonald’s novel does indeed have a tone that “charms old and young by his delicate yet penetrating touch,” and his writing style—while certainly outdated or even antiquated by modern standards—demonstrates his effort to connect with his child-audience in an appealing manner and his care for their wellbeing, occasionally manifested in tips for how to live well while mostly avoiding outright condescension (“periodicals, &c.”). as was the custom with much victorian literature, narration plays a significant part in macdonald’s novels, and the princess and the goblin is no exception. this story stands out, however, as macdonald writes not only for a child audience, but also directly to a child audience. in the beginning, the end, and occasionally throughout the rest of the text, there are short “discussion” breaks from the particular storyline, written as dialogic conversations with a child, as in the following excerpt from the first chapter: “but please, mr. author, why do you always write about princesses?” “because every little girl is a princess.” “you will make them vain if you tell them that.” “not if they understand what i mean.” “what do you mean by a princess?” (1) these moments—italicized in the text to set them apart from the narrative—illustrate macdonald’s apparent attempt to connect with children and engage directly with the questions and concerns—perhaps even voiced by his own children— that he anticipates his audience to have throughout the story. they also provide an opportunity for him to explain his creative choices and considerations in a “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 73 manageable, child-friendly manner that does not require dry academic criticism or interruptive footnotes. macdonald continues a similar trend throughout the rest of the novel, sprinkling comments throughout the text where his narrator speaks directly to the audience or acknowledges his position as narrator. occasionally, macdonald includes rhetorical storytelling techniques more commonly associated with oral storytelling, such as, “what do you think she saw?” and “i wish i could describe the king, so that you could see him in your mind” (11, 83). at other times, he uses commentary that is characteristic of omniscient narrators, such as “as you shall hear” and “as we shall see by and by” (12, 5). still other times, macdonald’s narrator conveys the opposite, indicating that he is working within a data set nearly as limited as his audience’s. these instances are often accompanied by narrative speculation about what may be the case, as in, “the princess ran through passage after passage, and could not find the stair of the tower. my own suspicion is that she had not gone up high enough, and was searching on the second instead of the third floor,” or, similarly, “i can’t tell you how he came to know. [. . .] someone about the palace must have seen them, after all” (30, 87). the tone macdonald uses for his narrator throughout the story suggests a concerted effort on his part to connect with and appeal to his child audience, and the reviews and stories following its publication indicate that his efforts were met with success. since its inception, much of children’s literature (arguably, much of literature in general) and victorian children’s literature in particular has featured didactic elements, designed to edify as well as entertain its audience, and macdonald most obviously follows this trend with periodic moralistic commentary on the events in the story and his characters’ responding behaviors. macdonald sets his story apart from many of his contemporaries, though, by conferring a sense of royalty on his audience, describing his characters—both the paupers and the affluent—as “princes” and “princesses” rather than mere “good children.”1 remarks like “for a real princess cannot tell a lie,” and “for a real princess is never rude—even if she does well to be offended” appear frequently throughout the story (24). the concept of a royalty that reflects morality, kindness, and good behavior rather than high birth is articulated the most dramatically when macdonald extends his definition of royalty beyond the person of princess irene to curdie, the kind-hearted miner boy who befriends her: here i should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an 1. a similar idea is later evoked by c.s. lewis with the pevensie children in the chronicles of narnia. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2023 error. if a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: ‘i did it; and i wish i had not; and i am sorry for having done it.’ so you see there is some ground for supposing that curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. many such instances have been known in the world’s history. (219) in this passage, macdonald does not describe curdie as an exception for being a prince, but by referring to the “[m]any instances [. . .] in the world’s history,” he implies that such royalty transcends socioeconomic status or bloodline and is attainable by anyone. this rhetoric used by macdonald exemplifies the manner of didacticism that he employs throughout his work, but which, during his life, did not appear to dramatically put off his substantial audience. the princess and the goblin has been well-loved. in its own day, princess irene and curdie’s heroic adventures with the goblins captivated children’s attention and the story fit well among its imaginative contemporaries, such as edward lear’s nonsense poems and lewis carroll’s other-worldly adventures. the novel has also been reprinted and republished repeatedly around the world by distinguished publishers like random house, puffin classics, and everyman’s library, attesting to its continued appeal to modern audiences. in 1967, poet w.h. auden even stated that “george macdonald’s most extraordinary, and precious, gift is his ability, in all his stories, to create an atmosphere of goodness about which there is nothing phone [sic] or moralistic. nothing is rarer in literature”—especially, i would argue, literature designed with children in mind (347). the team tackling the film adaptation and promotion, with substantial promising material, nonetheless failed to achieve its potential through an unfortunate series of stylistic and budgetary choices. the film and its reception produced with a substantial $10 million budget in wales with a largely hungarian and welsh production team and directed by józsef gémes, the international endeavor first aired in 1991 on welsh television station s4c (the princess and the goblin [imdb]). in 1994, the hemdale film corporation attempted to capitalize on the film’s favorable qualities and picked it up for distribution in north america. at first glance, the components necessary for success appeared to be present: $10 million is not a shabby budget, it was released to 795 cinemas across the country (barely 200 fewer than the little mermaid’s 994), and the captivating story seems to fit within the genre of popular children’s film of the day (“the princess and the goblin (1994),” “the little mermaid (1989)”). but after its early summer release, it grossed a mere $2.1 million—thoroughly and effectively “bombing” (the princess and the goblin [imdb]). “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 75 the failure of the film was repeatedly explained (and likely exacerbated) by critics who labeled it as “mildly diverting children’s fare” and called attention to its “uninvolving story” and “substandard animation” (holden; rodriguez). one review described child viewers of the film as “victims” while another predicted that elementary-aged children would likely “make a big display of letting you know it was a little young for them” (rodriguez; mccormick). the comments about the limited age range and or that “[p]arents will be bored” contrast noticeably with nineteenth century reviews that reference the book’s appeal to audiences of every age, but the brief critical reviews still do not plumb the depths of the artistic and stylistic difficulties with the film (rodriguez; “literary notices”). from the sound design and the animation to the characterization and failure to adapt the more antiquated victorian elements for a twentieth-century audience, the princess and the goblin falls short again and again. perhaps the earliest noticeable—and one of the most egregious— weaknesses in the film is its animation. a new york times reviewer observed the most obvious aspects of the “disappointing” animation, saying that, “[e]ven to the unpracticed eye, there appear to be missing pieces in the action, especially as the characters walk or run. and mouths don’t always move in sync with the words” (mccormick). these inconsistencies are not only noticeable but distracting and negatively affect the viewing experience. the animation of curdie, an important supporting character who carries much of the plot, is just one indicator that effective character modeling precision was lacking during production. as one critic put it, the “look and coloring are solid, but coin-saving lack of detail and of inbetweening [see below] results in jerky motion” (elley). not only do curdie’s spoken lines crudely correspond to his mouth movements, but his facial expression remains largely vapid and unemotive throughout the film. further, his face has an inconsistent structure (fig. 1) and, though difficult to observe in still frames, any movement by his character has awkwardly contorting effects on his body (fig. 2), sometimes causing him to look like a marionette and sometimes as though he has no bones. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2023 figure 1 figure 2 part of the awkwardness of the animation can be attributed to the fact that the film is animated on twos and fours. slowing down the film frame-by-frame reveals that the animation does not change much within a given shot and there is very little inbetweening (a filmmaker’s term for the purposefully blurry frames that suggest motion between character positions). most films, including animation, have twentyfour frames per second (fps). animated films, either as an artistic choice or to save money, will often only animate alternating frames, and sometimes only one in four frames (hence the name “twos and fours”). these animation choices lead to stilted, unnatural movement, which is on display throughout the princess and the goblin. all of this awkwardness is compounded by the use of xerography (gémes). xerography is the animation technique of copying static backgrounds so that intentional movement is the only aspect of a new frame that needs to be repeatedly drawn, rather than entire scenes drawn again and again with vivid and dynamic “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 77 backgrounds. disney’s notorious use of xerography throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s in films like oliver and company, the aristocats, and one hundred and one dalmatians contributed to what has been termed disney’s “dark age”—a time when the disney animation studio twice nearly shut down altogether, prior to the “disney renaissance” (“what made the disney renaissance era so special? part 1”). xerography saved countless hours of animation, and therefore massive amounts of time and money, but caused animated films to feel rather more like flannelgraphs than living stories, and the princess and the goblin is no different. the sound in the film similarly reflects poor design and budget constraints, from the stilted dialogue, to the unconvincing foley work, to the spare musical score. curdie is introduced to viewers when he marches through the forest wielding a lantern and chasing the goblin’s pets back into their holes with his edifying song “a spark inside us:” there’s a spark inside us that we cannot ignite, and all that’s dark inside us will flicker into light. there’s a power in every breath. [. . .] and when it sails up through the air, more beautiful than any prayer, this power can right all wrong, (5:15) the lyrics of which prompted one critic to describe it, “as aggressively uplifting as it is humorless” (holden). the only lyrical song in the film, it is repeated frequently throughout the story because, as curdie explains, “if there’s one thing [the goblins] can’t stand, it’s a song. they hate music,” illustrating one critic’s critique, that the “characters are not sharply focused visually or verbally” (7:08; holden). additional medieval-sounding music is occasionally piped in during the 82-minute film, but there are long stretches, especially during conversations and active conflict with the goblins, where the noticeable lack of music leads to a flat, non-immersive experience. given the role of music in the story as a defensive weapon with the power to rout the goblins, the argument could be made that scenes of conflict between the humans and the goblins are purposefully non-musical when the goblins are gaining the upper hand, which would be a valid and thoughtful approach. artistic choice or not, it nonetheless results in a strangely empty sounding film. foley artistry (“in-scene” sounds included to give more realistic direct sound to the events on the screen) is equally sparce, with some events perplexingly quiet, such as curdie’s muted tumble down a cave rock face (40:06). other actions are scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2023 accompanied by disconcertingly hollow sounds that should have had resounding and echoing thuds and bangs, such as curdie’s staving off the goblins and their stone shields with his solid stone club (40:53). the characters in the princess and the goblin are more dynamic and varied than the music and animation, but only to a limited degree. the most interesting characters in terms of both personality and animation are the queen and crown prince of the goblin kingdom. while the king of the goblins exhibits common character tropes of being weak (characterized by regular sniffles and debilitating sneezes), indecisive (he passively follows along with all the queen’s ideas), and dominated and victimized by his wife, it is the goblin queen who develops a spiteful plan for destroying the sun-people and insists on wearing sharp stone shoes to bed despite the king’s pathetic appeal on behalf of his sensitive feet (23:16; 50:00). while the goblins in general have been criticized for not being “really scary villains” and “ineffectual and unmenacing even when they are on the warpath,” the queen and her son, prince froglip, are no less interesting for all that, especially when compared to other animated villains of the early ‘90s (elley; holden). macdonald’s only description of his written goblins is that they were “absolutely hideous,” “misshapen,” and “not so far removed from the human” form, so from an authorial perspective, the designers had almost full rein to create goblins of their choosing, and their creative choices situated their villains neatly within other animated villains of the time (4). prince froglip and the queen stand out among the goblins, including the king, for a number of reasons: they demonstrate the strongest resentment towards the sun-people for instigating the goblins’ removal to the caves so long ago; they both demonstrate strong capabilities for deriving sadistic joy in causing pain and destruction; and they both generally look and behave effeminately, ultimately conforming to the negative representation of queer-coded characters that was prevalent at the time. queer coding—the act in art of borrowing characteristics stereotypically associated with the queer community—has happened both intentionally and inadvertently in film and television for decades, with both positive and negative queer representations. a major manifestation of queer coding is the use of stereotypically queer characteristics on villainous characters to connote immorality and emphasize a sense of “otherness,” and this happened particularly noticeably throughout disney’s “renaissance” period at the end of the ‘80s and throughout the ‘90s. from jafar’s (aladdin, 1992) heavy makeup and effeminate mannerisms to john ratcliffe’s (pocahontas, 1995) pink clothes, bows, and sissy dog, animated villains—particularly “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 79 disney animated villains—marked a clear association of queerness with evil and disruption. in the princess and the goblin, prince froglip and his mother are not only the evilest of the characters in the film, but they also demonstrate by far the most characteristics associated with queerness: they both have long, sharp, painted fingernails; they dress far “nicer” (for goblins) and use accessories (bracelets and brooches), while most of the goblin horde wears simple tunics or loincloths in shades of brown and gray. figure 3 the goblin queen’s appearance specifically appears directly inspired by conventions of drag, and her dress, body, and attitude all suggest that she would make a convincing drag queen—a quintessentially queer association. she shares many physical characteristics with ursula (the little mermaid, 1989), who was the most recent disney pop villain when gémes’s film was in production in 1990 and, furthermore, who was modeled directly after the popular drag queen divine (sells 182). in the film, the goblin queen’s buxom bosom is particularly highlighted with her strapless, fur-lined dress featuring a large ambiguous green splatter on each breast (fig. 3). she and prince froglip both regularly use limp wrists to gesture, and prince froglip speaks with a lisp, spits a lot, and exhibits petulant, whiny behavior, all of which are common queer stereotypes (fig. 3). dion sheridan mcleod points out that, when filmmakers follow this “queer as evil” stereotype, one result is that they (and this is the case with the princess and the goblin) “perpetuate heterosexism because of the alignment of villainy with queerness and the narrative elimination of the [queer villain],” referencing the death or destruction of the queer-coded characters as “happily ever after” conclusions to these children’s films (mcleod 2). by subtly associating queer characteristics with evil and celebrating their ultimate demise, the princess and the goblin thematically fit in right alongside disney’s animated summer blockbusters by perpetuating the same harmful stereotypes found throughout films of the disney renaissance. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2023 outside of queer coding, though, the rest of the more “natural-looking” cast of characters has limited characteristics worth remembering once the film is over. criticized for her “little girl voice” and for “crying ‘oooh’ and sobbing ‘we’ll never find our way out of here’ in a trembly voice,” princess irene shows very little dynamism or development throughout the film (holden, mccormick). her greatest demonstration of gained confidence comes when she rescues curdie from the goblins and confidently leads him through the maze of underground tunnels to safety despite his doubt and arguments, but the rest of her choices and reactions demonstrate little character beyond that of an obedient princess—“not someone with whom children today will readily identify” (51:45; holden). in macdonald’s novel, though still no katniss everdeen, irene experiences observable growth and an increase of her own agency that directly results from her experiences under the mentorship of her grandmother and her challenges with the goblins, which gives her the courage to speak confidently to the adult castle servants about things that need to be done (macdonald 215). other supporting characters add interest to the adaptation of macdonald’s story, but few except for irene’s magical great-grandmother have much effect on her life and choices. irene’s father the king provides a voice-over at the beginning and end of the tale, suggesting that he is important in the events of the story, or perhaps emphasizing his effect on his daughter, or even implying that he saved the kingdom, but when none of that plays out, it is left unclear why he was given the honor of introducing and concluding the story instead of someone who was at least around for the action. irene’s great grandmother, however, is a different story: when the princess, missing both of her parents, is surrounded by short-sighted guards and servants, she still has the resource of a grandmother who spins spiderwebs into invisible guiding thread, creates rose petal fires out of nothing, and can heal wounds with her white hair. irene’s grandmother successfully improves the film by adding an air of mystery to the events, but curdie functions as merely a pawn in the film—a main character who moves almost robotically from place to place, and whose unique personality is only expressed in the rare sigh and one brief, “typical,” when compelled to guide irene back home at the beginning of the story (7:30). in the novel, curdie’s character exhibits much more dynamism, personality, and growth. he writes his own nonsense poems to deter the goblins, rather than relying on “the syrupy, half-baked tripe [song] over and over again,” and regularly engages in thoughtful conversations with his parents (only peripheral characters in the film) who gently encourage him to live generously and give the benefit of the doubt when he is skeptical of irene’s truthfulness (rodriguez; “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 81 macdonald 45-46; 203-07). with those elements missing, curdie’s character is less sympathetic and fails to provide a sense of relatability that children can appreciate and connect with as they watch the film. it is interesting to note that the film cast has a variety of unsurprising british accents: irene uses a polished, rp (received pronunciation) accent, while lootie the nurse’s accent hints of yorkshire, as would make sense for a domestic servant. curdie and his parents, however, all use american accents. while the fairy tale does not have an explicit location, thus there can be no true critique of “right” or “wrong” accents, using a yorkshire accent for house help is an unsurprising choice that can be seen reflected in many other television adaptations (downton abbey comes to mind). the use of american accents for the mining family seems to set them even farther apart from the residents of the castle, and arguably positions them even lower than the servant, depicting them and the goblins as “other.” with these stylistic choices, gemes is consistent with the book in emphasizing the thematic challenge of socioeconomic divisions. conclusion in his article “conservative austen, radical austen: sense and sensibility from text to screen,” julian north explores theories of film adaptation within the specific context of nineteenth-century values. using the 1995 film adaptation of sense and sensibility and comparing it to austen’s 1811 novel of the same title, north points out the areas where the ideology of austen’s novel would have been entirely appropriate for her nineteenth-century audience, but would not work as well with a twenty-firstcentury crowd. nonetheless, adaptations of austen novels continue to be made and remade, with each new adaptation bringing a slightly new take, appreciation, or (as linda cahir insightfully labels an adaptation) a new translation (33). linda hutcheon similarly defines adaptation as “repetition without replication” (149). both theorists capitalize on the idea that effective film adaptations are more than carbon copies of books, saying that it is an essential role of directors and producers to update old novels in a way that can connect with a new audience. george macdonald’s novels—sprinkled throughout with didactic moralizing and narrative commentary on living well—have not been represented well on the silver screen, and while it may be tempting to blame the story or the author’s victorian storytelling, the countless adaptations of novels by austen, dickens, tolstoy, carroll (and the list continues) makes it clear that nineteenth-century values are definitively translatable for a contemporary audience. macdonald’s imaginative world of goblins, princesses, absentee fathers, and magical grandmothers has the potential for great scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2023 success in a new, well-funded and well-produced adaptation. we just need to find someone to do it. “seldom like yesterday”: situating the novel and film adaptation of the princess and the goblin middle tennessee state university 83 works cited auden, w.h. “afterward.” at the back of the north wind by george macdonald. 1871. everyman’s library, 2001. cahir, linda costanzo. literature into film: theory and practical approaches. 1st ed., mcfarland and company, 2006. “christmas gift books.” daily news. london. 18 dec. 1871. newspapers.com. elley, derek. “reviews: the princess and the goblin.” variety (archive: 1905-2000), vol. 349, no. 11, 11 jan. 1993, pp. 64-65. proquest, https://ezproxy.mtsu.edu/ login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/magazines/reviewsprincess-goblin/docview/1401378686/se-2?accountid=4886. gémes, józsef. the princess and the goblin. hemdale film corporation. 1994. holden, stephen. “no kiss for froglip.” new york times. 3 june 1994, p. c15. hutcheon, linda. a theory of adaptation. new york: routledge, 2006. “literary notices.” godey’s lady’s book and magazine, vol. 84, no. 502, 1872, p. 383. internet archives, archive.org/details/sim_godeysmagazine_1872-04_84_502/page/382/mode/2up?q=. “the little mermaid (1989).” the numbers. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/ little-mermaid-the#tab=summary macdonald, george. the princess and the goblin. new york: harper collins, 2004. —. at the back of the north wind. 1871. everyman’s library, 2001. macdonald, greville. george macdonald and his wife. london: george allen & unwin ltd. 1924. mccormick, patricia s. “a fairy tale comes to life, but gets up a bit stiff.” new york times, 12 june 1994, p. h25. proquest, https://ezproxy.mtsu.edu/ login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/historicalnewspapers/fairy-tale-comes-life-gets-up-bit-stiff/docview/109261915/se2?accountid=4886. mcleod, dion sheridan. unmasking the quillain: queerness and villainy in animated disney films. doctor of philosophy thesis, school of the arts, english and media, university of wollongong, 2016. https://core.ac.uk/download/ pdf/81227149.pdf. “new magazines.” bangor daily whig and courier. bangor, me. 13 may 1871. newspapers.com. north, julian. “conservative austen, radical austen: sense and sensibility from text to screen.” adaptations: from text to screen, screen to text, edited by deborah cartmell and imelda whelehan. london; scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2023 new york: routledge, 1999. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/ adaptations/9780415167376/014_9781315006192_chapter4.html. “periodicals, &c.” the philadelphia inquirer. philadelphia, pa, 7 june 1871, p. 3. newspapers.com. the princess and the goblin. imdb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107875/. “the princess and the goblin (1994).” the numbers. https://www.the-numbers.com/ movie/princess-and-the-goblin-the#tab=summary. rodriguez, alvaro. “the princess and the goblin.” the austin chronicle. 10 june 1994. https://www.austinchronicle.com/events/film/1994-06-10/the-princess-andthe-goblin/ sells, laura. “‘where do the mermaids stand?’ voice and body in the little mermaid.” from mouse to mermaid: the politics of film, gender, and culture, edited by elizabeth bell, lynda haas, and laura sells. bloomington: indiana university press, 1995. 175–192. “what made the disney renaissance era so special? part 1.” youtube, uploaded by the jaunty professor, 7 aug. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yrkioguj1q. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2023 representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise sarah hicks abstract the disney animated film raya and the last dragon was released in march 2021 to great acclaim, becoming the third-highest streamed movie of 2021 (hayes). the disney princess franchise has long been criticized for cultural appropriation and privileging traditional gender and heterosexual norms. if raya is canonized into the disney princess franchise, she will be the second asian princess and the first southeast asian princess.1 in contrast to historical disney princess films, raya has garnered praise for the film’s pro-feminist ideals, nuanced homosexuality, and careful representation of southeast asian culture. this essay analyzes the representations of race, gender, and sexuality in raya and the last dragon in relationship to other disney princess animated feature films, especially the 1998 animated film mulan. raya reflects an almost one-hundred-year progression in the franchise and represents a significant advancement by disney in terms of feminist and racial representation, but, at the same time, falls short in the area of queer representation. 1. at the time of this article’s composition (november 2021), no plans had been announced to “coronate” raya into the disney princess franchise. representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 97 introduction the disney animated film raya and the last dragon was released in march 2021 to great acclaim, becoming the third-highest streamed movie of 2021 (hayes). while the character raya has not officially been inducted as a member of the disney princess franchise, her photo appears on the disney princess website, and merchandise from the movie has been promoted alongside other official disney princess merchandise. if raya is eventually canonized into the franchise, she will be the second asian princess and the first southeast asian princess. the disney princess franchise has long been criticized for cultural appropriation and privileging traditional gender and heterosexual norms. conversely, raya has garnered praise for the film’s careful representation of southeast asian culture, pro-feminist ideals, and nuanced homosexuality. this essay analyzes the representations of race, gender, and sexuality in raya and the last dragon in relationship to other disney princess animated feature films and, in particular, the 1998 animated film mulan, which also features a female asian lead. raya reflects an almost one-hundred-year progression in the franchise and can be used to evaluate the company’s advancement—or lack thereof—toward imbuing their films with more progressive representations and ideologies. as this essay will demonstrate, raya represents a significant advancement by disney in terms of feminist and racial representation, but, at the same time, falls short in the area of queer representation. 1. establishing the franchise it is important to understand how disney has addressed the issue of representation historically in the disney princess franchise. the beginning of the franchise can be traced back to 1937 with the release of walt disney’s snow white and the seven dwarfs—the first full-length, animated feature film. the character of snow white would subsequently become one of the eight original disney princesses included in the establishment of the franchise in 2001. the other canonized princesses included cinderella, aurora, ariel, belle, jasmine, mulan, and pocahontas. tiana, merida, rapunzel, anna, elsa, and moana were also “coronated” into the franchise following the release of their films. over the past twenty years, the disney princess line has grown to represent a multi-billion-dollar industry within the walt disney corporation (orenstein). even amidst the popularity of the line, the franchise has often come under scrutiny for “promoting harmful, unrealistic body types and the narrow ideal of marriage as the happiest of endings for young women” (stover 1), applied most vehemently to the earlier films in the franchise. consumers have shown a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2023 desire for disney to pivot from these outdated depictions and instead adopt a more progressive attitude toward gender norms, sexuality, and racial representation. 2.1 representation of gender several articles have addressed the representation of the traditional gender norms built into the films represented by the franchise. these criticisms have been especially applied to the early films from this franchise, including snow white, cinderella (1950), and sleeping beauty (1959). these films were produced before the beginning of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s, during a time when society largely desired for women to fulfill domestic duties while men reassumed their positions within the workforce. sleeping beauty was the last film of this era and was considered a “critical and popular failure,” signifying a shift in the viewer’s reception to these “voiceless beauties” (stover 2, 3). the little mermaid, released in 1989, marked a significant turn in the disney princess film, “which transformed the damsel into a heroine of sorts, with both a voice and desire for adventure” (stover 3). in and after this film, disney adopted a type of “soft feminism” to meet the current demand for female characters with stronger agency, where female protagonists transcend patriarchal expectations, reject domestication, appropriate masculine attributes and roles, and reframe the true meaning of love (schiele et al. 663-667). yet, even with this shift, there have still been instances of misogynistic messaging that have pervaded some of these films. 2.2 gender representation in mulan mulan is one example of a film that seems to present strong feminist ideals but retains chauvinistic undertones. mulan exists in a strongly patriarchal society, where she is expected to bring honor to her family by marrying a man of status. she ultimately transcends this expectation by rejecting domestication and choosing to go to war rather than placating her family and the matchmaker (666). when mulan joins the army, she assumes a male identity and takes on traditionally masculine attributes.2 she cuts her hair (18:52), adopts a deeper voice (27:01), and then develops strength, coordination, and stamina through the training process (38:04-41:03). mulan is eventually revered as a hero by her male peers. the surface-level message to the audience, who knows that mulan is a woman, is that women can be strong, courageous, athletic, etc. nonetheless, it is problematic that mulan is only able to accomplish her brave deeds as a male. as soon 2. throughout this paper, i will be making references to generally agreed upon yet vague separations of what consists of traditionally male of female attributes and characteristics in america. representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 99 as mulan’s female identity is revealed, she loses her status and is rejected by those who once revered her. furthermore, near the end of the film, she must appeal to and rejoin her male team to successfully save the emperor (dundes et al. 4). it is only under the direct influence of the emperor that mulan is re-established as a hero when existing in her feminine form. this implies that mulan is only able to be successful and seen as a hero when she is presenting herself as a male, or with the permission of a male in power. the message of mulan indicates that it is acceptable for females to exhibit traditionally masculine attributes such as leadership and heroism, as long as it is approved by a male in authority. 2.3 gender representation in raya raya and the last dragon represents a significant progression in disney’s representation of feminist ideals in their films. like mulan, the main character is a female of asian descent who leaves her home and engages in combat. significant portions of each movie focus on the protagonist’s adventures and battles. a noteworthy difference between the films is that raya includes three females in lead roles (and multiple more females in supporting roles), a first for any of the princess films. fawn veerasunthorn, the head of story for the film, stated: … we [don’t] have just one female character who has to carry all the burdens of being the one female character. we have so many that at one point we’d be calling a character ‘she’ and i didn’t know which ‘she’ we were talking about because we were between three people—sisu, namaari, and raya. (frederick) because the film is led by a cast of women, the plot is dependent on their actions and decisions. this signifies a marked development in female representation in the franchise, as while many of the films feature a least one female lead, the plot is still driven by the actions or decisions of a male character. virana, one of the films supporting characters as the matriarchal leader of the fang tribe, serves as a foil for sisu. she is positioned as the power-hungry villain whose selfish actions led to the destruction of kumandra. virana’s primary concern is for the people of her village, which can be seen by her careful architectural decisions that separate her people from the drunn (52:34). but virana’s position of leadership leads to a lust for power and control, which causes her to make decisions that seem brash and cutthroat. she enlists the help of her daughter to obtain sisu’s gem as a way to usurp the supposed control of the heart tribe (21:56). once she obtains a piece of the gem, she embeds it into her staff to ensure she has possession of the gem at all times (51:55). virana has a very isolationist leadership style as a means to keep her village safe, and this is displayed in the traditionally masculine traits of hunger power scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2023 and control, cunning, leadership, and intelligence.3 in contrast, sisu believes that the only way to defeat the druun is through teamwork and cooperation. agreeableness is typically seen as a negative, passive, feminine quality. the climax and resolution of the film demonstrate that the isolationist strategy (masculine) is inferior to the strategy centered on collaboration and trust (feminine). women are not just the stars of this film; feminine qualities are also celebrated which lends to the feminist messaging of the film. 3.1 lgbtq+ representation representations of queer4 individuals have been extremely limited in all of disney’s animated films, including the princess franchise.5 an analysis by towbin et.al discovered that many of the villains from the disney princess films were coded as queer by their appearance and behavior, including jafar from aladdin (1992) and john ratcliffe from pocahontas (1995) (towbin et al. 34). anna putnam also suggests that other villains such as ursula from the little mermaid and lady tremaine from cinderella exhibit transgendered characteristics, with the former modeled after a drag queen (putnam 152-155). this frequent association between stereotypically queer attributes with evil, immoral characters can have tremendously negative effects on the viewer by implying that queer people are evil and deserve to be treated that way— a message that is reinforced by the scarcity of any other positive queer representation. 3.2 although there has been some discussion of queer messaging in mulan, it is this author’s opinion that the claims are not substantially supported enough to be considered seriously. mulan dresses and acts as a means to conceal her female identity in order to gain admittance to the army; at no time does she express a sense of gender dysphoria. some have read into the relationship between mulan and shang and concluded that shang must be either homosexual or bisexual due to his attraction toward mulan while she was presenting as a male. but it could be just as easily argued 3. i would offer that these traits should not be exclusively ascribed to the male gender as women are just as capable of displaying cunning, leadership, intelligence, and a desire for power and control.  4. in this paper, “queer” is used as a general and inclusive statement to encapsulate the multiple identities and orientations represented in the lgbtqia+ community. while each of these identities and orientations are unique and deserve to be treated as such, the term “queer” is helpful for describing the lgbtqia+ community as a whole. 5. at the time of this revision, only four characters from walt disney animation studios have been confirmed as queer: bucky and pronx oryx-antlerson from zootopia (2016) and ethan clade and diazo from strange world (2022). representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 101 that shang was not exhibiting sexual attraction and instead admiration for the development of mulan’s strength and abilities as a soldier throughout her training. shang might even be feeling a sense of pride in himself for his ability to transform mulan, the weakest of the soldiers, into a formidable opponent. in any case, there is not sufficient evidence to claim queer themes or undertones in mulan. 3.3 lgbtq+ representation in raya while none of the producers, directors, or writers for raya have commented on the lead character’s sexuality, kelly marie tran, the voice actor behind raya, has publicly stated that she thinks that raya is gay and voiced her as such. the statement came from an interview with vanity fair, in which tran explained that she decided there were “some romantic feelings going on there,” between raya and raya’s friendturned-nemesis, namaari (robinson, “kelly marie tran”). this is especially significant because, as the voice actor, tran was responsible for bringing this character to life. even if raya was not written as a gay character, tran brought that quality to her characterization. even before tran’s interview, viewers began speculating about raya’s sexuality, similarly to the way they speculated about elsa’s sexuality in frozen (2013). however, there is one major difference in raya that is not present in frozen: there are no other female characters that elsa could display romantic attraction toward in the original film. the inclusion of namaari’s character in raya creates an opportunity for raya to express her same-sex attraction, whereas the other films have not included a character who could fulfill this role. while disney has not commented on raya’s sexuality, they have created a scenario where an opportunity for same-sex attraction exists. there are specific moments from the beginning of raya that lend to a queer interpretation of raya’s character. when namaari and raya first meet, namaari is incredibly shy, indicated by the way she hesitantly pushes her hair back from her face and struggles to look raya in the eye (12:37). this behavior is less reflective of two casual friends meeting and more reminiscent of two people with a romantic interest. immediately after they meet, raya and namaari walk off holding hands (12:57). this behavior is typical for younger children but less typical for twelve-year-old girls (the assumed age of raya at the beginning of the movie). while learning more about each other, namaari remarks, “we’re both warrior women who despise uncomfortable formal wear” (13:50 emphasis added). namaari puts a strange amount of emphasis on the words “warrior women.” that combined with the comment about formal wear, which is stereotypically disliked by lesbian and bisexual women, seems to point to a deeper meaning in this phrase. both raya and namaari use the term “dep la” to refer scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2023 to each other in their interactions (15:05). while the author was unable to find a direct translation for “dep la” in traditional southeast asian languages, the phrase is similar to “dep qua” in vietnamese. the term “dep” means “beautiful” and “qua” means “very,” so a rough translation of “dep qua” could be “very beautiful,” (duolingo).6 perhaps this phrase was invented by the writers as a vague nod to the physical attraction between raya and namaari. when namaari confronts raya for the first time several years later, raya responds, “and here it’s because i thought you missed me” (34:06). this reads similar to the playful banter between two possible romantic young adults. the interpersonal conflict between raya and namaari is very similar to that of a romantic relationship. namaari played on raya’s interests and trust to manipulate raya into revealing the location of the dragon gem. after namaari’s deception, raya is racked with guilt for revealing the gem’s location. her father entrusted her with the responsibility of protecting the gem, and raya’s short-sighted decision to take namaari to the gem resulted in a considerable loss of life. whenever raya addresses this moment in the film, her word choice and tone reflect that she is specifically agonizing over her decision to trust someone who betrayed her (24:11). this idea of trust is central to the message of the film. raya would obviously be devastated by the loss of her father and the re-emergence of the druun, but it seems like she has not been able to trust anyone since the day her trust was initially broken. namaari’s betrayal would be even more significant if raya had initially felt a romantic connection to namaari. of course, all of these moments contain a level of plausible deniability, most likely to protect the substantial financial investment raya represents.7 4. racial representation the history of racial representation in disney films is extremely complicated and historically disheartening. some of disney’s animated features have received severe backlash for their racial representation (see benshoff and griffin’s case study on the lion king as an example of this issue). this struggle with representation has affected the disney princess franchise, especially when the heroine is from a noneuropean culture. jasmine from aladdin and pocahontas from the film of the same name suffer especially from hyper-sexualization rooted in their ethnic and foreign 6. at the time of this article’s conception, duolingo was the most helpful tool in determining an approximate translation for this phrase. further research and commentary would be welcome from someone more familiar with the languages and dialects used in southeast asia. 7. movies with blatant homosexual themes are often censored in the international market. lightyear (2022) was banned from several middle eastern and southeast asian countries because it contained a same-sex kiss (vivrelli). representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 103 beauty (cappiccie et al. 53-54; ellis). disney appears to side-step the issue of tiana’s race in the princess and the frog (2009), by entirely ignoring race relations in 1920 louisiana (dundes and streiff 1; ellis). moana (2016) served as a significant step forward in disney’s attempt accurately and respectfully to feature a heroine of color with the establishment of the oceanic trust. the trust was a group of anthropologists, cultural practitioners, historians, linguists, and choreographers from the polynesian islands who assisted in the film’s authentic representation of the polynesian culture (robinson, “pacific islanders”). the trust provided insight into everything from the costume design to the environmental design. however, moana still received some criticism for pulling aspects of multiple polynesian cultures instead of presenting one specific culture, which can lead to a homogenized view of polynesian people instead of recognizing the distinct differences between certain groups. the plot of the film also received some criticism for following the traditionally american coming-of-age story arc instead of representing a truly polynesian tale (ellis). 4.1 asian representation in mulan mulan struggles with asian representation, due to a general whitewashing of the story and the general issues of orientalism in film. the source material used for inspiration for the film was altered in such a way that the film barely resembles the original chinese ballad. in the original ballad, mulan does disguise herself as a male soldier to take the place of her father in the army, but she does so with the blessing of her parents and serves in the army for over ten years without her true identity as a female ever being discovered (cappiccie et al. 52; dundes and streiff 3). disney forsakes the traditional chinese ideals of cultural collectivism and filial obligation present in the ballad and “americanizes” the story by framing mulan’s actions as a rebellion against her family in a search for honor and individual self-actualization (cappiccie et al. 52). other departures from the original story include the addition of mulan’s sidekicks, mushu and cri-kee,8 and the replacement of the mongols from the original ballad with the huns (cappiccie et al. 3). these changes mirror the colonizing attitude that promotes taking what one desires from a target culture and then imposing their own values on said culture. historically, asians and asian americans have suffered extreme stereotyping in the american film industry. it is also important to examine how the characters in mulan either conform to or defy these typical stereotypes. asians are usually posited “as being of one extreme or another in either a positive (wise sages, exemplary 8. the inclusion of cri-kee as the “lucky cricket” is especially alarming since the concept of the lucky cricket has no basis in chinese culture. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 104 spring 2023 students) or a negative light (sadistic executioners, devilish heathens),” (mok 194). this results in asian women being stereotyped as beautiful, dainty, dependent, docile, and submissive or as evil and menacing. asian men are stereotyped as reserved, studious, socially awkward, and effeminate or as dangerous, exotic, and menacing (besana et al. 214-216; mok 191-194). some of the characters in mulan circumvent these stereotypes. for example, mulan displays independence, courage, and leadership without coming across as the menacing “dragon lady” (mok 190). nevertheless, many of the other characters fall into these stereotypes. li-shang is presented as reserved and menacing at the beginning of the film and struggles to express his emotions both after his father’s death and when attempting to express his feelings for mulan. many of the male side characters are either socially awkward (ling, chien-po), menacing (yao), the comedic fool (yao, ling, chien-po), or effeminate (ling, chien-po). the most blatantly stereotyped character in this film is chi-fu, who is drawn with exaggerated chinese features, such as a stringy beard and mustache, slanted eyes, and crooked teeth (towbin et al. 32). he is also extremely effeminized throughout the film, emerging from his tent with a towel draped around him like a dress (46:01), screaming “like a girl” (46:56), cowering under a rock away from battle (54:14), and fainting in front of the emperor (1:17:19) (dundes and streiff 5). while mulan defies traditional asian stereotypes by displaying self-autonomy, it is unfortunate that so many of the other characters in the film are still confined to these depictions. 4.2 racial representation in raya as disney heavily marketed raya as a southeast asian princess, they needed to rectify the mistakes in characterization and representation they made in mulan. it appears that the creative team went to great lengths to ensure the film incorporated cultural elements respectfully and with authenticity. don hall, one of the film’s directors, discussed how the creative team behind the film took three research trips to different countries in southeast asia. they were able to establish a “southeast asian story trust” (similar to the “oceanic trust” established for moana) to consult on aspects of the film such as the script, screenings, character design, costumes, and minuscule details such as the designs on sisu’s horns (frederick). osnat shurer spoke about the importance of including individuals from the target culture from the very beginning to the very end of the film. adele lim, one of the film’s writers grew up in malaysia (frederick); qui nguyen, another writer, is vietnamese-american; and fawn veerasunthorn, the head of story, is thai-american (moon). having people on the story team from the target cultures represented in the film made it possible to include personal details that lent themselves to an accurate depiction of those cultures representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 105 (frederick). even with the establishment of the southeast asian story trust, the film still received criticism for how it homogenized the distinct cultures of several southeast asian countries. historically, when asians have been the subject of film, the multitude of different asian cultures, traditions, and lifestyles have been “collapsed” or “lumped” into one group under the umbrella term “asian” (mok 186, towbin et al. 22). this depiction of a single, asian monolithic culture, “[obscures] the distinctive ethnic and cultural differences within this population,” (186). some raya viewers were disappointed with the way that the film mixed elements from distinct southeast asian countries, therefore not representing a specific ethnicity or culture and contributing to the homogenization of distinct asian cultures. the film pulled influences from the vietnamese, thai, laotian, malaysian, indonesian, cambodian, and singaporean cultures, but there is no specific differentiating among these cultures in the film (moon). qui nguyen, one of the film’s writers, addressed this concern during an interview: and in creating the five regions in raya and the last dragon—each with its own personality and aesthetic, the filmmakers intentionally incorporated commonalities across southeast asia. “the easy thing we could have done was, this land in kumandra was thailand, this was vietnam, this one’s malaysia,” nguyen says. “but then it gets into a really ugly place of going, oh, well, this country is bad, and this one’s good, and our hero’s from here.” instead, inspirations from specific countries were infused across the setting. (moon) from the interviews with the creative team, it appears that the decision to “incorporate commonalities from across southeast asia” was intentional to avoid villainizing one specific culture due to the nature of the film’s plot. while this does not negate the desire for people from these cultures to see more of their specific culture represented on screen, it does clarify that this decision was intentional as a way to protect the cultures represented in the film. considering how much research and attention went into the writing and directing of raya, it is very strange that kelly marie tran, the voice of raya, is the only southeast asian who was cast in a major role in the film (martin, moon). two of the supporting roles, boun and noi (also known as “con-baby” for most of the film), are played by southeast asians, izzac wang and thalia tran, respectively, but the rest of the “top-billed” cast is east asian (moon). when asked about this decision for casting, adele lim stated, “any time there is a prominent asian-forward movie or we have scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 106 spring 2023 asian leads, you know, that one project has to kind of take on the burden because there’s just not enough of them,” (martin). this statement seems strangely similar to a comment made by mok when discussing the use of “yellowface” in early cinema: “as the common perception of the time was that there simply were no talented asian americans to put on the screen in a starring capacity, whites were frequently used in roles depicting asians” (190). while it may be true that there is a limited number of professional southeast asian voice actors, this film could have been the chance to either discover or highlight more southeast asian talent. if any company would have the resources to conduct a casting call for this specific group, it would be the media giant, disney. more research is needed in this area to determine if there could have been a more concentrated effort to include specifically southeast asian actors. 6. conclusion the disney princess franchise represents a multi-billion industry within the disney corporation (orenstein). each of the films represents a multi-million-dollar investment, and disney relies on these films and characters being relatable and likable to generate revenue. in a society demanding more equitable cultural representation and inclusion in media, it makes sense that disney would attempt to include more progressive ideologies to meet these demands. we have seen disney move toward more inclusive representation by including outward lgbtq+ characters in their animated films and utilizing trusts to ensure a film’s cultural authenticity. raya represents another step forward toward respectful, authentical cultural representation through the utilization of the southeast asian trust and the inclusion of individuals from the target culture all the way through the writing and story process. where this film falls short is that it did not include enough voice actors from southeast asia. disney is such a well-known and powerful brand that it does not need to rely on billing big-name stars to attract an audience (moon). this would have been a wonderful opportunity to find more southeast asian voice talent and provide them with a platform to showcase their ability, thereby bringing more asian talent and representation to the film industry. additionally, the inclusion of more southeast asian voices could have further lent to the film’s cultural authenticity by utilizing voices that have been influenced by listening to and speaking a southeast asian language (moon). recently, disney has been making advancements in including more modernday feminist ideals in their princess films, specifically by removing the “male love interest who saves the heroine and otherwise drives the plot” aspect from its recent films (specifically in brave [2012] and moana). raya also omitted this common representation in raya and the last dragon: examining the progression of gender, sexuality, and race in the disney princess franchise middle tennessee state university 107 princess movie trope and instead focused on the relationships between the three female leads. the film also echoed the progress made in mulan by depicting a badass female character with incredibly athletic and fighting abilities. however, raya was especially significant as the film took the traditionally passive feminine qualities of cooperation and trust and made them essential to the resolution of the plot, positing these characteristics as powerful, useful, and necessary. disney could even further this feminist messaging in future films by including and exploring more female identities and relationships. while disney is outperforming their competitors when it comes to general female representation in animated films (schiele et al. 661), there is still a need for the disney princess franchise to include more diverse representations of their female characters, specifically in the areas of ability, sexuality, and ethnicity. while raya and the last dragon serves to rectify many of the mistakes disney made in mulan and demonstrates the positive progression disney has made in representation within the disney princess franchise, there is still room for the company and franchise to grow. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2023 works cited aladdin. directed by ron clements and john musker, walt disney pictures, 1992. beauty and the beast. directed by gary trousdale and kirk wise, walt disney pictures, 1991. besana, tiffany, et al. “asian american media representation: a film analysis and implications for identity development.” research in human development, vol. 16, 2019, pp. 201-225, doi: doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2020.1711680. brave. directed by mark andrews and brenda chapman, pixar animation studios, 2012. cappiccie, amy, et al. “using critical race theory to analyze how disney constructs diversity: a 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16 nov. 2016, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/moana-oceanictrust-disney-controversy-pacific-islanders-polynesia. —. “raya and the last dragon’s kelly marie tran thinks her disney princess is gay.” vanity fair, 5 march 2021, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/raya-andthe-last-dragon-kelly-marie-tran-gay-namaari-raya. accessed 18 oct. 2021. schiele, kristen, et al. “marketing feminism in youth media: a study of disney and pixar animation.” business horizons, vol. 63, 2020, pp. 659-669, doi.org/10.1016/j. bushor.2020.05.001. sleeping beauty. directed by clyde geronimi, walt disney productions, 1959. snow white and the seven dwarfs. directed by david hand, walt disney productions and, 1937. stover, cassandra. “damsels and heroines: the conundrum of the post-feminist disney princess.” lux: a journal of transdisciplinary writing and research from claremont graduate university, vol. 2, iss. 1, article. 29, 2013, pp. 1-10, doi: 10.5642/lux.201301.29. tangled. directed by nathan greno and bryon howard, walt disney pictures, 2010. the little mermaid. directed by ron clements and john musker, walt disney pictures, 1989. the princess and the frog. directed by ron clements and john musker, walt disney pictures, 2009. towbin, mia adessa, et al. “images of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation in disney feature-length animated films.” journal of feminist family therapy, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 110 spring 2023 vol. 15, no. 2, sep 2008, pp. 19-44, doi.org/10.1300/j086v15n04_02. vivarelli, nick, and patrick frater. “pixar’s ‘lightyear’ banned in saudi arabia, u.a.e. and malaysia over same-sex kiss.” variety, 13 jun 2022, variety.com/2022/film/ news/pixars-lightyear -ban-saudi-arabia-same-sex-kiss-1235292236/. middle tennessee state university 81 mothers, daughters, and vampires mothers, daughters, and vampires: the female sexual dilemma in eighteenth-century vampire poetry ashley m. quinn abstract early vampiric poetry often included two female characters: a mother and a daughter. despite the prevalence of the inclusion of a mother within these poems, scholarship on the literary vampire fails to give that inclusion proper attention. this paper examines how the mother’s relationship with her daughter in these poems connects the liminal space of the vampire with a woman’s involuntary position in a restrictive place between unrestrained sexual desire and the restrained social codes and conventions of eighteenth-century society, exposing the powerless position women are in when it comes to their identity construction in relation to sexuality. the interactions between the mother, daughter, and vampire in “der vampir” (by heinrich august ossenfelder) and “the bride of corinth” (by johann wolfgang von goethe) highlight how female sexuality is chosen either by a mother for her daughter or by a vampire or vampiric nature. exploring these poems encourages a conversation about the construction of female sexuality and the forces that exert influence over that development. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2022 criticism surrounding vampire literature, specifically vampire poetry, consistently addresses the role given to female characters. in the majority of these poems, the female characters are depicted as the maiden victims of the vampire. however, early vampire poetry features another female character: the maiden victim’s mother. many of the scholarly works surrounding the literary vampire focus on the literary vampires from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. little can be found pertaining to the literary vampire from the eighteenth century, and, therefore, little can be found addressing the inclusion of the mother/daughter relationship present in early vampire poetry. the mother/daughter relationship is absent after the nineteenth century (michelis 16), so to investigate its significance we must look at its inclusion in the poems “der vampir” and “the bride of corinth,” both penned in the eighteenth century. the mother/ daughter relationship in “der vampir” and “the bride of corinth” connects the vampire’s occupation of the liminal space between life and death with the female’s involuntary position within the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and the restraining social codes and conventions of eighteenth-century society, exposing women’s powerless position when it comes to their own sexuality. ultimately, this analysis will demonstrate that female sexuality, as seen inthese poems, is developed either by a mother or by a vampire. the vampire from myth to literature it is easy to find criticism that mentions or discusses the countless tales about the vampire’s ancestry. indeed, even the word “vampire” has a contested origin. in popular culture, it is believed that the vampire itself and its name comes from hungary or transylvania. however, etymological and linguistic studies show that the word “vampire” in european languages “refer[s] to the slavic superstitions,” and “the wide dissemination of the term and its extensive use in the vernacular follows the outburst of vampirism in serbia” (wilson 583). despite these studies, critics such as jan l. perkowski defend the idea that the vampire’s origins (both linguistically and mythologically) cannot be determined. even the slavic explanation may have come from older ideas in the middle east. the origin of the vampire is further complicated because vampire-like-creatures can be found in all cultures. though it cannot be determined where the vampire originates or where the word “vampire” originates, “the earliest recorded uses of the word appear in french, english, and german literature” (laycock 1).  the definition of the word “vampire” is also varied. popular culture has us imagine the fictional dracula as the outline of a vampire; an evil, sharp-toothed, shape-shifting, undead monster. the popular image of vampires similar to dracula makes it difficult to imagine vampires that do not originate from the supernatural or middle tennessee state university 83 mothers, daughters, and vampires folklore beings; however, bruce a. mcclelland’s slayers and their vampires: a cultural history of killing the dead argues that the slavic word “vampir” had altogether different connotations when it was first used. in the eleventh century it was the “label for an individual who either belonged to a specific group or practiced a particular belief or ritual” (31). more specifically, vampir was used for certain people within the slavic community who continued to practice certain pagan rituals (sacrificial rites and rituals associated with reincarnation) deemed unacceptable to christians (79). thus, early vampires were either pagans or heretics who occupied a lower social position. throughout the years this definition of vampirism started to be connected with satan and evil. before the fourteenth century, vampirism was associated with real individuals who failed to convert properly to christianity. the vampire as representative of a real individual started to change into the folkloric monster after the fourteenth century, at which time it began to represent all that was presumed to be unnaturally dangerous or anathematic (80-83). many stories are told about the history of the vampire, but, as mcclelland makes clear, the “true” history of the vampire cannot be attributed to one culture, especially when the definition of a vampire evolved over the years. mcclelland does suggest that despite the ambiguity surrounding the history of the vampire, “failure to recognize the politico-religious roots of the term is a serious blind spot” (82), a statement that reveals the vampire’s position between heathen religion and christianity. this religious liminal space is exploited in vampire poetry, making it a vital element in the mother/daughter relationship found within “der vampir” and “the bride of corinth.”   female sexuality in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, male sexual desire and activity were seen as natural and innate. by contrast, female sexual desire and pleasure were seen as pathologically deviant, meaning women with a sexual desire and/or women who gained pleasure from sexual activity were believed to have diseased minds and bodies (drawmer 39). as a result, women were expected to practice chastity, a behavior considered essential and natural to the female sex ( jones 30). women were not meant to be sexual, but more importantly they also could not want to have sex. instead, they needed to be suspicious and vigilant in maintaining their chastity, which could only be achieved through the avoidance of temptation. since avoidance of temptation was integral to the practice of inherently feminine chastity, indiscretion was the woman’s fault (chico 178). a woman’s sexual status was assigned to her according to her ability to regulate her own sexual desire through reinforcing her wish to remainchaste and compelling sexual restraint in their male suitors. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2022 this obsession with the female sexual reputation led to the development of new social codes and conventions intended to make sexual purity highly visible. these new social codes and conventions pertained to dress, comportment, conversation, and even physical responses such as flushing or blushing (kittredge 6). flushing and blushing were often compared to mercury rising in a thermometer, indicating that the woman had fevered spirits, was sexually available, or had overall heightened sensibilities (castle 26). if a woman dared to break these social codes and conventions, she was exposing herself to humiliation and such epithets as whining spinster, evil murderess, or decaying prostitute (kittredge 1). while the eighteenth-century social codes and conventions insisted that a woman was supposed to remain chaste, they also insisted she was supposed to attract a male suitor, get married, and produce children. as it is not possible to remain chaste and birth children, the social codes and conventions were unattainable. however, conforming to them remained vitally necessary for a woman who did not want to be ostracized from society.  mothers, daughters, and vampires “the vampire” heinrich august ossenfelder (1725-1801) has long been considered the first poet to introduce the vampire to readers of creative literature. commissioned in 1748 by christlob mylius, the editor of the scientific journal der naturforsher ‘the natural scientist,’ ossenfelder wrote a poem with a vampire theme to be published alongside an article being released concerning vampiric reports. limited critical attention has been given to ossenfelder and his poem “der vampir” (“the vampire”) aside from a few negative reviews in 1887 and 1900 (crawford 4). currently, a few scholarly works exist that address ossenfelder and his poem within the context of the overall history of the literary vampire. one such text, the vampire: a new history (2018), suggests that “der vampir” had only a minuscule effect when it was first received by the literary community; however, it is gaining recognition hundreds of years later because of its unique presence in a scientific journal and its explicit avoidance of “scientific or medical debate and theological or philosophical dilemmas” (groom 130). that ossenfelder chose to create this literary figure in a time when its existence was under extreme scrutiny within the scientific, theological, and philosophical communities makes the poem of interest. ossenfelder presents the literary vampire in an anacreontic poem, linking the literary vampire with seduction and drinking. from what at first seems an unlikely pair emerges the defining qualities of this creature. one such quality, eroticism, is an element that had not been associated with the vampire of folklore, and ossenfelder would have been well aware of his change in the mythology. his poem does draw on some influences, middle tennessee state university 85 mothers, daughters, and vampires most noticeably “directly from the arnod paole case, via the marquis d’argens’ account of johann flückinger’s report, which had just been reprinted in mylius’ journal” (groom 130). flückinger’s report stated that the serbia hajduks (peasant-soldiers) were exhuming bodies because they believed the corpses were returning from their graves at night to climb on people and kill them through an unknown twenty-four-hour illness. in order to stop these corpses, the serbia hajduks were driving wooden stakes through the bodies and then burning them to ash (butler 27). flückinger’s report, and others like it, do not involve any indications of sexual or erotic behavior being exhibited by the undead. by contrast, ossenfelder creates the literary vampire that is seductive, sexual, and erotic, an image that is still prevalent in contemporary depictions of the literary vampire and deviates significantly from “real” reports of vampirism as seen in flückinger’s report.  “der vampir,” narrated by a male vampire, chronicles a conversation between the vampire and a female victim. the narrator attempts to seduce this young woman through his words and a proposal of rape-like actions. similar to some eighteenth-century seductive poetry, the female character does not respond to the vampire within the poem. her response must be read between the lines, as the only information we are given about her is by the narrator. despite groom’s assertion that ossenfelder avoided addressing theological dilemmas in “der vampir,” a strong religious presence makes itself known in the poem. this religious presence, combined with the erotic elements, creates a text in which the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and eighteenth-century restraints of social codes and conventions can be explored. most noticeably, the female victim, christiane, is pulled between unrestrained sexual desire (represented by the vampire) and the restraining social codes and conventions (represented by her mother and christianity), essentially forcing her into a position in which she is unable to control her own sexuality.  the restraining social codes and conventions the poem begins with the vampire speaking about christiane: my dear young maiden believeth unbending, fast and firm in all the furnished teachings of her ever-pious mother; as people along the tisza believe staunchly and heyduck-like in vampires that bring death. (1-7)1 1. the translation used is from heide crawford’s essay, “the cultural-historical origins of the literary vampire in germany.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2022 in these first lines of the poem, the vampire compares the daughter’s belief in her mother’s teachings to a belief in vampires held by a group of people who live along the tisza, a river in hungary. the vampire says the daughter’s belief is “unbending, fast and firm” (2), indicating a stubborn temperament. moreover, she believes in her “ever-pious” (4) mother’s “furnished teachings” (3). the vampire’s tone suggests that he is frustrated with the daughter’s belief and the source of that belief: her mother. as the mother is “ever-pious,” it seems appropriate to assume that the mother’s teachings are those of religion and morality. it is unknown to the reader how the daughter feels about her mother’s teachings, but as a character who is only defined by her religious faith, i would argue that readers are meant to surmise that the daughter adheres to the religious rules set forth by the older generation. the language used in the second line hints at her obedience through the word “unbending,” which indicates that the daughter cannot be swayed from her beliefs. furthermore, the use of the word “pious” to describe the mother forces an association between the daughter and the devoutly religious. additionally, through christiane’s religious name as well as the introduction of a metaphor between religious belief and superstitious belief, the narrator exposes his own position towards religion. the connection between the poem’s victim and christianity is strengthened through her name: “just wait now, dear christiane” (8). the name “christiane” is plausibly derived from the latin christianae, “which means ‘of a christian’ and from christiantias, the latin word for christianity” (crawford 6). being the daughter of a devoutly religious woman, christiane is literally from a christian, and her christian mother acts as the conduit leading christiane into christianity through her teachings. the vampire compares the daughter’s strict obedience to and association with christianity to the hungarian peoples’ belief in vampires. christiane strongly believes in her mother’s christian moral principles like the hungarian people “believe staunchly and heyduck like / in vampires” (6-7). believing staunchly suggests that the hungarian people believe in a loyal, committed, and/or strong manner. in her essay, “the cultural-historical origins of the literary vampire in germany,” heide crawford connects the hungarian references (“tisza,” “heyduck-like,” and “tockay”) to superstition. while this conclusion fits with the german confusion surrounding vampires, it seems strange for the vampire narrator to be referring to a belief in vampires as superstition; however, the belief in vampires was considered a superstition at the time the poem was written. regardless of the reason that the narrator suggests that vampires are a superstition, the importance of his metaphor is that his comparison reveals his opinion that christianity is just another superstitious belief. the metaphor also makes it evident that christiane and the hungarian people hold strongly to these superstitions and will not easily forsake them.  middle tennessee state university 87 mothers, daughters, and vampires christiane’s strong connection and dedication to religion set her up to be (like her mother) a representative of the restraining social codes and conventions of society that prohibit unrestrained sexual desire. therefore, it comes as no surprise when the narrator indicates that christiane does not want to be involved with him. he tells her, “just wait now, dear christiane, / you do not wish to love me” (8-9). the significance of these lines can be found in christiane’s lack of voice and the narrator’s familiarity with christiane. the vampire’s words “just wait now” imply an action or response from christiane. considering that he follows the command for her to wait with the declaration that she does not want to love him, it is justifiable to presume that christiane was either attempting to leave the narrator or she was speaking to him. the narrator’s demand for christiane to wait is the beginning of an interaction that does not allow christiane to have a voice or to have control over her own body. christiane’s lack of power is further complicated by the suggestion that the relationship between the narrator and christiane was initiated prior to the poem. as crawford notes, the vampire uses the german diminutive form of christiane’s name, christianchen (6). the german diminutive form of a name communicates cuteness, informality, or affection. it is entirely possible that an emotional connection between the narrator and christiane exists, which, along with christiane’s lack of love, suggests that the narrator is (or was) christiane’s unsuccessful suitor (crawford 6). we are aware that christiane is a chaste woman because the narrator refers to her as “my dear young maiden,” indicating that christiane is an unmarried virgin. as we are unable to know for certain why christiane does not reciprocate the narrator’s love, we must draw conclusions from the little we know about her from the poem. while it seems logical to assume that christiane’s decision to reject the narrator is an active choice that she is making, i would argue it is not. crawford approaches christiane’s rejection as being the result of her religious faith, and, if we see christiane as a product of her mother’s teachings and the restrained social codes and conventions of society, we must also see that her religious chastity will not allow her to have a sexual nature or intent. even though there is limited evidence to determine whether christiane’s rejection is entirely her own choice, we can conclude that christiane’s sublimation of her sexuality is in part determined by her religious faith and morality, which leaves christiane denying the desires of the body in order to uplift the soul. unrestrained sexual desire if christiane represents restrictive social codes and conventions, then the vampire represents unrestrained sexual desire. it is quite possible that his unrestrained sexual desire is the result of being an undead creature missing a soul. the suggestion that scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2022 a vampire is a creature without a soul is not a fresh concept. they have almost always been considered reanimated corpses (fleischhack 63); therefore, writers and scholars have surmised that, when the body is reanimated after death, it is missing an essential element: the soul. evidence within “der vampir” that suggests the soullessness of the vampire is sparse; however, the narrator’s proposed actions make it quite obvious that he has an overpowering and dangerous sexual desire for christiane. the lust the narrator has for christiane and his opinion that her religious beliefs are a superstition strongly suggest his position as a body without a soul; he can only think of and desire things of the flesh: christiane, blood, and sex. christiane’s rejection, prompted by her religious ideals and sexuality, anger the narrator, an anger that surfaces through rape-like actions the narrator plots to direct towards christiane. the narrator tells christiane,  on you i take revenge and in tockay today will drink you into a vampire. and when softly you are sleeping from your rosy cheeks  will i the color suck. then will you be startled  when i kiss you thus and as a vampire kiss: when you start to tremble  and weakly, like one dying, sink down into my arms... (10-21) christiane’s lack of romantic attention for the vampire leads him to “take revenge” on her, and his revenge is steeped in sexual language that implies rape and murder. it is clear that the narrator intends to turn christiane into a vampire because he tells her that he “will drink [her] into a vampire” and suck the color from her cheeks. unlike the folkloric vampire’s unerotic and animalistic feeding and/or creation of another vampire, the narrator’s feeding and creation is a sexual experience. christiane will be sleeping during the initiation of this encounter, unquestionably unable to give consent. when christiane awakens she will be startled; however, the narrator suggests that she will tremble and sink into his arms when he kisses her, indicating—to him—sexual enjoyment.2 2. the narrator is ignoring the double meaning of christiane’s trembling and sinking. her weakened state could be the result of his vampiric attack rather than a sexual response. middle tennessee state university 89 mothers, daughters, and vampires while it is unsettling to contemplate christiane enjoying a nonconsensual experience that stems from rejection, the poem does not display what is happening or what has happened. the poem is what the vampire tells christiane will happen if she continues to reject his advances. we do not know whether or not christiane will enjoy the erotic encounter with the vampire, but the narrator believes she will. crawford argues that the narrator believes he will bring christiane to orgasm (6). while crawford’s conclusion is only one possibility that can be drawn from the text, most critics agree that the narrator is not simply satisfying his own sexual desire, but rather, he is severing the chaste and pious relationship christiane has with her mother and christianity, forcing christiane away from the unrestrained social codes and conventions by which she lives. the narrator believes that with his own erotic and sexual nature he will be able to make christiane “resemble the man whose lust is so strong that it dehumanizes him and makes him act like a body without a soul” (butler 64). essentially, christiane is being pulled from her pure chastity into unrestrained sexuality, going from one extreme to the other, an action that reveals the moral dilemma for all eighteenth-century women. in a society that upholds prohibited female sexuality, women can either abide by the societal codes and conventions or become ostracized women. anything that falls outside of the social codes and conventions would be considered to be “unrestrained sexuality,” thus women have no middle ground on which to stand.  putting the pieces together the most interesting lines of “der vampir” are the last three because the narrator is still speaking in the future tense, but he exposes a dilemma that christiane is already part of pertaining to her sexuality. after their sexual and lethal exchange, the narrator will “pose [his] question, / are not [his] teachings better / than those of [christiane’s] good mother?” (22-24). it is clear that the mother’s teachings are those of christianity and society, but what are the narrator’s teachings? crawford, who analyzes the poem through a cultural-historical lens, argues that the narrator represents destruction and death. he is a hostile threat to christianity and the restrained social codes and conventions of society, and he intends to destroy or corrupt the christian faith through seduction and draining its spirit. crawford regards this poem as a juxtaposition of the “strict moral values of society, represented by the religious values of the mother and the daughter with the possibility of a destructive hedonistic lifestyle, represented by the vampire figure’s planned seduction” (7). thus, the vampire’s teachings are those of hedonism. while i agree with crawford’s analysis, i want to take it a step further. the poem is not simply an interplay between religion and hedonism. yes, religion and hedonism are present in the poem, but they are part of the umbrella or overarching themes. hidden beneath the conflict between religion and hedonism is the battle over female sexuality.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2022 part of the mother’s christian teachings would naturally involve how a pious christian woman should behave in relation to sexuality. as readers of the poem, we have many gaps in knowledge surrounding christiane and her mother. we do not know how old christiane is or whether or not she has other suitors. what we do know is that the narrator is or was a suitor and that christiane is an unmarried virgin who has rejected the narrator. her rejection might stem from a dislike of the narrator or from her sights being set on another suitor, but it is also possible that, as an unmarried virgin, christiane was taught chastity or female virtue by her mother and society. chastity or female virtue would lead christiane to reject a suitor’s advances, especially if those advances were sexual and not a simple courtship that would lead to marriage and only then procreative sexual intercourse. the narrator’s strong emphasis on christiane’s religion and his desire to engage in a sexual relationship, despite being unmarried, suggests a conflict between christiane’s sexual teachings from her mother and the narrator’s sexual desire. christiane’s mother taught her chastity, and the narrator will (or wants to) teach her carnality.  the last lines of the poem specifically ask christiane how her mother’s teachings compare to the narrator’s teachings. the narrator’s question pits unrestrained sexuality and the restrained social codes and conventions of society against one another. however, despite the narrator asking christiane the question, she is not the one who gets to choose. her mother chose christianity for her and christianity, along with the restrained societal codes and conventions of society, chose the sexuality she must follow (chastity and denying the flesh). the narrator apparently will also choose christiane’s sexuality for her. the narrator forces her to acknowledge and participate in erotic sexuality that will compel christiane to embrace the desires of the flesh, consequently denouncing christianity and societal codes and conventions. the unanswered question at the end of the poem is indicative of christiane’s position within the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and the restrained social codes and conventions of society, a space into which women were inevitably forced. similar to christiane, women that lived in the eighteenth century who decided to marry and birth children were unable to stay chaste. however, they were also unable to express or seek out erotic sexuality. the only way for a woman to stay chaste would be for her to be unmarried, an “option” that again forces the woman into a sexuality that she may not want or choose for herself. as barkhoff notes, “in the ascetic, anti-sensual, and misogynist world of christendom independent female desire is not allowed to flourish, but is equally unable to die” (140). women are stuck in a position where they are unable to choose their sexuality for themselves, but they are also somehow supposed to embody both chastity and unrestrained sexual desire.  middle tennessee state university 91 mothers, daughters, and vampires “the bride of corinth” written by johann wolfgang von goethe in 1797 and published in 1798, “the bride of corinth”—or “die braut von korinth”—is also a vampiric poem in which a mother stands as a barrier to a young couple’s sexual union. critics have referred to “the bride of corinth” as a pagan vampire poem that is based on the greek myth of philinnion. the myth of philinnion involves a she-demon lover who returns from the dead to woo the young man makhartes. the act of returning from the dead results in the she-demon’s death through immolation by the townspeople (groom 132). while the myth does not refer to the she-demon as a vampire, goethe’s revisioning of the myth in “the bride of corinth” is about a young woman who is turned into a vampire by her own mother. when the vampire daughter attempts to spend a night with her betrothed, the mother comes between them, denying her daughter for a second time. like “der vampir,” “the bride of corinth” explores the space between unrestrained sexuality and absolute chastity. however, unlike christiane, the daughter in “the bride of corinth” is forced by the mother, and only the mother, into sexuality. once again, a daughter is unable to choose her own sexuality.  the death of a daughter goethe’s ballad starts with a young man traveling to corinth to meet and marry the bride who has been promised to him since childhood. both the “youth from athens” (1) and his “plighted spouse” (7) have been promised to each other at the behest of their fathers. the young man arrives at midnight when the “father and daughters [are] all at rest” (17); therefore, the mother—who cannot sleep—“rises to receive the [youth]” (19). at the very beginning of the poem, the mother plays a large part in the action. it is not explained why the mother cannot sleep, but further in the poem, it becomes clear that the mother was involved in the daughter’s death, as indicated by the line, “thou dids’t doom thy child to die!” (169), suggesting that the mother might not be able to sleep as a result of her guilty conscience. it is clear by line 169 that the mother caused her daughter’s death, but the way in which this happened is unclear.  jürgen barkhoff, in his essay “female vampires, victimhood, and vengeance in german literature around 1800,” suggests that “the mother, out of gratitude to god for her recovery from an illness, had pledged her daughter to become a virginal bride of jesus, a nun” (138). however, barkhoff fails to include textual evidence for this interpretation. i would argue instead that the text suggests that the mother unknowingly made a pagan pledge to have her daughter take her place in death. other theorists have perceived the theme of paganism within this poem, with butler referring to “the bride of corinth” as a poem confronting pagan sexuality (64), and groom calling the poem a pagan vampire scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2022 poem (132). it is important to note that the difference between barkhoff ’s interpretation and my own is most likely due to a difference in english translations of the german poem. though the difference in interpretation may be due to issues of translation, it is a significant difference that begs to be explored. as vampirism has close ties to paganism, the juxtaposition between paganism and christianity in the poem is key to the argument that the daughter is being pulled between two extremes. the first evidence for my interpretation of the text is found in stanza 8. the mother has led the young man to a chamber and given him food and drink. after the mother leaves, the daughter to whom the young man is betrothed comes into the room. not expecting to see someone in the chamber, the daughter is frightened and decides to leave. the young man, however, pleads with her to stay. when the young man tries to get nearer to the daughter she tells him,  away—young man—stand far away, what pleasure is, i feel not now— joy hath forever fled from me, scar’d by a mother’s gloomy vow: she fear’d to die,—my youthful bloom, my hopes of love—her stern decree hath destin’d to a living tomb! (50-56)  not only is this stanza the first clue to the daughter’s position between life and death, but it is also the first indication of what transpired between the mother and the daughter. the daughter tells the young man that she is scarred by a vow that her mother made, a vow prompted by the mother’s fear of dying. her mother’s vow—or stern decree—has destined her youthful bloom and hopes of love to a living tomb. later in the poem, the daughter asks her mother, “and is it not enough that i / for thee in funeral pall should lie? / for thee in youth should fade and die?” (155-157). the daughter elaborates on the initial statement that the mother destined the daughter’s youth and hopes of love to a tomb to reveal that she, in fact, took the mother’s place in the funeral pall—or coffin. essentially, the mother traded her daughter’s life for her own. the daughter continues with a statement about her condition: our ancient gods no longer deign in this dull mansion to reside— but one who dwells in heaven unseen, and one, upon the cross who died, are worship’d with sad rite severe: no offering falls of lamb or steer; but human victims suffer here! (57-63) middle tennessee state university 93 mothers, daughters, and vampires she is telling the young man that the ancient—or pagan—gods are no longer worshiped in “this dull mansion”; instead, god and jesus are being worshiped (57-58). it seems like barkhoff ’s assertion that the daughter has been promised to the church and sent to a convent relies on the interpretation that the dull mansion being spoken of is a christian church or place of worship where the daughter would have resided after her mother’s vow. however, the daughter refers to the dull mansion as this dull mansion, meaning that the daughter and the young man are in the dull mansion the daughter is talking about; thus, the dull mansion is the home in which she lives/lived. despite the daughter not actually being placed in a church or convent, her family has converted to christianity. therefore, the daughter would have been required to live by christian morals and worship god.  the conflict between christianity and paganism is further complicated as the daughter continues to explain what her mother has done to her. the daughter judges her mother’s actions and suggests the incorporation of pagan aspects in the mother’s vow: me from my narrow silent bed, hither a wondrous doom hath driven: your priests their mummery-song have said, but, oh! it hath no weight in heaven! in vain your mystic spells ye prove! (158-162)  the daughter has come from her grave with a “wondrous doom”—or extraordinary judgment; this judgment declares that despite her mother having priests conduct a ceremony, their mummery-song (which the daughter is referring to as a ridiculous, hypocritical or pretentious ceremony) has no weight or importance in heaven. the reason the mother’s christian religious actions have no weight in heaven can be explained within the daughter’s accusation on the last line of the 23rd stanza. the daughter says, “in vain your mystic spells ye prove!” (162). breaking down the meaning of this line is not simple, and there can be multiple interpretations; however, i am interpreting the line to mean that in vain—or in a blasphemous manner—the mother conducted a mystic spell (some sort of petition to live), and this spell reveals the kind of person the mother truly is. despite the mother’s outward cloak of christianity, she appealed to a different power in an attempt to live. this is further corroborated by the next stanza:  i was his doom’d and destin’d bride in days while venus’ fane still stood, but ye your former vows belied, and seal’d your late learn’d creed in blood. alas! no heavenly power stood by, when thou dids’t doom thy child to die! (164-169) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2022 the daughter tells the mother that in days while venus’s temple still stood, the daughter and the young man were destined, by their fathers, to be married. then the mother belied—or misrepresented her former vows and sealed a new creed in blood, meaning she broke the promise that had been made by the fathers and created a new commitment for the daughter. the element of the daughter’s explanation that strongly connects the mother’s actions to pagan ritual is the fact that no heavenly power stood by as the mother sealed this new creed in blood. and as already stated, this creed sealed in blood led to the daughter’s death. thus, the textual evidence suggests that the mother conducted a pagan blood ritual for life, in the guise of christianity, and in doing so she doomed her daughter to die in her place. the mother also doomed her daughter to be a maiden forever, considering that the daughter has died before marriage and any sexual experience. by using a pagan ritual disguised as a christian one to sustain her own life, the mother unintentionally established her daughter’s status as a vampire who exhibits and exercises unrestrained sexuality. the daughter as the vampire unlike “der vampir,” “the bride of corinth” features the male suitor as the victim and the female daughter as the vampire and also a victim. it is not obvious that the daughter is a vampire, and we do not explicitly find out the daughter’s condition until stanza 25 when she actually calls herself a vampire. after the daughter reveals the circumstances surrounding her death, she explains her seemingly living appearance: and hither from the grave i roam to seek the joys denied in life: hither, to seek my spouse i come, to drain his veins—a vampyre wife! (170-173) in her attempt to stay in the living realm, the mother killed her daughter and doomed her to a life as a vampire: a creature living between life and death, never quite existing in either realm. therefore, the mother’s pagan ritual for life led to the daughter becoming a vampire. this correlation between polytheism and the vampire derives from a theory (as proposed by mcclelland) that postulates that the original vampires were people who did not conform to christian theology and a christian way of life. in slayers and their vampires: a cultural history of killing the dead, mcclelland discusses the origin and evolution of the vampire, emphasizing the fact that “the word vampir emerged in a context of religious conflict in the balkans” (79).3 the religious 3. the balkans refers to a geographical area usually characterized as comprising albania, bosnia and herzegovina, bulgaria, croatia, kosovo, north macedonia, montenegro, romania, serbia, and slovenia. middle tennessee state university 95 mothers, daughters, and vampires conflict centered around orthodox christians and pagans who would not abandon their beliefs and rituals. mcclelland goes so far as to suggest that the rituals the pagans would not relinquish were associated with a belief in reincarnation. from this conflict between christians and pagans arose the “essential behavioral qualification of the first vampires,” which was unacceptable ritual practice (mcclelland 79). therefore, the mother’s pagan blood ritual to save herself and sacrifice her daughter automatically associates the mother and daughter to vampirism. however, the poem takes the folklore and history of the vampire and further complicates the struggles between polytheism and christianity. the mother’s sacrifice of her daughter is a perversion of god’s sacrifice of jesus. where jesus was sacrificed to save humanity, the daughter is sacrificed to save the mother. the sacrifice in the poem comes from a place of selfishness and fear of death. the daughter’s existence as a vampire after death is, once again, not a choice that she has made.  being a vampire, the daughter in “the bride of corinth” is a perfect reflection of a woman’s forced position in the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and the restrained social codes and conventions of the eighteenth century. as a vampire, she “represents the ambiguous status of a woman who is neither quite human nor inhuman, neither mistress of her life nor slave of her master, who is both victim and victimizer” (metzger 88). the vampire, being undead, has always existed as a creature that “appear[s] in…zones of liminality” (barkhoff 139). in the role of a vampire, the daughter can now represent many in-betweens. being stuck in these transitionary spaces can create a sense of alienation and marginalization, especially when the liminal space was forced, not chosen. the daughter embodies this alienation and marginalization when it becomes apparent that she is an unwelcome insider. the young man from athens, despite his political and religious disparity with the daughter’s family, is given an honored place in the house. he is a welcome outsider, while the daughter is a displaced person. upon finding the young man in the chamber she “exclaims, ‘then i am nothing here! / guests come and go and none tells me!’” (3738). it seems as if the daughter does not exist in her own home. she is not told when guests are arriving, and she is considered to be nothing. despite her status as an outsider, the vampire daughter is able to experience the young man’s love for her. the romantic exchange between the vampire and her betrothed seems to suggest a turn of events for the daughter, but once again she is not making her own choices. the couple is not married, and we find out halfway through the poem “[the vampire’s] sister is [the young man’s] destin’d bride” (72). the daughter, as a vampire, now has an unrestrained sexual desire that she intends to fill with her former betrothed. the young vampire has a virginal appearance, but that appearance masks her true nature as a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2022 lascivious vampire (metzger 88). she tells the young man, “but in her arms, ah! think of me, / who in my cell will think of thee: / who pine and die with love of thee” (73-75), and he responds by telling her, “be mine, my love, be mine to night” (82). the poem goes on to discreetly hint at a sexual relationship between the couple: he speaks to her with words of love— on love, on love alone, he thinks. …………………………………… in tears upon the bed he sinks!  ……………………………………. he strains her in his closing arm with strength that youth and passion gave; ……………………………………. with frenzied clasp of wild desire he strains her to his breast of fire. (99-100, 104, 110-111, 114-115) the vampire’s mother chose for the daughter to die in chastity and miss out on the sexual pleasures of the world. therefore, it comes as no surprise when the mother comes between the daughter and the young man. the mother listens outside the chamber door to hear “voices like lovers’, low and light” (128), and a declaration that “to-morrow night thou wilt be mine” (135). angered by what she hears, the mother bursts in to see “her own—her daughter” (143). even though the mother comes in, she is not able to stop the daughter from determining to become a victimizer and turn the young man into a vampire, like herself. her plans are “to drain his veins” (173). it might seem like the daughter will finally be able to make a choice that is her own, but she is only being persuaded by her vampiric nature; a nature that she had no choice in electing. as butler notes, “the destruction [the vampire daughter] will wreak...stems not from her own wishes, but from the mortifying prohibitions imposed on the young by an older generation that has lived only to die in an odor of false sanctity” (65). the daughter is essentially both a victim (being killed and turned by her mother) and a victimizer (turning the young man).   death as the only choice similar to christiane, the vampire daughter is exposed to unrestrained sexuality because she is a vampire and exposed to the restrictive social codes and conventions through her mother. both women are stuck in a place where their choices are limited, but their choices are not their own. unlike christiane, though, the vampire daughter does voice the way out of her predicament, a way that will take her out of all zones of liminality. her last request of her mother is to have her mother  middle tennessee state university 97 mothers, daughters, and vampires build high...a funeral pile: ...from that narrow cell releas’d, [where the daughter’s] spirit shall rejoicing smile; and when the embers fall way, and when the funeral flames arise, [the daughter and the young man will] journey to a home of rest. (182-187) the only way for the daughter as a vampire to escape her dungeon of liminality, as fleischhack suggests, is through a stake in the heart, beheading, and/or cremation (64). the daughter’s only escape from the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and restrained social codes and conventions of society is through absolute death.  conclusion “der vampir” and “the bride of corinth” depict women stuck in the liminal space between unrestrained sexual desire and restraining social codes and conventions of eighteenth-century society. both ossenfelder and goethe explore this liminal space through poetry that complicates the relationship between a mother and daughter through the inclusion of vampiric characters. their depictions, however, differ in their renderings of those characters. ossenfelder presents a vampire who defies the mother by forcefully seducing the daughter into an act of unrestrained sexuality, while in goethe’s poem the daughter herself transforms into a vampire through the mother’s false christian ritual. despite these differences, both authors uncovered the female lack of choice in sexuality. in the eighteenth century, women were expected to be pure and chaste, while also being sexual to attract a male suitor. both “der vampir” and “the bride of corinth” expose this impossible situation that women face in terms of their sexuality by dramatizing this struggle through the metaphor of the vampire. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2022 works cited barkhoff, jürgen. “female vampires, victimhood, and vengeance in german literature around 1800.” nineteenth-century literature criticism. edited by catherine c. dimercurio, vol. 364, gale, 2019. castle, terry. female thermometer: 18th-century culture and the invention of the uncanny. oxford university press usa oso, 1995. chico, tita. designing women: the dressing room in eighteenth-century english literature and culture. bucknell university press, 2005. crawford, heide. “the cultural-historical origins of the literary vampire in germany.” journal of dracula studies, vol. 7, 2005, pp. 1-7. https://research.library.kutztown. edu/dracula-studies/vol7/iss1/1. drawmer, lois. “sex, death, and ecstasy: the art of transgression.” vampires: myths and metaphors of enduring evil, edited by peter day, editions rodopi, 2006, pp. 39-56.  fleischhack, maria. “vampires and mummies in victorian gothic fiction.” inklings: jahrbuch für literatur und ästhetik, vol. 27, 2009, pp. 62-77.  goethe, johann w. “the bride of corinth: from the german goeth.” the new-england galaxy and united states literary advertiser (1830-1836), vol. 13, 1830, pp. 684.  groom, nick. vampires: a new history. e-book ed., yale university press, 2018. nook. kittredge, katharine. lewd and notorious: female transgression in the eighteenth century. university of michigan press, 2009. project muse, muse.jhu.edu/book/6424. laycock, joseph p. vampires today: the truth about modern vampirism, praeger, 2009. mcclelland, bruce a. slayers and their vampires: a cultural history of killing the dead. university of michigan press, 2006. project muse, muse.jhu.edu/book/7097. metzger, lore. “modifications of genre: a feminist critique of ‘christabel’ and ‘die braut von korinth.’” borderwork: feminist engagements with comparative literature, edited by margaret r. higonnet, cornell university press, 1994, pp. 81-99. michelis, angelica. “‘dirty mamma’: horror, vampires, and the maternal in late nineteenth-century gothic fiction.” critical survey, vol. 15, no. 3, 2003, pp. 5-22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41557221. wilson, katharina m. “the history of the word ‘vampire.’” journal of the history of ideas, vol. 46, no. 4, 1985, pp. 577-583. jstor, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709546. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 131 integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war lis sodl abstract prior to the civil war, american identity was grounded in community, hard work, and a connection to the land. one woke up, did what one had to do, and kissed one’s family before bed. within literature, life was simple and idealistic— full of romanticization of the land and of its people. following the civil war, everything began to change. between mass industrialization and urbanization, to an increase in immigration and the assimilation of former slaves into society, the world was different, and the definition of what it meant to be an american had to adjust. through an examination of the literature of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, such as constance fenimore woolson’s “rodman the keeper” and w.e.b. dubois’s rhetorical the souls of black folk, the definition of american identity shifted to represent new england perspectives on traumatized southern lands as well as proposed solutions to postemancipation integration. writers of fiction and non-fiction alike examined the ways in which the trauma of the civil war and slavery impacted national identity, often in problematic ways that erased disadvantaged or traumatized perspectives in favor of elitist, privileged views. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 132 spring 2023 north versus south the civil war prompted massive industrial shifts within the united states that led to urbanization, evolving labor laws and unions, and railway monopolies; furthermore, the trauma from such a bloody event also led to shifts in perspectives. what is often referred to as the lost cause principle reflects growing romanticization of the trauma of the south and its lands, particularly focused on salvation through northern involvement, and has appeared in literature across the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. within this principle lies the following tropic elements: the glorification of the white new england man (likely through his own perspective) and education as salvation for the south. a new england education constance fenimore woolson’s “rodman the keeper”1 will serve as the first example. this text focuses on a union army veteran who is the caretaker of a confederate cemetery, and the struggle of existing in a liminal space neither romanticized nor remembered. woolson writes, “this was not patriotism so-called, or rather miscalled, it was not sentimental fancy, it was not zeal or triumph; it was simply a sense of the fitness of things, a conscientiousness which had in it nothing of religion, unless indeed a man’s endeavor to live up to his own ideal of his duty be a religion.”2 john rodman not only acts as caretaker for the cemetery, but he acts also as a reminder to the world around him that war has consequences. he himself remains in charge of the legacy of the war, which reflects the concept of the new england man—wherein the correct version of southern history lies within the perspective of a northerner with little regard for the trauma the land and its people experienced. rodman quite literally takes care of the history of his conquered southern home and how it is remembered. in his time down south, he becomes caretaker to a confederate veteran just off the property, left impoverished and wounded by the war. they bicker and fight until they come to understand one another as the same: discarded from an event they had both believed in, left to survive in a world that no longer has color. when the confederate veteran, de rosset, passes away, rodman finds himself in a conversation with miss ward, de rosset’s relative. they discuss contrasting views on grief and transition, but inevitably come to agreement about the only hope of the south— 1. constance fenimore woolson, “rodman the keeper,” in the norton anthology of american literature, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robern levin (new york, ny: w.w. norton and company, 2017), 374-393. 2. woolson, “rodman the keeper,” 376. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 133 education.3 rodman’s belief mirrors union sympathies at the time in that only through education can the south truly recover from the trauma caused by the civil war; despite coming from a rather affluent southern background, miss ward agrees with rodman’s sympathies. at this point, it is unclear whether miss ward is so much a character as she is the embodiment of the land itself, breezing in and out of the consciousness of a new england man, a character who romanticizes the ideal of a war-torn south and uses its vulnerability to push his own agenda. she in turn represents the lost cause principle. she herself is romanticized by rodman (and woolson) as a symbol of southern lands. however, rodman and miss ward exemplify sentiments of not just the south at the time, but also of life in general. with the close of the war, the south was left with questions of rebuilding and whether education could adequately fix what northern perspectives thought to be unacceptable. through rodman, woolson argues for remembrance of history and heritage of the south, particularly through northern perspectives, as an integral part of american identity. what is lacking, as we will continue to see through authors throughout this review, is a consideration of southern perspectives, particularly through the lens of former slaves. henry adams published democracy in 1880 as a critique of the american political system and its relation to corruption and morality. education and the concept of knowing are integral to the text. it is the main motivation behind madeleine lee (adam’s protagonist) and her travels from new york city to washington d.c. however, adams places higher educational value on carrington, a confederate veteran turned virginian lawyer who plays the role of tutor to lee. adams, a bostonian, allows himself to glance through the point of view of a southerner in a section directly referencing his role in the civil war: “the lees were old family friends of mine,” said he. “i used to stay here when i was a boy, even as late as the spring of 1861. the last time i sat here, it was with them. we were wild about disunion and talked of nothing else. i have been trying to recall what was said then. we never thought there would be war, and as for coercion, it was nonsense. coercion, indeed! the idea was ridiculous. i thought so, too, though i was a union man and did not want the state to go out. but though i felt sure that virginia must suffer, i never thought we could be beaten. yet now i am sitting here a pardoned rebel, and the poor lees are driven away and their place is a grave-yard.”4 3. ibid., 393. 4. henry adams, “democracy,” in democracy, esther, mont saint michel and chartres, the education of henry adams (2020), 54. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 134 spring 2023 how interesting it is that we have a confederate veteran who would have been a union man in any other universe, seated on reclaimed southern land, talking to a daughter of union loyalists. his only certainty is that the land itself would be more a victim than the actual fatalities, whilst still maintaining sympathy for the lees (distinct from the new york lees of adams’s fiction; referencing the immediate families of general robert e. lee). this sympathy, however, comes off in an elitist tone. through carrington, adams simplifies southern land into that of a graveyard, a place wherein only northern industry can rebuild. only through his own education to become a lawyer does carrington make it out of post-civil war poverty and support his family.5 the southerner with northern sympathies (a pseudo-new england man) finds his salvation through northern knowledge and business, but even that cannot repair the damage done to the land itself. he has used his education to pull himself out of his previous standing and become a coveted companion in d.c. politics, thus reflecting the ascent of northern carpetbaggers in their dominance of southern industry postcivil war. in the latter portion of his life, adams penned his autobiography in the third person as an analysis of the importance (and unattainability) of education in one’s life. here, he reveals that, during his time at harvard, he befriended roony lee, a virginian relative of the confederate lees and describes his character: the habit of command was not enough, and the virginian had little else. he was simple beyond analysis; so simple that even the simple new england student could not realize him. no one knew enough to know how ignorant he was; how childlike; how helpless before the relative complexity of a school. as an animal, the southerner seemed to have every advantage, but even as an animal he steadily lost ground. […] strictly, the southerner had no mind; he had temperament. he was not a scholar; he had no intellectual training; he could not analyze an idea, and he could not even conceive of admitting two; but in life one could get along very well without ideas, if one had only the social instinct.6 here, adams places himself among the educated elite, a class within which southerners like lee have little chance of ever being accepted. he debases southerners to animals and, though woolson does so with a tad more grace, begins to claim that, though southerners can live without education, they would be the 5. adams, “democracy,” 11. 6. henry adams, “the education of henry adams,” in democracy, esther, mont saint michel and chartres, the education of henry adams (2020), 381. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 135 better for having attained it. this directly reflects carrington’s educational evolution in democracy; respect for the character grows through this confession on confederate soil just as respect for roony lee grows through his (failed) attempts at gaining an education. these elitist attitudes of the new england man regarding education in the south became a thoroughly explored trope in literature following the 1860s. in a satirical allegory to the post-civil war south, mark twain sends his hartford-born main character to the middle ages to patronizingly suggest education as salvation in a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court. when faced with the people of king arthur’s court, he resorts to an elitist point of view: “there were people, too; brawny men, with long, coarse, uncombed hair that hung down over their faces and made them look like animals.”7 the commoners of the fictional sixth century are less than human to the narrator, who continues to describe naked children oblivious to being exposed and the crippling need for all of these creatures to be educated.8 though the message boils down to the a similar view on education as woolson, twain’s language borders on pseudo-racist. this elitist language reflects perceived northern sympathies of the time, focused on how to take advantage of the trauma of a civil war scorched south to their own benefit. in his observations of the new world he finds himself in, he searches for what will benefit him and lead to not just his survival, but also a life of affluence. he suggests that equality can be gained only through education, but only the education that he deems useful, which gets in the way of any genuine attempt to educate the people. twain’s narrator, an educated new england man, suggests the belief of inferiority of the southern class through his characterization, much like adams in his autobiography. he even goes so far as to refer to the commoners as “white indians,” which is to say, “their philosophical bearing is not an outcome of mental training, intellectual fortitude, reasoning.”9 twain’s character has little respect for these people by whom he finds himself surrounded. they are small, uneducated, and valued only for the ways in which they can be useful to his pursuit of power and control over his situation. through an examination of the literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, elitist new england sympathies (fictionalized for your viewing) triumph over southern survivors unless, in carrington’s case, they are willing to assimilate. this concept of assimilation continues throughout the early twentieth 7. mark twain, a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court (new york, ny: signet classics of the new american library, 2004), 14. 8. twain, a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court, 21, 29. 9. ibid., 20. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 136 spring 2023 century, especially among prominent black philosophers and activists of the time. as we continue into the discussion of authors of color, keep in mind the ideals of the new england man and education as salvation, as they oftentimes have racial connotations reflective of contemporary struggles of integration post-civil war. carpet-baggers and the freedmen up until this point, we have explored primarily white authors and their perspectives on a post-civil war american identity. as we consider emancipation and the perspectives of people of color, it would be inappropriate not to explore pieces written by prominent black authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. in this section, i aim to explore the ways in which these writers have analyzed the integration of the black population into larger society following emancipation, particularly within the south. whilst contrasting, chesnutt, dubois, and washington provide an in-depth glance at the troubles faced by african americans of the time as well as solutions proposed to create a more integrated multi-racial society. in his compilation of social critique, the souls of black folk, written for white audiences, dubois illustrates post-war society for african americans. he references the freedman’s bureau through its rise and fall, as well as explains the socio-economic assistance in place for former slaves; his main argument in this first chapter is the achievement of equality and success through education. this is a cornerstone that he comes back to later in his essay “the talented tenth,” where he argues that the top ten percent of educated, successful black society should aim to continue to “guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the [w]orst, in their own and other races.”10 despite making a direct call to action among black society, the audience of “the talented tenth,” akin to the souls of black folk, is still white society. across his texts, dubois holds true to the argument that equality can only be achieved through education and employment thereafter.11 however, the language in this text comes off as elitist, suggesting that dubois does not acknowledge his own identity as a northeastern african american. he has seen the benefit of education firsthand, sure, but this does not fully erase the privilege of being a new england man himself nor his intended white audiences of both texts. this comes off as rather patronizing, making claims to white society that the elite top ten percent of black society—a demographic he considers himself to be a part of—is responsible for pulling the rest of the 10. dan s. green. “w.e.b. du bois’ talented tenth: a strategy for racial advancement,” the journal of negro education 46, no. 3 (1977): 359. https://doi. org/10.2307/2966779. 11. green, “w.e.b. dubois’ talented tenth: a strategy for racial advancement,” 360. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 137 community up by their bootstraps. to posit these solutions to integration to largely white audiences suggests a distance to the community he both identifies with and wishes to serve. as dubois continues in the souls of black folk, he walks audiences through the history of the freedman’s bureau. through the explanation of the bureau’s attempts at setting black society up for success, he presents the arguments against free public education for his people: the opposition to negro education in the south was at first bitter, and showed itself in ashes, insult, and blood; for the south believed an educated negro to be a dangerous negro. and the south was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. nevertheless, men strive to know.12 he empathizes with southern whites on the account of education being a danger (though a necessary danger indeed), but he continues to argue for its implementation. through the achievement of education, black society stands to finally reclaim the equality extended to them in emancipation. without it, how could america ever hope to fulfil its promise of equality for all? to dubois, the efforts of the freedman’s bureau, which arose from puritan and christian desires of helping others, meant nothing because efforts toward education were not prioritized. the money given to freed slaves was lost when the banks went under,13 the land parceled out was retaken by white businesses (as deeds were not recognized in the south),14 and suffrage was discriminatory; with all these losses, dubois argues for an increase in education so that his people could claim the basic rights promised to them at the close of the war. without it, there can be no advancement. education thus remains integral in his solution to what he terms the negro problem: the question of what to do with the black population (especially in the south) post-emancipation. in the second essay compiled in the souls of black folk, dubois outlines and critiques booker t. washington’s views on the path to success for black society. in his discussion of the “atlanta compromise,” dubois claims that washington aimed for “ultimate assimilation through self-assertion, and on no other terms.”15 washington felt as though black salvation lay in the hands of economics and monetary gain, forfeiting 12. w.e.b. dubois, the souls of black folk (2020), 15. 13. dubois, the souls of black folk, 17. 14. ibid., 11-12, 17. 15. ibid., 21. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 138 spring 2023 (to dubois’s chagrin) basic suffrage, civil rights, and higher education.16 washington thus argues, in his proposition for economic success, black society ought to strive toward learning or continuing in an already known trade such as farming or culinary arts. he preferred these trades over more academic pursuits such as economics or academia. whereas dubois posits that, without a basic education, former slaves who have known nothing else but lives of manual labor and grief will not be able to integrate fully into a predominantly white society, especially as it continues to industrialize.17 the surrender of basic education, political power, and civil rights would be detrimental and continue to box black society into an otherness similar to which they had just been freed. similarly, we have the question of how to “americanize” former slaves, portrayed in charles w. chesnutt’s “the wife of his youth.”18 the main character of this story is a black man who embodies traits largely associated with elite white culture. mr. ryder is a member of an exclusive society called the blue veins, has a passion for poetry, and large romantic notions about how to propose to a girl much younger (and lighter) than himself. though the blue veins was a “little society of colored persons organized in a certain northern city shortly after the war,”19 its exclusivity and gatherings represent idealized upper class white society gatherings, a direct implementation by chesnutt no doubt. mr. ryder is a black man in a white man’s world, emulating elite white culture and thus internalizing racism through the promotion of colorism. now, this brings up debate on the definition of black culture much too large for this space—but chesnutt’s characterization portrays the proposed assimilation of his piece “the future american,” in which he argues the only true integration of black people into society post-civil war is through desegregation and intermarriage.20 to be american is to confine to american standards, set not by the indigenous or former slaves, but by white society. this is exemplified by mr. ryder, who has tried his whole life to erase his own past as a black man and assimilate into white society. while it is largely problematic to assert that black society cannot achieve 16. ibid., 22. 17. ibid., 15. 18. charles w. chesnutt, “the wife of his youth,” in the norton anthology of american literature, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robert s. lavine (new york, ny: w.w. norton and company, 2017), 740-8. 19. chesnutt, “the wife of his youth,” 740. 20. charles w. chesnutt, “the future american,” in the norton anthology of american literature, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robert s. lavine (new york, ny: w.w. norton and company, 2017), 1176. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 139 its promised equality without fully assimilating into predominantly white society and embodying its traits, throwing away all references to their own cultural identity, chesnutt argues for full assimilation by any means. in a thorough analysis of chesnutt’s “the future american,” elder writes: chesnutt’s vision of a time when, through intermarriage, racial differences will fade and ultimately disappear, creating his ‘new american,’ strikes at much more than the commonly accepted segregationist policies of his day. of profounder significance, he is heralding the erasure of the marker of color, the semiotic of skin, historically distinguishing between the civilized and uncivilized, the godly and unregenerate.21 chesnutt’s solution to the problem of post-civil war integration is to remove boundaries society has placed around race. he illustrates this blending with his introduction of mr. ryder’s wife from his years as a slave, who he claims as his own at the end of the piece.22 to be american is to forfeit individual racial and cultural identity for the sake of equality. in his short story “the goophered grapevine,” chesnutt explores not only northern and southern interactions, but he also introduces race relations both during and post-slavery. through the storytelling of uncle julius, a former slave in south carolina, to the narrator john and his wife, a northern white couple, chesnutt introduces audiences to the realities of a life after slavery. uncle julius resides on the property of his former plantation owner, reaping the benefits of a neglected vineyard, when john arrives with the cash and determination to turn southern soil into northern industry.23 julius proceeds to tell john and his wife of a curse he believes was placed on the vineyard to keep slaves from stealing grapes from mr. mcadoo,24 which he frames as a warning to john to not purchase the land. john, of course, does not heed the former slave’s warning, nor does he believe in his story. he states, “i bought the vineyard, nevertheless, and it has been for a long time in a thriving condition, and is often referred to by the local press as a striking illustration of the opportunities open to northern capital in the development of southern industries.”25 readers learn within 21. arlene a. elder, “‘the future american race’: charles w. chesnutt utopian illusion,” melus 15, no. 3 (1988): 121-29, https://doi.org/10.2307/467507. 22. chesnutt, “the wife of his youth,” 748. 23. charles waddel chesnutt and university of virginia, the goophered grapevine, (charlottesville, va: generic nl freebook publisher, 1996), 254, https:// search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&an=2010 588&site=eds-live&scope=site. 24. chesnutt and university of virginia, the goophered grapevine, 255. 25. ibid., 260. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 140 spring 2023 the last few lines that, through john’s point of view, uncle julius’s story had served no purpose other than potentially to allow julius to keep the land and the grapes for himself.26 john represents the carpet-baggers, or northern pioneers who saw conquered southern land as their own piece of manifest destiny. he purposely moves his life to south carolina to take up a formerly southern industry, which happens to displace uncle julius as the land’s caretaker (though he assures readers he kept uncle julius employed after the land purchase). not only does this reinforce the ideas presented in dubois’s analysis of the successes and failures of the freedman’s bureau, but “the goophered grapevine” also places john as a new england man, discussed earlier in this study. julius does not receive profit from the sale, nor does he seem to be considered as the former owner—which happened more often than not to former slaves who were given parceled land by the government, inevitably forcing them into sharecropping or other means of indentured servitude. the assurance of keeping uncle julius employed falls short when readers are informed that he has become john’s driver, a position wherein he lacks the autonomy he once had while caretaker of the neglected vineyards. while not in a clearly defined position of servitude, he lives at the beck and call of john and his wife rather than his own ambitions, unfortunately throwing him back into a subservient position rather than a land-owning citizen in control of his own destiny. through the struggle of reconstructing american identity in the south after the civil war, prominent black philosophers and activists of the time proposed contrasting solutions to integration. while each proposal had its pros, they were not without cons. dubois’s insistence on education mirrored the new england man sympathies, wherein northerners were to provide the pathway to successful integration. even with the best of intentions, he refuses to acknowledge his own privileges as a successful, northern black american and reiterates elitist language. washington boxes in black americans, insisting that they rise to success through economic means within their control (and skillset), without consideration of the impact of jim crow and the failures of the freedman’s bureau. though compensation was now provided for the services of black americans, in it there was little to no profit, thus trapping them in an endless cycle of debt through sharecropping. finally, chesnutt suggests for assimilation at all costs and inevitably lends voice to the concept of colorism, wherein the lighter your skin, the more valued you are. his successful characters are those who either are white or embody the traits of white society, whilst 26. ibid. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 141 boxing black characters into roles of tricksters (uncle julius) or representations of the past (“the wife of his youth”). synthesis reconstruction brought about the question of how to redefine american identity post-civil war, especially in the south where former slaves adjusted to emancipation. in an examination of literature of the time, three overlapping tropes develop: the new england man, education as salvation, and integration through assimilation. in “rodman the keeper,” constance fenimore woolson paints a portrait of the post-civil war south, wherein a union veteran is left in charge of a confederate cemetery. rodman, a new england man, reflects contemporary sympathies of northerners maintaining agency and control over the legacy of southern land and history. this concept returns in henry adams’s democracy. carrington’s identity as an educated southern-born union man mirrors carpetbaggers, who arrived on traumatized southern lands with the inception of northern industry. adams himself represents a new england man, as evidenced by the characterization of southern harvard classmates in his autobiography, as does twain’s narrator in a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court. unlike adams, however, twain’s narrator does not acknowledge his privilege or elitism. both texts utilize elitist language, but twain’s narrator takes this to another level by employing racist tactics such as reducing the people of camelot (symbols for southerners post-civil war as well as freed slaves) to animals and valuing only their utility to his own needs. what is interesting with twain, however, is the appearance of education as salvation within this text. while this concept is seen through woolson and others, twain satirizes the notion; the narrator claims this need but has no intention to help educate nor provide any suggestions regarding how to do it. instead, he leverages his own education in order to dominate the society. domination of southern territory by northern industry also appears in chesnutt’s “the goophered grapevine.” uncle julius cares for the neglected vineyard before john purchases the land and usurps his responsibilities. side-by-side with woolson and adams, however, chesnutt’s exemplification goes a step further by illustrating southern racial relations post-emancipation. uncle julius’s demotion to chauffeur for john and his wife exemplify the general loss of autonomy and indentured servitude for african americans during reconstruction. this is a concept that dubois also acknowledges in the souls of black folk, written for white audiences about the struggle of post-emancipation integration. he highlights the failures of the freedman’s bureau to help former slaves integrate into american society through the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 142 spring 2023 history of northern dominance of southern capital—to the eventual detriment of both regions. however, dubois posits that the failure of the freedman’s bureau and carpetbaggers’ attempts at providing salvation and support for the black community can be tied back to the failure to provide accessible education. he argues against booker t. washington’s belief in the superiority of trade school education, claiming that more academic pursuits have higher likelihoods of benefiting the entire black community. though both arguments have merits of their own, dubois takes this a step further by proposing that the top ten percent of successful black men should give back to their community both financially and through education. this presents a hierarchy within his own idea, suggesting the emergence of an elite class but doing so to white audiences. oddly enough, a similar structure appears through the blue veins in chesnutt’s fiction of “the wife of his youth.” this text reflects chesnutt’s own belief in full assimilation, which brings with it the idea of colorism. though dubois does not overtly support assimilation in his texts, the suggestion of an elite class of educated, successful black society mirrors the blue veins, led by mr. ryder who embodies traits the text connotates with white society instead. chesnutt and dubois side-by-side create an interesting juxtaposition wherein concepts of classism solve the question of integration with little regard for the hierarchical society it will create. american identity is concerned with newfound realizations of classism and the recreation of hierarchies as seen through the new england man, tense race relations within post-emancipation integration, and the importance of education in the reconstruction of war-scorched southern lands. as we continue toward the present, these three themes evolve alongside literary movements and historical contexts. new wars bring about new definitions, going so far as to further emphasize the division of developing american ideals, the emergence of women’s suffrage, and civil rights. following these traumatic events, literature continues to assert definitions of identity to reconcile opposing forces—whether they be physical nations as with both world wars or socioeconomic factors as with post-emancipation integration. only a thorough examination of the modern, post-modern, and beyond can fully recognize the impact these battles and desires for identity and reconciliation have on society itself. integration and education: the search for identity post-civil war middle tennessee state university 143 bibliography adams, henry. “democracy.” in democracy, esther, mont saint michel and chartres, the education of henry adams, 7-85. 2020. —. “the education of henry adams.” in democracy, esther, mon saint michel and chartres, the education of henry adams, 357-570. 2020. chesnutt, charles w., and the university of virginia. the goophered grapevine, 254260. charlottesville: generic nl freebook publisher, 2009. https://searchebscohost-com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&an=201 0588&site=eds-live&scope=site. chesnutt, charles w. “the future american.” in the norton anthology of american literature. vol. c, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robert s. levine, 1176. new york: w.w. norton and company, 2017. —. “the wife of his youth,” in the norton anthology of american literature. vol. c, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robert s. levine, 740-748. new york: w.w. norton and company, 2017. dubois, w.e.b. the souls of black folk, 1-22. 2020. green, dan s. “w.e.b. dubois’ talented tenth: a strategy for racial advancement.” the journal of negro education 46, no. 3 (1997): 358-366. https://doi. org/10.2307/2966779. twain, mark. a connecticut yankee in king arthur’s court. new york: signet classics of the new american library, 2004. woolson, constance fenimore. “rodman the keeper.” in the norton anthology of american literature, ed. nina baym, wayne franklin, and robert s. levine, 374-393. new york: w.w. norton and company, 2017. intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 33 intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look patrick gilchrist abstract alfred hitchcock’s rear window is a pillar of american cinematic history. few would doubt that much. more questionable, though, is the moral character of the film’s famed protagonist, l.b. jefferies, who draws sincere pleasure from peeking into the private lives of his neighbors. the moral blameworthiness of jefferies’s objectifying voyeurism has long been intimated by many scholars who have written about the film. i take these intimations as a starting point, translating and explaining the morally blameworthy dimensions of jefferies’s intrusive looks in terms of aristotelian philosophy. following this, however, i appeal to the work of twenty-first-century responsibilist virtue epistemology to draw out the intellectual praiseworthiness of jefferies’s obsessive gaze (a conclusion respective of but unconcerned with these actions’ immorality). because shots from the protagonist’s point-of-view comprise so much of the film’s visual storytelling, i argue that the film’s primary narrative opposition is not between good and evil or secrets and discovery as one might assume; instead, the narrative opposition, i argue, is present in spectatorial judgement—the concurrent sense of moral blameworthiness and intellectual praiseworthiness that one is prone to feel when seeing through the eyes of l.b. jefferies. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 34 spring 2022 the role of looking for rear window’s curious protagonist, l.b. jefferies ( james stewart), is an oft written about aspect of the film. laura mulvey, for instance, has appealed to jefferies’s controlling look in her well-known argument for the male gaze of traditional narrative cinema (15–6). building on jean douchet’s remark that jefferies’s spectating is an analogue for spectatorship in the cinema (8), robert stam and roberta pearson have explored the theoretical and moral implications of this analogy, concluding that rear window is “at once a cautionary tale for voyeurs and an ode to the cinema, present[ing] both alternatives with extraordinary lucidity” (205). less cited but no less symptomatic of the critical relevance of jefferies’s gaze, michael walker has outlined voyeurism as one of the motifs central to hitchcock’s narratives, a chapter in which he posits rear window as cinema’s “most profound film about voyeurism” (170). whether one agrees with walker’s definitive statement is beside the point: the film’s use of voyeurism is certainly profound. admittedly, this quick summary of writings barely scratches the surface of the critical approaches to the film. but while these studies and others like them deftly emphasize the psychological, narratological, moral, and even political implications of the protagonist’s voyeuristic acts, the authors have a tendency to subordinate voyeurism’s epistemological features: for example, when stam and pearson note in passing that jefferies’s look evolves “from scopophilia to epistemophilia, from indifference to concern” as the film progresses (203). the present essay, then, seeks to enhance the epistemological considerations of jefferies’s voyeuristic acts and the oppositional tension they create. after briefly demonstrating the similitude between jefferies’s acts of looking and aristotle’s characterization of incontinence, i will describe the various facets of so-called virtue epistemology to then show that jefferies’s morally suspect actions concurrently exemplify intellectually virtuous behavior. this, as a result, entails that an undergirding opposition of spectatorial judgement—moral blameworthiness on the one hand, intellectual praiseworthiness on the other—underwrites the look that constitutes much of the narrative in hitchcock’s film. lying dormant beneath this appeal to virtue epistemology is, of course, the underlying assumption that hitchcock—or at least his methodical filmmaking— was to some degree philosophical. as irving singer notes, hitchcock would have questioned such an assumption, viewing himself more as an entertainer who, accordingly, entertains (7). like singer, though, i see no need for hitchcock’s reservations to prevent philosophical readings of his work (8); a film of the complexity of rear window can certainly thread profound concepts into its narrative fabric without compromising its entertainment value. of course, this does not at all mean one should imagine that intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 35 hitchcock sat down with a pen and paper rigorously to contemplate philosophical truths and work out a way to weave them into a narrative. but it does require some degree of acceptance that hitchcock’s technical mastery of the medium through which he communicated engaging stories has the potential to effect readings of philosophical importance. at the very least, this seems to be the case in rear window. rear window and the moral blameworthiness of l.b. jefferies’s look to say wholesale what rear window is “about” would be rather reductive. there are multiple narrative threads woven into the film: for instance, the evolution of jefferies’s and lisa fremont’s (grace kelly) relationship, an evolution that may mark jefferies’s progress from social, emotional, or sexual immaturity to maturity. yet it would be fair to say that the film is at least partially about a pursuit of knowledge—in particular, knowledge of a murder—and this about-ness is of greater concern here. jefferies, a photojournalist with plenty of experience looking at and representing the world around him, has been injured on the job directly before the film’s diegesis. requiring a full-leg cast and a wheelchair while he recovers, this restriction of movement deeply contrasts with the daily freedom of movement provided for jefferies by his career. consequently, his bottled-up energy is projected elsewhere: namely, through his own window and into the windows of others, as he watches the lives and activities of his neighbors. throughout the film, jefferies’s observations inform the fake names that he goes on to coin for these neighbors (e.g., miss torso [georgine darcy], miss lonelyhearts [ judith evelyn], and the salesman [raymond burr]). jefferies’s casual, intrusive gaze runs into trouble, however, when, following a loud scream, he notices a significant and mysterious change in the daily life of the salesman and his wife (irene winston), soon to be known as mr. and mrs. thorwald. having previously been confined to her bed, where jefferies and the spectator witness her and mr. thorwald argue incessantly, mrs. thorwald suddenly disappears. her disappearance leads jefferies—and, after some convincing, his nurse, stella (thelma ritter), and hisgirlfriend, lisa—to pursue knowledge of mrs. thorwald’s suspicious disappearance, culminating in the discovery that she was murdered by her husband. as of 1968, rear window was, in hitchcock’s words, “the most cinematic” of all the films he had made; he continues: this film has as its basic structure the purely visual. the story is told only in visual terms. only a novelist could do the same thing. it’s composed largely of mr. stewart as a character in one position in one room looking out onto his courtyard. so what he sees is a mental process blown up in his mind from the purely visual. it represents for me the purest form of cinema which is called montage: that is, pieces of film put together to make up an idea. (“rear window [1968]” 95-6) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2022 the “purely visual” dimension to which hitchcock here alludes is no doubt vital to the storytelling of rear window. for starters, l.b. jefferies’s life and recent accident are first delivered to the spectator through a series of shots of objects at the beginning of the film, including the cast on jefferies’s leg, his broken camera, a framed picture of the crashing car that caused his injury, a negative of lisa fremont, and a stack of magazines with lisa’s portrait as the cover. without a word, the film provides at least a preliminary idea of jefferies’s character, relationships, and interests. moreover, hitchcock’s use of the kuleshov effect to display jefferies peering into the courtyard and into the windows of his neighbors allows the spectator frequent access to the character’s mental states as well as the objects and people that correspond directly to those mental states.1 and the role of the visual is indispensable for more than the storytelling; it is also indispensable for the story. while the spectator may rely largely on the synthesis of images for their creation of ideas, jefferies himself relies equally on sight, first for his own voyeuristic pleasure and, later, for the pursuit of knowledge—knowledge of a murder—that continues to help motivate both jefferies’s gaze and the progression of the narrative. it is safe to say that this act of looking—this voyeurism, this scopophilia—of jefferies is typically written about in terms that (rightly) imply some degree of moral blameworthiness regarding the act. mulvey, for example, famously drew from freud to qualify the scopophilic act as a way of deriving erotic pleasure from a gaze that objectifies other people (8-9); writing specifically about rear window (and two other hitchcock films), mulvey says, “the look is central to the plot, oscillating between voyeurism and fetishistic fascination” (15). jon gartenberg, as another example, has stated that “hitchcock raises subtle moral issues in rear window about the dangers of voyeurism,” noting that jefferies’s look “transgresses the right to privacy of other individuals” (5). in the paragraphs that follow, i address at greater length than mulvey or gartenberg the immorality of jefferies’s gaze through a brief appeal to aristotelian virtue ethics. a fullscale reconstruction of aristotle’s ethical framework is well outside the scope of this paper, particularly because the philosophical focus is meant to aim at twentiethand twenty-first century virtue epistemology. nevertheless, jefferies’s pleasure in objectification, fetishistic fascination, and transgression of privacy can quickly be translated into aristotelian moral terms, the most pertinent of which would be incontinence (akrasia). for aristotle, incontinence, generally speaking, occurs when an agent performs an act in accordance with passions or appetites (such as pleasure or anger) that contradicts 1. the kuleshov effect refers to the ways in which a brief montage can synthesize the impressions left by individual shots to create new impressions inarticulable by any of those shots alone. intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 37 how they2 would have acted had they followed their faculty of moral reason; incontinent actions are, importantly, still blameworthy, but not to the same extent as moral vice. furthermore, incontinence can be spoken of as being qualified or unqualified, meaning one can speak of an agent as incontinent with respect to something or simply as an incontinent person (aristotle 125-6). one such way of qualifying incontinence is recognizing the agent’s subordination of reason to, say, pleasure due to “diseased states or habits” that guide their actions (aristotle 128). if a diseased state prompts action towards a pleasure that reasoned choice would not permit, one would not say of the agent that they are unqualifiedly incontinent; however, one would note their subordination of reason as qualified incontinence: that is, incontinent with respect to whatever acts result from their habits or diseased states (aristotle 128). jefferies’s obsessive look could easily be read in this regard—as an action that runs counter to his reason and in accordance with his pleasure-creating habit—since he consistently shrugs off the justified remonstrances of both stella and lisa early in the film. in fact, before lisa has become convinced of mr. thorwald’s guilt, she interprets jefferies’s actions with an almost aristotelian terminology: “sitting around, looking out the window to kill time, is one thing—but doing it the way you are—with, with binoculars, and with wild opinions about every little movement you see—is, is diseased!” what lisa picks up on here is jefferies’s qualified incontinence, his diseased habit’s ability to induce action that contradicts what reason demands for moral action, his gaze’s transgression against moral virtuosity. as jefferies himself asks later in the film, “i wonder if it’s ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens. do you suppose it’s ethical even if you prove he didn’t commit a crime?” the answer? well, no, it probably is not. this after-the-fact moral reflection reveals a further dimension of jefferies’s incontinence: his impetuosity. richard kraut splits aristotle’s akratic (incontinent) person into two types, the weak and the impetuous. both act with pleasure or anger and against reason, but the key difference arises as to when that reasoning happens. for the impetuous, it occurs following the action(s) in question: at the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal conflict. but once his [sic] act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. one could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he acts comes too late to save him from error. (kraut sec. 7) jefferies’s deliberation concerning the morality of his actions only after they have been performed aligns him with this breed of akrasia. so while his obsessive, pleasure-deriving, 2. where hypothetical agents are concerned, gender neutral pronouns (they, them, their, theirs) are used. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2022 privacy-transgressing gaze may escape a verdict of aristotelian moral viciousness, the impetuous incontinence of his actions do, nevertheless, render him morally blameworthy. i have no intention of attempting to save jefferies’s actions from this moral verdict, as i both believe he is blameworthy and doubt that many would be quick to provide moral defense for peeping into the private lives of unknowing others. however, to consider the voyeurism of jefferies solely in terms of (a lack of ) moral virtue is to restrict that consideration from addressing a different, important type of virtue: intellectual virtue. since the 1980s, philosophers have been working to articulate an epistemology that assesses knowledge not by evaluating the justification or evidence for a true belief but rather by evaluating the intellectual virtuosity of the agent who produced that true belief; this has since been coined, “virtue epistemology.” intellectual virtues and virtue epistemology the contemporary notion of intellectual virtue and praiseworthiness has much historical backdrop. it would be remiss, however, not to begin with edmund gettier. in 1963, gettier shocked the field of epistemology by casting significant doubt on the millennia-old justified, true belief theory of knowledge ( jtb theory), a theory which held that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a subject having knowledge of a proposition are that (1) the subject believe that proposition, (2) the proposition is true, and (3) the belief is justified. this theory (or versions of it) had maintained predominant status since plato’s meno and theaetetus. in his brief essay, gettier provided two counterexamples—now often referred to as gettier problems or gettier cases—in which subjects are shown to have justified, true beliefs that do not amount to knowledge (122–3). the soundness of gettier problems has had many proponents and doubters, but regardless, the massive and widespread effect of his essay on the field of epistemology is certain: many responded with addendums to or clarifications of the jtb theory (goldman) while others attempted to rework necessary and sufficient conditions for justification (feldman and conee) and still others sought to rework a theory of knowledge that did not rest on justification (lewis; code). virtue epistemology is best thought of as the latter type, and it began with the work of ernest sosa and lorraine code in the 1980s. for current purposes, however, heather battaly’s enlightening summarization of virtue epistemology’s origins and directions is more relevant than a discussion of these early attempts. battaly outlines the many aims of epistemologists through a series of distinctions by which philosophical opinion has been notably divided. a few of these are quite helpful for contextualizing jefferies’s intellectual praiseworthiness. the first distinction—between belief-based and virtue epistemologies—is rooted in the difference in what one views as intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 39 being most epistemically fundamental. much of analytic epistemology’s history is devoted to the former of these; belief-based epistemologies have held justification and knowledge to be the most fundamental concerns and belief to be the primary “object of epistemic evaluation” (battaly 640). accordingly, in these epistemologies, it is the belief of an agent that is evaluated for justification or knowledge. virtue epistemologists, however, hold intellectual virtues and vices to be more fundamental, so the agent who produces belief is evaluated for the virtuosity or viciousness of their intellectual actions and motivations (battaly 640). the difference is subtle but profound: either a belief is broken away from the agent who produced it and evaluated for its justification, or the agent’s intellectual actions (and, for some, intellectual motivations) engaged in producing beliefs is assessed for epistemic virtuosity or viciousness. as a relatively simple example, say i believe that there is a cup in front of me. a belief-based epistemology would be most concerned with determining whether i am justified in holding this belief and, relatedly, whether that belief amounts to knowledge. a virtue epistemology may not deny that i have knowledge, but saying so is not its primary aim; instead, it aims first and foremost to evaluate my intellectual actions (and possibly motivations) in producing that belief. this begs the question as to what qualifies as intellectual virtue and why. here enters the distinction among virtue epistemologists: reliabilist virtue epistemology and responsibilist virtue epistemology. for virtue reliabilists, intellectual virtues are cognitive faculties that reliably produce or get at the truth; similarly, “virtuous thinkers are reliable truth-producers; i.e., their faculties of sense perception, memory, induction, and deduction reliably produce true beliefs” (battaly 645). this notion of reliability is context dependent: it is no counterexample to virtue reliabilism to say that a faculty like 20/20 vision does not reliably produce true beliefs about microorganisms. moreover, these faculty-virtues may be natural in an agent or acquired over time, and their use by the agent need not be intentional action motivated by some form of intrinsic epistemic good (e.g., love for knowledge, understanding, truth); in other words, for the reliabilist, an agent can virtuously acquire true belief without being motivated to do so (battaly 646–7). because reliabilist faculty-virtues are often natural in the agent and enacted without the agent’s choice, virtue reliabilists do not speak of agents as being intellectually praiseworthy, regardless of the intellectual virtues they exhibit. by contrast, virtue responsibilists hold that intellectual virtues are analogous to aristotelian moral virtues, meaning they are relatively stable traits of intellectual character such as intellectual courage or intellectual humility, and that these traits can only be acquired by an agent over time (i.e., they cannot be natural in the agent) (battaly 648). the responsibilist intellectual virtues are virtuous not (or not only) because they reliably produce true belief but because scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2022 the agent intentionally enacts them and is motivated to do so by an intrinsically valuing epistemic good, such as valuing the attainment of truth simply for truth’s sake (battaly 648–9). finally, and importantly, an agent who acts with such responsibilist intellectual virtue is, in the voluntarist sense (the sense that praise and blame require volition), praiseworthy for their intellectual actions (montmarquet 393–4, 399–400). though both kinds of practitioners of virtue epistemology agree that the intellectual virtues and vices are more fundamental concerns than justification or knowledge, this does not prevent virtue epistemologists from adapting their work to address the problems of traditional analytic epistemology, like the provision of necessary and sufficient conditions for propositional knowledge. these so-called “virtue theories” of knowledge (battaly 641) could be expressed, in their most general form, as the following: a subject s has knowledge that proposition p if s produces the true belief that p as a result of intellectually virtuous acts. of course, how one conceives of intellectually virtuous acts greatly alters what this theory states. for s to have knowledge that p, the virtue reliabilist would require only that s produced the true belief that p as a result of exercising reliably truth-producing cognitive faculties. the virtue responsibilist would have the much stronger requirement that, in order for s to have knowledge that p, s would need to have produced the true belief that p by acting with virtuous intellectual character traits, the enactment of which need be motivated by intrinsic epistemic good. separate from the theoretic or conventional attempts of responsibilist virtue epistemologists are so-called anti-theoretic (battaly 640–1) or alternative efforts. these philosophers do not (or do not only) take up questions and problems central to traditional analytic epistemology; rather, they explore the distinctive features of individual intellectual virtues or vices or consider their real-world relevance, offering “profiles of individual virtues and vices, examinations of the relations among distinct virtues and vices, and the social, ethical, and political dimensions of cognition involved in misinformation, disinformation, propaganda” (turri et. al sec. 4). it is this sort of work that best renders l.b jefferies’s cognitive character in rear window: specifically, lani watson’s profile of the intellectual virtue of inquisitiveness and jason baehr’s profile of intellectual courage. l.b. jefferies’s intellectual virtues inquisitiveness and intellectual courage do appear to be two (but perhaps not the only two) responsibilist intellectual virtues that jefferies exhibits in rear window as he pursues knowledge of mrs. thorwald’s murder. however, determining his intellectual praiseworthiness is not as simple as stating that jefferies asks questions or persists through fear and doubt. as the previous section highlighted, the following conditions are required for agents to exhibit intellectual virtues qua virtues in a given circumstance: intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 41 (i) the intellectual action(s) in question must satisfy the conditions for a particular intellectual virtue (e.g., satisfy the conditions for inquisitiveness or intellectual courage). (ii) the intellectual action(s) in question must be motivated by valuing epistemic good intrinsically (e.g., having a love of knowledge or valuing the attainment of truth for truth’s sake). (iii) the agent(s) in question must possess the intellectual virtue as a relatively stable trait of their intellectual character. only when a responsibilist intellectual virtue satisfies each of the above conditions is the agent who exercises the virtue intellectually praiseworthy. to draw out why this is so, consider the following example: a student is taking a calculus course. throughout the semester, the student asks numerous, excellent questions, and the student intends that these questions will help them to better understand the material. all the while, however, the student’s motivation for better understanding the material and, therefore, for asking questions, cannot be attributed to their care for the relevant knowledge—they will gladly forget how to perform derivations the moment the class ends. instead, the student is motivated almost entirely out of the desire to receive good grades on their exams, a non-epistemic good. thus, the student acts with paradigmatic inquisitiveness (asks good questions aimed at understanding the material) but does not appear to possess or act with intellectually virtuous inquisitiveness (because they are not motivated by epistemic good) and is, as a result, not due intellectual praise for their actions. if their actions had been motivated by epistemic good, then their inquisitive actions would have been virtuous; and if, in addition, this virtuous inquisitiveness was also a stable character trait of the student, then the student would be intellectually praiseworthy as an agent. in other words, condition (i) must be met for an action to manifest a particular intellectual virtue; conditions (i) and (ii) must be met for an action to manifest an intellectual virtue and for that action to be virtuous; and conditions (i), (ii), and (iii) must be met for an agent to be intellectually praiseworthy in connection to the action(s) in question. crucially, then, l.b. jefferies and his intellectual actions need to meet each of the three conditions to be intellectually praiseworthy. each condition will be covered in turn, beginning with condition (i). satisfying conditions for inquisitiveness and intellectual courage inquisitiveness on inquisitiveness as an intellectual virtue, lani watson is the leading contributor. watson first characterizes inquisitiveness as “a tendency to question” with the aim of improving “epistemic standing” (276). however, after some consideration, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2022 watson adds two additional features necessary for inquisitiveness: first, the requirement of sincerity, that is, that “a sincere question is one in which the questioner genuinely wants to know or understand the answer” (277); and second, the requirement of good questioning. watson admits that fully elaborating on precisely what constitutes good questioning is bound to be difficult but holds that good questions must at least target relevant information and identify a proper context in which the question will successfully improve epistemic standing (278–9). by way of example, one can imagine an individual who asks genuine, thoughtful questions regarding a film they have recently watched, but who poses the questions to, say, their dog. despite the quality of the questions, this individual’s actions would not satisfy the good questioning condition because the context is unlikely to improve the subject’s epistemic standing; therefore, the individual does not satisfy conditions for inquisitiveness. in what ways, then, do jefferies’s actions meet these conditions in rear window? the most obvious, of course, are the questions he asks of other characters that pertain to his initial suspicions. not long after the loud scream and the crashing noise that initially stir jefferies’s curiosity, he sees mr. thorwald leave and return to his apartment in the middle of the night numerous times with a suitcase. this unusual behavior gets jefferies’s attention, and the next day, he poses a question to stella: “now what could he [mr. thorwald] sell at three in the morning?” the question not only gives verbal confirmation that an inquiry has begun, but it also reveals jefferies’s sincere desire to improve his epistemic standing, for if stella could produce an answer that reasonably fulfilled the question, it is quite feasible that jefferies would release his suspicion, feeling it would lead to unjustified belief; likewise, if stella could not produce an answer that reasonably fulfilled the question, his suspicion might progress to justified belief. in either case, jefferies’s epistemic standing would improve: he either avoids a suspicion devolving to unjustified belief or progresses from suspicion to justified belief. finding no defeaters to his suspicion in stella’s sarcastic retort, “flashlights, luminous dials for watches, house numbers that light up,” jefferies proceeds to express what has then become a clear belief: “i think he was taking something out of the apartment.” in addition, the question is both relevant and context-aware. the content of the question meets relevancy conditions in the sense that it acknowledges the occupation of the subject in question (salesman), the function of the object in question (holding other objects to be sold), and the oddity of the subject using that object at three in the morning. if the epistemic goal was, as it seems to have been, to test the suspicion that thorwald was removing something from his apartment, the question posed is highly relevant. finally, the question was contextaware in that it was asked of a person with more than enough intellectual ability and life intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 43 experience to give a satisfactory answer, if such an answer were available. the question, then, quite nearly manifests inquisitiveness. given watson’s characterization of inquisitiveness, the one component missing in the interaction between jefferies and stella is the tendency to question; a single question can hardly manifest a tendency. jefferies, however, makes this tendency clear when he continuously asks questions of both lisa and tom doyle (wendell corey). after asking a similar question to lisa regarding thorwald’s late-night trips with the suitcase, jefferies follows up with three additional questions all aimed at understanding thorwald’s behavior. and when doyle informs jefferies that mr. and mrs. thorwald were seen leaving the apartment building at a time later than when jefferies suspects mrs. thorwald was murdered, jefferies asks, “who said they left then?” and goes on to pose approximately ten more questions to doyle as part of the same dialogue. while some of these questions are insincere in nature, many are as sincere, relevant, and contextaware as asking who witnessed the thorwalds leaving the apartment building. even from this fairly small sample, it is evident that jefferies frequently employs the question as a communicative technique through which to accrue epistemic goods and improve epistemic standing. however, to dwell for too long on the verbal evidence of jefferies’s inquisitiveness does a disservice to the film’s visual storytelling; the spoken or written word is not strictly required for a spectator to grasp that questions are being asked. as jan alber points out, actors’ facial expressions and body positions are the filmic equivalent to narrative prose’s psychonarration—external representations that correlate to internal mental states (266– 70, 279)—and hitchcock no doubt made use of this in rear window. just as the pleasure jefferies garners from looking at his neighbors is shown in his wide eyes and smile, so too is his inquisitive, question-asking tendency shown through parted lips and raised brows; the point-of-view shots that follow his inquisitive facial expressions allow spectators to see what the objects of those questions are. in other words, hitchcock’s use of the kuleshov effect enables a spectator to construct ideas of the questions jefferies appears to ask internally but does not actually utter (see fig. 1). figure 1. rear window. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2022 in this sequence of shots, jefferies’s facial expression and body position (propping up the camera) first establishes his inquisitiveness, the point-of-view shot establishes that at which his questioning is aimed, and the final shot establishes his reaction to receiving the answer. roughly, the question he is asking himself might translate to, “what is thorwald wrapping up in the sink?” and the answer, provided by jefferies’s long-focus lens, to “a saw and knife.” as with the questions actually uttered, this, too, is a clear step in the direction of (but not amounting to) knowledge of mrs. thorwald’s murder and understanding of mr. thorwald’s behavior and is therefore sincerely aimed at improving epistemic standing. similar to before, the relevancy of such a question largely derives from the atypical actions of mr. thorwald over the previous days and the sudden disappearance of his bed-ridden wife. unlike his questions to stella, lisa, and doyle, however, it is not the subject to whom jefferies poses the question that determines its context-awareness; rather, in this case, what determines the question’s context-awareness is the enhanced view enabled by the long-focus lens—to receive an answer to the question jefferies appears to have in mind requires a context in which jefferies is able to see the answer. the lens offers this context, and jefferies uses it. thus, demonstrated through both verbal and visual methods, hitchcock clearly communicates the inquisitiveness of his protagonist. intellectual courage in the inquiring mind, jason baehr has offered one notable profile of intellectual courage and its features. much like watson on inquisitiveness, baehr first submits the relatively “common sense” account that, courage of any sort involves responding in a certain way to a conflict between the achievement of a particular good and one’s own safety or well-being. with intellectual courage […] the good in question is a necessarily intellectual one, while with other forms of courage some other kind of good is at stake. (164) this characterization is not meant to be surprising, but it does raise some important questions. for instance, what precisely qualifies as a threat to one’s safety or well-being? and what is the “certain way” one must respond to be courageous? to answer questions like these, baehr breaks down the features of intellectual courage into the virtue’s context and its substance. the context for intellectual courage relates to the condition of threats to one’s safety or well-being. baehr notes that the internal experience of fear does not correctly qualify this context, as one can act courageously without ever experiencing such a feeling. similarly, baehr excludes the notion that a subject’s perception of the threats at play must be rational, for continuing in one’s pursuits in the face of even the most irrational perceived threats still requires courage (169–70). accordingly, baehr states that the context of intellectual courage requires only intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 45 the appearance of a threat to one’s well-being. the subject in question must have the judgement or belief that their pursuits “may risk social, political, professional, or bodily injury; or … risk the loss of considerable good along these lines” (170, emphasis original). this judgement or belief need not amount to fear in the subject, nor must the judgement or belief be rational, but to manifest intellectual courage, the subject must at least judge or believe that some risk exists that conflicts with their actions in pursuit of intellectual good. with context determined, baehr turns to the substance of intellectual courage, which concerns the ways in which one responds to the appearance of risk when moved by intellectual good. the clearest of these ways is to continue the pursuit of an intellectual good: that is, if a pursuit has begun, faced risk, and continued despite the risk, then doing so likely manifested intellectual courageousness. but baehr is sure to note that persistent pursuit aimed at intellectual goods is not the only way intellectual courage can manifest; the virtue can also be found in persistent intellectual states that remain in accord with intellectual good and in the persistent transmission of intellectual goods (174–6). for instance, one might need to exercise intellectual courage in maintaining a true belief that contradicts the belief systems of their friends and families, or one might need to exercise intellectual courage when spreading knowledge that is bound to be unpopular with the audience to whom it is addressed. together, the context and substance of intellectual courage amount to the following definition: “intellectual courage is a disposition to persist in or with a state or course of action aimed at an epistemically good end despite the fact that doing so involves an apparent threat to one’s own well-being” (baehr 177). this definition thus provides the conditions that l.b. jefferies’s actions must satisfy to qualify as intellectually courageous. to reiterate, the apparent threat need not be physical in nature; the threat of physical harm is sufficient for the manifestation of intellectual courage, but it is not necessary. the threat or risk may also be of a social kind. for instance, one might manifest intellectual courage in maintaining a belief or continuing a pursuit while undergoing criticism from their social circle for doing so. jefferies actions quite clearly represent this type of intellectual courage in rear window on a number of occasions. his social interactions are limited to the small social circle of stella, lisa, and doyle, and not one of them initially find his belief that mr. thorwald murdered his wife convincing, nor do they encourage his pursuit of knowing this proposition. stella, to be fair, does not attack jefferies’s character for having this belief, but lisa refers to the pursuit as “diseased” and to jefferies as “not being clever”; doyle, in turn, refers to the proposed evidence as “hallucinations” and, mockingly, to jefferies as an “amateur sleuth.” in the face of this dissent, jefferies persists in his doxastic state and continues his pursuit of knowledge scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2022 despite social pressures to do the opposite. this is surely an example of the disposition outlined by baehr, and in this case, the “threat to one’s well-being” is the social risk of expressing and maintaining belief that faces unanimous dissent. fixating on dissent is not to say, however, that jefferies does not also judge or believe that bodily harm could not come to him as a result of his pursuit of knowledge. his awareness of at least the appearance of such a threat is first evident after he mentions mr. thorwald’s suspicious behavior to stella. having helped jefferies return to his wheelchair, stella notices that mr. thorwald’s blinds have been pulled up again, revealing the inside of his apartment. this prompts jefferies to look in that direction and see mr. thorwald scanning the courtyard to determine if any neighbors are watching him; in response to this, jefferies frantically rolls his wheelchair backwards into the apartment, and tells stella to “get back! get back! get out of sight! get out of sight!” even early on, then (well before the chilling moment in which mr. thorwald stares directly into jefferies’s lens), jefferies clearly judges that looking at mr. thorwald could involve some sort of threat to his or others’ physical well-being—which is an accurate judgement, as mr. thorwald eventually assaults lisa and pushes jefferies out of his window, breaking his other leg. despite being aware that his knowledge-pursuing look might culminate in such harm, however, jefferies persists in his course of action. as with jefferies’s inquisitiveness, hitchcock represents this intellectual courageousness not only verbally but visually. jefferies’s concern over the threat of being seen by mr. thorwald causes him and stella to hide in the shadows of the apartment, presumably out of sight; while they remain in the shadows, viewers see through jefferies’s eyes that mr. thorwald is fixing his gaze on something in the courtyard. finally, the camera turns back to a third-person shot of jefferies coming forward into the light— again in view of mr. thorwald—so that he can see what that something is. the retreat to the shadows thus represents jefferies’s awareness of a possible threat to his and stella’s well-being, while the return to the light to learn at what thorwald is directing his gaze visually marks the continued pursuit of knowledge despite this threat. at this point in the film, jefferies has already begun his pursuit of knowledge, an intellectual good. but it is in this scene that his belief that physical harm could result from his thorwald-directed gaze first becomes obvious to a spectator, so it is from this moment forward that jefferies’s looks at mr. thorwald—his actions in pursuit of knowledge—could be qualified as intellectually courageous. through this interpretation of jefferies’s intellectual actions in the film (namely, his dialogue with other characters and his looks into mr. thorwald’s apartment), i have argued that the actions themselves satisfy the conditions for both intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 47 inquisitiveness and intellectual courage. however, for these intellectual actions to be virtuous—that is, for these intellectual virtues to manifest qua virtues—the actions in question must be in large part motivated by considerations of epistemic good’s intrinsic value, such as an agent’s love for knowledge or attainment of truth for truth’s sake. it is this that separates inquisitiveness from intellectually virtuous inquisitiveness, and intellectual courage from intellectually virtuous courage. l.b. jefferies’s epistemic motivations to begin this evaluation, take the previous example in which students were motivated to learn calculus only because they wanted to earn good grades. they were inquisitive, but not virtuously so. now consider a different set of students who are in the same calculus course. this set of students, like the other, asks many relevant, contextaware questions with the sincere intention of understanding the material. unlike the other students, these students are only partially motivated to ask such questions by the desire to earn good grades. they still, of course, care about the final grade they receive in the course, and this at times prompts their questioning. but in addition to this motivation, they want to learn about calculus for more epistemically-rooted reasons: they want to learn how to do derivations because they recognize the cognitive value of mathematics; they want know whether newton, leibniz, or both invented calculus because they recognize knowledge as an intrinsic good. thus, while both students are inquisitive, only the second student is virtuously inquisitive because their intellectual actions are in large part motivated by intrinsic epistemic goods; they want to know because knowing is good. that jefferies is so motivated in rear window is rather clear, and this motivation is likely what stam and pearson were referring to when they stated that jefferies’s scopophilia transforms into epistemophilia over the course of the film. if scopophilia is loosely defined as pleasure derived from looking, then epistemophilia might be termed as pleasure derived from acquiring true beliefs and gaining knowledge. still, one might establish this epistemophilia by eliminating other, non-epistemic motivations from having a dominant role in prompting jefferies’s intellectual actions. a person could, for instance, be motivated to solve a murder for financial reasons (if there were a reward), public praise, or an internal sense of justice. if any of these played a dominant role in motivating jefferies’s pursuit of knowledge, his inquisitive and intellectually courageous actions would not be intellectually virtuous. the fact remains, though, that the film provides no reason for a spectator to believe that any of these three possible motivations play a more dominant role than jefferies’s sheer pleasure in knowing. there is no mention of potential financial gain; the inquiry is purposefully withheld from the public eye when jefferies chooses to call doyle, an old friend, rather than the police; and jefferies makes no scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2022 mention of the justice he feels in avenging mrs. thorwald’s murder. in fact, the only explicit insight spectators get regarding jefferies’s motivations confirm his desire to acquire truth for truth’s sake. in jefferies’s apartment, after he has expressed his suspicions, lisa asks of him, “what is it you’re looking for?” and he responds, “i just want to find out what’s wrong with the salesman’s wife.” the response seems routine, insignificant. but its significance is in what it lacks: jefferies does not name non-epistemic motivations in addition to his simple desire to “find out”; in other words, he does not want to find out what’s wrong with the mr. thorwald’s wife because of something non-epistemic (e.g., justice, money, praise). he just wants to find out, wants to know, wants truth. the apparent lack of non-epistemic motivations in jefferies’s pursuit of intellectual good combined with the explicit presence of epistemic good motivating his actions thus suggests that jefferies’s intellectual actions in rear window are not only properly understood as inquisitive and intellectually courageous but also as virtuously inquisitive and virtuously intellectually courageous. his actions express the intellectual virtues, and his motivations are largely epistemic in nature. the final requirement in deeming jefferies an intellectually praiseworthy agent, taken up in the following section, is concerned with establishing inquisitiveness and intellectual courage as stable character traits of jefferies’s cognitive character. to do this, the film must in some way suggest that jefferies consistently manifests these intellectual virtues outside of just the pursuit of knowledge regarding mrs. thorwald’s murder. inquisitiveness and intellectual courage as character traits acknowledging that the film takes place over the course of only a few days, it is difficult to refer to particular actions of jefferies as indicative of stable character traits. an agent could, to be sure, act with intellectual virtues for a few days but lack those intellectual virtues as stable aspects of their character. that possibility poses a challenge for determining that inquisitiveness and intellectual courage are stable traits of jefferies’s cognitive character. the challenge, however, is not insurmountable. jefferies career allows for a fairly strong sense of his stable intellectual character, as he has seemingly been a photojournalist for some time. (it should be noted, too, that philosophers of intellectual virtues often use real-life journalists as models for intellectually virtuous character [e.g., baehr 165–6].) while it is conceivable that some journalistic efforts may require little intellectual prowess or prolonged inquiry, jefferies’s efforts certainly seem to. for instance, after his editor (gig young), calls jefferies to congratulate him on getting his cast removed, only to learn that the cast is not to be removed for another week, his editor expresses regret: “that one week is going to cost me my best photographer—and you a big assignment.” the two discuss the assignment: intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 49 jefferies. where? jefferies’s editor. indo-china. got a code tip from the bureau chief this morning. the place is about to go up in smoke. jefferies. didn’t i tell you! didn’t i tell you it was the next place to watch! jefferies’s editor. you did. jefferies. okay. when do i leave? half-hour? an hour? jefferies’s editor. with that cast on—you don’t. not only does a viewer learn from this interaction that jefferies is willing and eager to engage in long and difficult inquiry in order to acquire and disseminate truth and information (an epistemic good), but also that he is, according to his editor, the best at it. in other words, he is inquisitive—willing and able to ask thoughtful questions of the world around him—and his camera provides the best answers. regarding his intellectual courageousness, viewers are quick to learn that jefferies’s assignments frequently involve some form of danger that must be overcome. for starters, the film’s narrative is to some degree prompted by the bodily injury jefferies sustains while on the job. and later, when describing to lisa why he thinks (incorrectly, as we find out) that she would not enjoy accompanying him on his trips, jefferies summarizes some common struggles he has to face: “lisa, on this job you carry one suitcase. your home is the available transportation. you sleep rarely, bathe even less, and sometimes the food that you eat is made from things you wouldn’t even look at when they’re alive!” a spectator, then, would be quite justified in assuming that jefferies frequently continues journalistic pursuits—pursuits that likely have some form of epistemic good attached, like acquiring and disseminating knowledge—despite the appearance of threats to his well-being. thus, through these elaborations of jefferies’s career, viewers get at least some insight into elements of his cognitive character: he is both willing and able to inquire successfully (inquisitive) and equally willing to face apparent dangers, struggles, and even sustain severe bodily injury in pursuit of epistemic ends (intellectually courageous). if jefferies’s career provides spectators enough information to characterize him broadly as both inquisitive and intellectually courageous, then rear window’s protagonist has met each of the three conditions required to be an intellectually praiseworthy agent. his actions in the film satisfy the distinctive conditions for inquisitiveness and intellectual courage, the inquisitive and intellectually courageous actions are motivated by intrinsic epistemic good, and the intellectual virtues are, finally, stable traits of jefferies’s cognitive character.3 he is, therefore, intellectually (not morally) praiseworthy. 3. something should be said of lisa’s cognitive character, as well. she, too, could be said to exemplify inquisitive and intellectually courageous actions throughout scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2022 conclusion various levels and types of conflict are at play in the narrative of rear window. there is, for one, the obvious conflict between the protagonists, lisa, jefferies, and stella, trying to uncover a murder versus the antagonist, mr. thorwald, trying to cover up the murder. there is also the emotional conflict between jefferies and lisa that charges many of the characters’ interactions with one another. in this essay, however, i submit an additional, subtle opposition that is equally vital to the narrative tension. by reading jefferies’s scopophilia against aristotelian virtue ethics, i have shown that his looks may often be deemed morally blameworthy insofar as they represent impetuous incontinence (i.e., unreflective pleasure getting the better of reason). at the same time, through an appeal to alternative—or anti-theoretic—responsibilist virtue epistemology, i have sought to show that jefferies is nevertheless an intellectually praiseworthy agent, his look and character frequently manifesting both virtuous inquisitiveness and virtuous intellectual courage. this tension-creating conflict is not only problematic for spectatorial judgement regarding jefferies as an agent (i.e., whether to subject him to praise or blame); it also deeply affects the experience itself of viewing the film. in the many, many point-of-view shots that place viewers in the subject position of jefferies, a spectator is forced, as it were, to partake in this conflict of moral blame and intellectual praise, to weigh truth versus morality, knowledge versus the good life. the film—and, in fact, may very well be the more intellectually courageous of the two, given her venture into mr. thorwald’s apartment late in the film. it is also quite likely that she manifests different, additional intellectual virtues that jefferies does not, such as intellectual humility. i have chosen to focus on jefferies primarily because it is his pointof-view that constitutes much of the film’s visual storytelling, and thus his moral blame and intellectual praise that contributes to the oppositional spectatorial judgement that (i am arguing) comes about as part of the viewing experience. intellectual virtues in rear window: a new look at l.b. jefferies’s look middle tennessee state university 51 works 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“hitchcock’s rear window: reflexivity and the critique of voyeurism.” a hitchcock reader, edited by marshall deutelbaum and leland poague, iowa state up, 1986, pp. 193–206. turri, john, mark alfano, and john greco. “virtue epistemology.” the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, winter 2021 edition, edited by edward n. zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/epistemology-virtue. walker, michael. hitchcock’s motifs, amsterdam up, 2005. watson, lani. “what is inquisitiveness?” american philosophical quarterly, vol. 52, no. 3, 2015, pp. 273–87. jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24475463. c. g. jung and the inheritance of immanence middle tennessee state university 69 c.g. jung and the inheritance of immanence: traces of spinozistic, nietzschean, and freudian influence in analytical psychology christopher myers carl jung, the founder of analytical psychology, was heavily influenced by both nietzsche and freud, both of whom were influenced, as yovel notes in his the adventures of immanence, by spinoza. through his years of collaboration with freud and his long-lasting fascination with nietzsche (combined with jung’s own semi-mystical tendencies, jung became more of a spinozian, than nietzschean or freudian. these spinozistic traces can be detected in the framework of analytical psychology. a comparison is presented on the views of spinoza, nietzsche, freud, and jung on historical religion, the source of human motivation, and the liberating power of selfknowledge. abstract scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 70 spring 2015 this investigation explores the intellectual genealogy that links seventeenth-cen-tury rationalist and jewish ex-communicant, baruch spinoza, to the founder of analytical psychology, carl gustav jung. in spinoza and other heretics: the adventures of immanence, yirmiyahu yovel describes spinoza’s influence upon nietzsche and freud. in philosophical issues in the psychology of c.g. jung, marilyn nagy investigates the inspiration of plato, kant, schopenhauer and others on jung. however, no effort has been made to investigate the possibility that spinozism might have trickled into jungian thought through nietzsche and freud. not only do i plan to shine a light on these spinozistic traces, but i also plan to show that jungian thought parallels that of spinoza more closely than that of nietzsche or freud. it should be noted that these spinozistic traces in analytical psychology are likely present because of intellectual inheritance rather than deliberate appropriation. in the entirety of jung’s collected works there are only a handful of mentions of spinoza. in the structure and dynamics of the psyche, jung briefly laments that spinoza was one of the first philosophers to devaluate the “metaphysical value” of the archetype (structure 136). then, in psychological types, jung points to spinoza as a perfect representative of the “intrinsic certainty,” or “conviction” that accompanies intuitive knowledge (psychological 453). clearly, jung had some level of exposure to spinoza, but his grasp and overall opinion of spinozism remains unclear. while jung gives spinoza only a couple brief and seemingly ambivalent mentions within his oeuvre, jung mentions the name of nietzsche, the man who enthusiastically referred to spinoza as his own “precursor” no less than nine times in jung’s autobiography, memories, dreams, reflections. only goethe and freud are mentioned more frequently. jung was fascinated by nietzsche, but he hesitated to read nietzsche’s work for many years, for fear that he might turn out too much like the german philosopher. in some ways, jung was correct. both he and nietzsche were raised by clergymen, and both men had “inner experiences” they found difficult to share with the rest of the world. jung even attended basel university, where nietzsche had been made a professor years earlier. jung feared their similarities might run deeper, and that he, like nietzsche, might go mad. curiosity eventually overcame jung’s fear, and he described his first reading of thus spoke zarathustra as a “tremendous experience” (memories 102). the reading left such an impression on him that he would deliver a series of lectures on zarathustra years later. it is difficult to overstate nietzsche’s influence on jung, yet another figure looms even larger in his history. sigmund freud, the father of psychoanalysis, carl jung’s mentor, and the man who would proclaim jung the “crown-prince of psychoanalysis,” mentions spinoza rarely, but, when he does so, it is typically to remark on their similarities. in a letter to dr. lothar bickel, a spinozist interested in the practice of psycho-analysis, freud admits his debt to spinoza, but he tempers his admission with the remark that, “i conceived my hypotheses from the atmosphere created by him, rather than from the study of his work” (yirmiyahu 139). freud clearly appreciated spinoza, even if he denied a need for “philosophical legitimization.” freud, like jung with nietzsche, recognized the numerous similarities between c. g. jung and the inheritance of immanence middle tennessee state university 71 himself and spinoza: both he and spinoza were jewish men separated from their tradition, both challenged gentile society with their rationalism, and both were met with tremendous resistance. freud suspected that, in his own case, the resistance could be the result of his heritage. therefore, he looked to his gentile disciple, jung, to promote psychoanalysis. jung owes much to each of these predecessors. from nietzsche, jung would draw his love for individualism and a deterministic viewpoint reminiscent of amor fati. from freud, jung would inherit not only his technical expertise, but also the basis for many of the concepts he would refine within his own school of analytical psychology, concepts such as libido, the unconscious, and defense mechanisms. from both men, jung would, perhaps unknowingly, inherit a great deal of spinozism. the jungian ideas that are most closely related to those of spinoza are his concept of god, especially in connection with historical religion; his understanding of conatus, will to power, and libido; and his belief in the transformative and liberating power of self-knowledge. god and the problem of historical religion spinoza was excommunicated for ideas that were interpreted as atheistic, but the language he utilizes in the ethics opens the door for plenty of semi-mystical, metaphysical possibilities. for example, spinoza claims that god is “…an absolutely infinite being, that is, substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence” (ethics 31). this, at least, seems to eliminate the possibility of a personal, yet transcendent god who creates matter ex-nihilo. consider the following as well: “…all things are in god and are so dependent on him that they can neither be nor be conceived without him…” (spinoza, ethics 57). one might argue that spinoza is describing a pantheistic god, but this is not necessarily so. spinoza is describing god’s participation in the universe and it in him, but he is not necessarily equating the two. in a letter to henry oldenberg, spinoza plainly states, “as to the view of certain people that i identify god with nature (taken as a kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken” (correspondence 73). this letter, when taken into context, suggests that spinoza likely held a panentheistic view of god, rather than a strictly materialist or pantheistic view. in other words, a single source exists that permeates the universe, but it is neither separated from the universe, as a pantheistic view would suggest, nor is it simply matter, as a materialist thinker would perceive the divine. this panentheistic view is not a completely unique point of view among jewish thinkers at the time; cordovero, writing a full century before spinoza, speculated that “god is all reality, but not all reality is god” (scholem 252). it is well worth noting, when one considers the overwhelming atheism of jung’s influences, that jung would share this panentheistic view with spinoza when his explanation of the collective unconscious matured. spinoza’s opinion on the matter of historical religion is far clearer than his theology. without a doubt, spinoza detested historical religion, insulting it as superstitio and vana religio. one can almost feel spinoza’s abhorrence when reading the ethics: “so it came about that every individual devised different methods of worshipping as he thought fit in order scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 72 spring 2015 that god should love him beyond others and direct the whole of nature so as to serve his blind cupidity and insatiable greed” (58). spinoza wanted traditional religion eliminated and he had just the thing to replace it: a universal religion guided by reason instead of dogmatic belief. spinoza believed that through amor dei intellectualis, man would discover a state of freedom from his passions. nietzsche famously proclaimed, “god is dead,” in both the gay science and thus spoke zarathustra. for nietzsche, there was no divine being pronouncing moral commandments from on high, demanding blood sacrifices, and encouraging the stoning of individuals for relatively minor offences. it should come as no surprise then, considering nietzsche’s blatant atheism, that he held an unfavorable view of historical religion. nietzsche did not even share in spinoza’s immanence. nietzsche saw no reason or order to the universe, whatsoever. however, one might be surprised to note that in will to power, nietzsche briefly reveals a desire to embrace pantheism, but he quickly disregards it as a temptation to believe in the shadow of the old, dead god. far more in line with nietzsche than spinoza, freud declared the notion of god to be an illusion, an outward expression of an inner need for a father figure. furthermore, freud believed that although religion might have once been useful in promoting social unity, it was now a “mass-delusion” that should be eradicated (26). like spinoza, freud believed he had discovered the replacement for historical religion, but for freud, this replacement was the “dogma” of psychoanalysis. freud likened himself to moses, who would never see the promised land to which his teachings would lead all humanity. unfortunately for freud, his gentile joshua did not adhere to some of his most fundamental doctrines. jung’s understanding of god is far more difficult to pin down than the three described above, because, throughout his long life, jung’s concept of evolved significantly. for example, with only a cursory glance, we might become convinced that jung shared freud’s atheism. jung, in fact, often described himself as a strict empiricist. however, jung was convinced he had psychological reasons for at least entertaining the idea of a god, although he would never commit to knowledge of whether god was an actual entity or merely a psychic construct. however, in a mystical treatise never meant for publication, septem sermones ad mortuem (which one might call an early experiment in active imagination and/or a gnostichymn), the narrator basilides plainly contradicts nietzsche’s famous proclamation by telling his ghostly audience, “god is not dead. now, as ever, he liveth” ( jung, memories 382). early in his career, jung aligned himself closely with freud. however, following their schism, jung grew ever more and more comfortable with situating the collective unconscious and its archetypes outside of neurological structures, genetics, or socio-cultural programming, and into the metaphysical realm. eventually, he all but explicitly identified the collective unconscious with god. if we regard the collective unconscious as the source and entirety of psychic reality, with psychic reality constructing what we might perceive as “external,” then another look at the sermones should be quite illuminating: “moreover, god is the pleroma itself, as likewise, each smallest point in the created and uncreated is the pleroma itself ” ( jung, memories 382) and “[the pleroma] is both the beginning and the c. g. jung and the inheritance of immanence middle tennessee state university 73 end of created beings. it pervadeth them as the light of the sun pervadeth the air” ( jung, memories 379). of course, this singular essence of all things should remind us of spinoza’s panenthesitic god. if jung indeed held this view that god, the pleroma, and the collective unconscious were the same, then it makes sense that jung would share a similar spinozistic disapproval for historical religion. referring again to the sermones, jung writes, “least of all availeth it to worship the first god, the effective abundance and summum bonum. by our prayer we can add to it nothing and from it nothing take…” (memories 386). to jung, no religion would be literally true, nor useful, to god himself. in memories, dreams, reflections, jung recalls a childhood dream, which he was too terrified to share with any adults, in which god defecated on a church. i doubt i can find a better description of jung’s feelings for historical religion. of course, just because jung believed no historical religion was to be taken literally did not mean he found religious practices to be completely worthless. in fact, jung often used religion as part of his treatment for neuroses. in modern man in search of a soul, jung shares with the reader that among all his patients over the age of thirty-five, not one of them had a problem that was not, at its core, an issue of lost religion. in his opinion, religion could bring meaning to a patient’s life, but he takes great care to note that this has “nothing whatever to do with a particular creed or membership of a church” ( jung, modern 264). it is important to remember that although jung did not share freud’s conviction that religion was simply an illusory crutch, he also advocated his own therapeutic method over any historical religion. conatus, will to power, and libido another jungian concept that meshes better with spinozistic thought than nietzschean or freudian is the source of human drive, affect, and motivation. spinoza called the source of all human behavior conatus. all psychic traits spring from conatus, including aggression, empathy, and even amor dei intellectualis. perhaps most importantly, conatus is responsible for self-preservation. spinoza explains that conatus is the drive through which, “everything endeavors to persist in its being” (ethics 108). this is important to note, when comparing spinoza’s work with that of freud, that conatus is monistic. therefore, conatus can only lead to self-destruction through individuals’ misunderstandings of their own conatus, because “nothing can be destroyed except by causes external to itself ” (spinoza, ethics 108). nietzsche also espoused a single principle that guides all human behavior, which he christened the will to power. will to power might best be understood as a sense of ambition. it is purely egoistic, never altruistic. however, will to power is not simply the desire to succeed in mating or business. it is the drive always to strive for a better position in life. this is not unlike maslow’s hierarchy of needs. once one has found food, one secures shelter. if one has secured shelter, one seeks out friendship and so on. nietzsche was convinced that all these acts were performed, not because an organism wished simply to perpetuate itself, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 74 spring 2015 but because all beings wished to become more than they are at a given time. spinoza might counter this argument by pointing out that one’s conatus would indeed lead one to pursue a better position in life, but this would be accomplished in an effort better to preserve oneself. libido, or fundamental psychic energy, is the driving principle in freudian thought. it arises from the id and is therefore primarily sexual in nature. just as with conatus or will to power, libido is a purely naturalistic principle – it presupposes no “soul,” “spirit,” or any other transcendental quality. unlike conatus, however, it is not monistic, but dualistic. libido consists of two instincts, eros and thanatos. eros, which may seem quite similar to will to power, is the pursuit of life and growth. thanatos is primarily destructive in nature, even self-destructive. because of this capability for self-destruction, it is of the utmost importance, in freud’s mind, that an individual redirect and externalize one’s thanatos. whenever externalization becomes impossible, as it often will in our society, thanatos must be sublimated. spinoza would no doubt find this absurd. as mentioned above, in spinozistic theory, only something external to a thing can destroy it. therefore, no being can actually have a will to destroy itself. while freud drifts into dualism with eros and thanatos, jung maintains the monistic nature of spinoza’s conatus: “…there is only one striving, the striving after your own being” (memories 382). however, jung would maintain freudian nomenclature. to jung, libido was neither purely sexual (although it could be), nor did it involve any particular instinct for self-destruction (although, again, this was a distinct possibility). libido was, instead, all psychic energy. the source of this energy was not the id or even the ego, but the tension that exists between an individual’s ego and the collective unconscious. in a view that is again closer to nietzschean individualism or spinozistic conatus than that expressed by freud, jung describes the primary function of the libido as individuation: a drive for constant betterment and greater psychic balance. the key to individuation is self-knowledge. transformation and liberation via self-knowledge spinoza, nietzsche, freud, and jung each saw self-knowledge as the key to liberation/ salvation, but what that meant to each individual is quite different. according to spinoza, knowledge of god and one’s place within his essence will lead to salvation (ethics 23). therefore, within spinoza’s approach, one learns and grows through observation of the external world, which is part of god. in other words, through science one develops an understanding of god/nature and is thereby liberated from one’s passions, but only if science (1) can be “conceived and felt as explicating a basic metaphysical truth, namely the identity of nature with god and of the individual’s essence with the nature-god” (yirmiyahu 148), and (2) “discursive scientific progress must eventually give way to the synthetic intuition” (yirmiyahu 148). spinoza advocates this process, science, as a means to probe the immanent universe and to understand one’s own place within it. nietzsche, on the other hand, was not concerned with liberation from the passions, but rather with freedom from moral-slavery. ethics or morality would not, for him, be bound by a transcendental concept like god, but simply by our natural tendencies of selfc. g. jung and the inheritance of immanence middle tennessee state university 75 overcoming. if this path of self-overcoming were to reach its eventual end, one would become the übermensch, a man with no need for religion. as an übermensch, one would finally embrace the world with amor fati and a willingness to submit to “eternal recurrence.” nietzsche’s self-knowledge, which is closer to disillusionment than anything, may initially lead to suffering, but it should eventually be overcome by joy. this is the central theme of the gay science. freud wrote that there were three sources of human suffering: the body, which is “doomed to decay and dissolution,” the external world with “its merciless forces of destruction,” and our relationships with other humans (26). humanity and civilization put great strains on the individual, who then begins to repress desires and painful memories. these memories are forced down into the unconscious and arise later in life in the form of neuroses. freud advocated focusing on one’s inner, psychic states (instead of external factors as spinoza instructed). by this method, as freud taught, neurotics might expose repressed psychic material and cure themselves. it is important to note, however, that freud did not believe this process would bring about any special, enlightened state. he believed only that through a willingness to embrace one’s impotence in the world, one might find peace enough to “love and to work.” jung, on the other hand, saw therapy as the key to freedom from complexes and to a special, semi-enlightened state of psychic-balance. jung called this process individuation. a fully individuated person is capable of juggling the needs of the collective unconscious, the personal subconscious, the ego, and the self. in other words, one is able to become a complete human being. one could reach this state of fullness by means of various practices that might include traditional talking and dream therapy along with other forms of creative expression possibly including painting, poetry, dance, etc. in this manner, one could unravel the negative emotions surrounding his/her archetypes and edge the seat of one’s consciousness away from the ego, toward the self, one’s subconscious god-image. keep in mind, jung was not suggesting we identify with our god-image (which would lead to egoinflation); we should simply bring our own desires and values into alignment with it. only then, jung taught, would one be freed from the control of the passions. while nietzsche saw self-knowledge as a means of creating meaning in a meaningless existence and freud saw it as a panacea for psychic disease, spinoza and jung saw the acquirement of self-knowledge as something of a religious experience. although jung clearly draws his terminology from freud, his individuation process bears a greater resemblance to spinoza’s method than freud’s. like freud, however, jung turns spinoza’s search for selfknowledge inward. this inner work is the purposeful re-organization of psychic contents in order to discover the proper place of one’s ego within the universal expanse of mind. from spinoza to jung this essay has shown the effect spinozism had on the development of analytical psychology through the dual-influence of admitted admirers of spinoza, nietzsche and freud, which led to jung becoming closer to a spinozist than either of his influences. alscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 76 spring 2015 though spinoza and jung held slightly differing opinions on historical religion, they shared a panentheistic view of god (a view not shared by nietzsche or freud). jung’s unique understanding of libido as the source of human drive resembles the singular essence of conatus far more than it resembles freud’s overly-sexualized concept of libido or nietzsche’s will to power. finally, while nietzsche saw self-knowledge as a source of personal meaning and freud saw it as psychological remedy, spinoza and jung saw the acquirement of selfknowledge as a religious experience. spinoza advocated this pursuit as a means to probe the immanent universe and to understand one’s place within it. jung’s individuation process, although similar, takes the search for self-knowledge down to the microcosmic level. c. g. jung and the inheritance of immanence middle tennessee state university 77 works cited freud, sigmund. civilization and its discontents. new york: w.w. norton, 1962. print. jung, carl g. archetypes and the collective unconscious. trans. r. f. c. hull.  princeton: princeton up, 1990. print. ---. memories, dreams, reflections.  ed. aniela jaffe. trans. clara winston and richard winston. new york: random house, 1973. print. ---.  psychological types. ed. r. f. c. hull. trans. h. g. baynes  princeton: princeton up, 1971. print. ---. the structure and dynamics of the psyche. new york: pantheon books, 1960. print. ---. modern man in search of a soul. princeton: princeton up, 1933. print. nagy, marilyn. philosophical issues in the psychology of c. g. jung. albany, ny: state u of new york p, 1991. print. nietzsche, friedrich. the gay science with a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs.  trans. walter kaufmann. new york: random house, 1974. print. ---. thus spoke zarathustra. trans. graham parkes. oxford: oxford up, 2005. print. scholem, gershom. major trends in jewish mysticism. new york: schocken books, 1961. print. spinoza, baruch. correspondence of benedict de spinoza. trans. r. h. m. elwes. new york: wilder, 2009. print. ---. ethics: treatise on the inundation of the intellect. ed. seymour feldman. trans. samuel shirley. indianapolis: hackett, 1992. print. yirmiyahu, yovel. spinoza and other heretics. princeton: princeton up, 1989. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 78 spring 2015 a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 1 a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway* percy verret abstract throughout her early career, british modernist virginia woolf developed a literary style that gave modal priority to “internality,” or the inner workings of the inward mind. the most noteworthy instance of woolf ’s efforts in that literary style is the perennial classic, mrs. dalloway, whose delicate stream-of-consciousness narrative is universally regarded as exhibiting mastery over the style’s modernist prioritization of internality over conventional tropes in fiction. what is less widely recognized is that in mrs. dalloway woolf crafted a piece that not only demonstrated a modal attentiveness to internality, but also effected a defense of individual internality—an exploration of the delineation between minds within intimate relationships and the impact of those delineations on the individual minds participating in the relationship. accordingly, this essay examines woolf ’s theory of interpersonal intimacy by using tenets from her essay “modern fiction” (1919) and short work a room of one’s own (1929) to effect a comparative analysis of the relational practices of various characters in mrs. dalloway (1925), commenting particularly on those practices’ impact on the internal worlds of clarissa dalloway and septimus smith. *winner of the deans’ distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2022 in her 1919 manifesto, “modern fiction,” bloomsburian author virginia woolf urged her fellow modernists to abjure the clunky, externally-focused workings of the nineteenth-century novel and instead to employ their pens to “examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day…. [to] record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall”; that is, to cast their allegiance with the emergent narrative form known as stream of consciousness.1 just four years later, woolf ’s mrs dalloway (1925) burst upon the literary scene, instantly garnering recognition as an examination of the ordinary mind on an ordinary day and assuming its status as a classic example of a formal mode that was reflective of the internal mind. that woolf ’s employment of this interior-emphasizing mode was reflective of a prioritization of internality in her broader thought is robustly demonstrated by her explicit assumption of the theme four years later in her hallmark essay, a room of one’s own, in which she passionately exposited women’s need to have physical spaces of their own as a means of achieving psycho-spatial realms of their own.2 while scholars have acknowledged woolf ’s prioritization of modal internality in “modern fiction” and her defense of psycho-spatial realms in a room of one’s own, few have recognized that mrs. dalloway represents an incarnation of both emphases—that in the novel in which she achieved her classic expression of modal internality, woolf was, in essence, also advancing an argument for the primacy of and the importance of protecting internal modes of consciousness from intrusion. indeed, while mrs. dalloway has long been recognized as a masterful modal instance of internality, i wish to argue that an examination of the several romantic relationships of clarissa dalloway and septimus smith reveals that 1. virginia woolf, “modern fiction,” in the norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, 8th ed., ed. stephen greenblatt (new york: w. w. norton & company, 2006), 2090. this work was originally published as “modern novels.” 2. in this essay, woolf famously proclaimed that women needed “to have 500 a year and a room with a lock on the door” (105) in order to participate in the world of fiction writing. as she further explained on the succeeding page, the “five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate, that… lock on the door means the power to think for oneself ” (106). for woolf ’s fuller discussion of this theme, see a room of one’s own (new york: harcourt, inc., 1981), 105-106. that woolf ’s defense of spaces for women was equal parts literal and symbolic—physical and psycho-spatial—is reinforced by multiple interpretations of her work, including that by sheheryar sheikh, who concludes, “when woolf focuses on the concept of the ‘room,’ it is used, and can be understood, in many different ways, the smallest of which is a physical room that enables privacy… woolf thought about, and argued for, the room in the most abstract terms because she wanted it to appear simultaneously abstract and concrete.” sheikh’s analysis of woolf ’s “room” is illuminating and may be found in “the walls that emancipate: disambiguation of the ‘room’ in a room of one’s own,” journal of modern literature 42, no. 1 (fall 2018): 20, 24. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 3 mrs. dalloway is not only an example of modal internality but is also a defense of the preservation of individual internality within intimate interpersonal relationships. the significance of internality as a modal element within mrs. dalloway is so elementary as to need no proof—as to be proven by the fabric of the text itself and by the fact that almost every word within its pages consists of the internal thoughts and reflections of its various characters’ minds. indeed, the basic appeal of stream of consciousness as a style lay, for the modernists, in its unprecedented capacity for accessing and depicting—that is, for prioritizing—the individual mind.3 however, for novelists in the bloomsbury set (of whom woolf was the foremost), the style also demonstrated an unprecedented aptitude for examining a further aspect of internality that they regarded with corresponding curiosity: the impact of interpersonal relationships upon that internality. indeed, as bloomsbury scholar jesse wolfe asserts, not only had “literary bloomsbury made intimacy central to its work, interrogating its meaning and imagining models—both positive and negative—of intimate relations,” but a more specific linkage had arisen between the definition of self and the relations of selves in their thought: “for bloomsbury and its satellites, an examination of inwardness means an examination of intimacy: they bring to life the ways in which inwardness is not manifested in vacuo.”4 we see this emphasis on the potential impact that interpersonal intimacy holds over a single inwardness almost immediately in mrs. dalloway as we, with clarissa, plunge into the day of her party and we, with clarissa, “find herself arguing in st. james’s park, still making out that she had been right—and she had too—not to marry [peter].”5 the presence of this debate in clarissa’s consciousness throughout the novel—and, indeed, the persistent theme of the relationship between selves and other-selves within mrs. dalloway—not only reinforces the emphasis placed by both the bloomsburians and woolf herself on the exploration of relationships between consciousnesses as a fundamental means of establishing the perimeters of individual consciousnesses, but also directs us towards our own contemplation of the bloomsburians’ “crisis of intimacy” as we analyze mrs. dalloway.6 3. stephen greenblatt, gen ed., “the twentieth century and after,” in the norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, 8th ed. (new york: w. w. norton & company, 2006), 1838-39; the prioritization of the individual mind was, itself, a fundamental focus of modernism: “high modernism through the 1920s, celebrat[ed] personal and textual inwardness, complexity, and difficulty… the modernist novel turned resolutely inward, its concern being now with consciousness—a flow of reflections, momentary impressions, disjunctive bits of recall and half-memory.” 4. jesse wolfe, bloomsbury, modernism, and the reinvention of intimacy (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011), 2-3. 5. virginia woolf, mrs. dalloway (new york: harcourt, inc., 1981), 7. 6. jesse wolfe, “the sane woman in the attic: sexuality and self-authorship in ‘mrs. dalloway,’” modern fiction studies 51, no. 1 (spring 2005): 35. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2022 in turning to an examination of the crises of intimacy within mrs. dalloway, we find three primary relationships to which we may apply our investigative lens. the first of these is the marriage of clarissa’s double, septimus smith, and his wife lucrezia, who live erratically together in a small bloomsbury flat. the second is the marriage of clarissa dalloway and her husband richard, who live conventionally together in a westminster mansion. the third is the marriage that might have been between clarissa and her erstwhile suitor, the globe-roaming peter walsh. popular analyses of these relationships follow predictable lines based on the obvious features of the text. lucrezia, the wife of clarissa’s double, is perceived as a doting if simplistic ministrant of care to septimus whose constant attempts to engage him in conversation serve as a vital link between septimus and reality. a representative example of this interpretation is provided by juliane fowler, who, in a brief analysis of lucrezia smith’s performance in mrs. dalloway, lists a variety of closely related interpretations of lucrezia’s character, most of which revolve around the perception of her as “an access point… between septimus the poet and a material world that is growing increasingly, untenably abstract around him.”7 richard, clarissa’s husband, is perceived as a conventional, colorless individual whose inability to express or engage in connective emotion—poignantly encapsulated by his bestowment of a bouquet of flowers as a substitute for the vocalization of affection—has caused clarissa to languish or decay internally. their marriage, particularly, is regarded by many critics as an act of emotional cowardice on clarissa’s part, with julia briggs declaring of it, “her marriage is close and loving, yet passionless.”8 in contrast to the figure cut by richard in these criticisms, peter is popularly perceived as dashing, expressive, and stimulative—as a force that would have prevented clarissa from stagnating by requiring her to engage with and to express her own emotion. indeed, some critics propose peter—and the marriage clarissa could have had with peter—as the factor that might have preemptively prevented the development of the introversion that they choose to regard as a flaw in her character. jeremy hawthorn rather mildly summarizes this perspective when he states, “in cutting herself off from peter… [clarissa] may have cut herself off from a necessary contact with others.”9 indeed, some critics propose peter—and the marriage clarissa could have had with peter—as the factor that might have preemptively prevented the development of the introversion 7. juliane fowler, “‘(for she was with him)’: lucrezia warren smith as witness and scribe in mrs. dalloway,” virginia woolf miscellany 91 (spring 2017): 29. 8. julia briggs, “‘what a lark! what a plunge!’: mrs. dalloway (1925),” in virginia woolf: an inner life (new york: harcourt, inc., 2005), 149. 9. jeremy hawthorn, virginia woolf ’s mrs dalloway: a study in alienation (london: sussex university press, 1975), 13. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 5 that they choose to regard as a flaw in her character. jeremy hawthorn rather mildly summarizes this perspective when he states, “in cutting herself off from peter… [clarissa] may have cut herself off from a necessary contact with others.” peter, in this view, forms a bridge to the outer world for clarissa that richard simply does not afford. thus, in the choice between clarissa’s suitors, popular taste favors the rejected over the accepted. in arriving at any such judgment of the relationships woolf created in mrs. dalloway, however, we must regard as authoritative the attitudes of that creator—must recall that we are interacting with a modernist who was intent upon interrogating and deconstructing traditional attitudes towards intimacy. while such victorians as the brontës, with their heathcliffs and rochesters, had taught readers for decades to regard intensity of passion and intermingling of mind as the measurements of real love—and to regard as suspicious those loves that are less forthcoming, less explosive, less demanding in their expression—we must remember that the modernists were engaged in what wolfe describes as “a debate about love and marriage spanning the victorian and modern eras” that had resulted in the modernists adopting “a sharp feeling of alienation from victorian mores.”10 in embarking upon any such judgment of the relationships of mrs. dalloway, therefore, we must do so with the explicit acknowledgment that, in the depiction of those relationships, woolf is engaged in the establishment of the defining line between self and non-self; in delineating the proper ways in which those lines may be negotiated properly without imbalanced demands made by the one on the other.11 indeed, the key to interpreting the relationships of mrs. dalloway’s markedly internal protagonists lies within woolf ’s own thought—lies tucked away in the pages of the great defense of psycho-spatial freedom already mentioned, a room of one’s own. here, while musing upon the mechanisms by which men enact their domination over women—and specifically why men react with such passion, such bitterness towards women whose opinions do not accord with their own—woolf proposes the following theory to explain the curious features of these interpersonal dynamics: women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size… that is why napoleon and mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. 10. wolfe, bloomsbury, modernism, and the reinvention of intimacy, 4. by “heathcliffs” and “rochesters,” i, of course, refer to the emotive characters created by emily brontë and charlotte brontë, respectively. 11. hawthorn, virginia woolf ’s mrs dalloway, 12. hawthorn posits that woolf believed that “we exist simultaneously in terms of but distinct from other people— together with and apart from them”; woolf is therefore acutely interested in discovering the terms of that division. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2022 that serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men. and it serves to explain how restless they are under her criticism… for if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the looking-glass shrinks; his fitness for life is diminished.12 with a few deft strokes of her pen, woolf has painted a complete picture: those with more egocentric personalities select and then seek to transform members of their immediate circle into mirrors of themselves as a means of maintaining their own sense of self. as woolf describes it, this selection and transformation roots itself within and can only be perpetuated through an abrogation of the identity and internality of the object of the process; it reduces the personhood of the object by demanding that that object’s core self serve as a reflection of the emotions, perspectives, and ego of the abrogator. in the context of a room of one’s own, woolf is speaking of widespread cultural trends that necessarily have a gendered aspect. however, when interpreted in light of woolf ’s more general discourse regarding androgyny of mind within the essay—and particularly the fact that woolf ’s argument in this essay is based at least partially upon the idea that there is, inherently, more sameness than difference between the minds and needs of men and women—we see that, on the individual scale, this type of identity consumption is not inherently a gendered practice.13 we see instead that it is not gender but egocentrism (most widespread in, but not limited to males) that funds these mirror-making campaigns and that this type of relationship evolves due to power imbalances—imbalances of emotive and sensitive personalities—within relationships. more importantly, we see that woolf regards these campaigns as inadmissible regardless of the gender of the perpetrator; she regards as contrary to the individual’s ability to achieve a mind of their own any method of interpersonal relationships that so explicitly breaches the internality of its object. while woolf nowhere employs the word “looking glass” in association with romantic relationships in mrs. dalloway, we nevertheless see her expanding suggestively on similar themes in clarissa’s internal monologue. indeed, in one of the most direct commentaries on love in the entire novel, clarissa shudders before love’s propensity to 12. virginia woolf, a room of one’s own (new york: harcourt, inc., 1981), 35-36. 13. in regard to the question of androgyny, woolf embarks upon a discussion of coleridge’s conception of androgyny in a room of one’s own, 98, that leads her to the conclusion “that the androgynous mind is resonant and porous; that it transmits emotion without impediment; that it is naturally creative, incandescent and undivided.” feminist scholar nancy taylor proposes that a similar androgyny is afoot in mrs. dalloway, which she describes as “an androgynous creation of character, dramatic situation, and language that deconstructs the borders between male and female.” for taylor’s analysis see “erasure of definition: androgyny in mrs. dalloway,” women’s studies 18 (1991): 377. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 7 act as an invasive force, comparing it unfavorably to religion as she internally remarks, “love and religion! thought clarissa, going back into the drawing-room, tingling all over. how detestable, how detestable they are!... had she [clarissa] ever tried to convert any one herself? did she not wish everybody merely to be themselves… love and religion would destroy that, whatever it was, the privacy of the soul.”14 although woolf has substituted her previously-held looking glass for the language of religion in this passage, the fundamental concept is the same: those humans who are less appreciative of and respectful towards internality seek to transform other humans into versions or reflections of themselves, and when they do so it constitutes the destruction of the soul. here, clarissa—or, more accurately, woolf—identifies the tendency to convert others unto one’s self as being built into the fabric not only of religion, but of interpersonal relationships; she identifies the tendency to convert as a more basic urge of humanity that emerges even within so-called love—or, as hawthorn phrases it, “love has its negative side, where it resembles religion and conversion, where it involves a desire to subdue or consume the other person’s identity.”15 implicit in this urge, therefore—implicit in not all, but many practices of love—is the desire to homogenize; to abrogate or breach the other by seeking to make that other a function of one’s self until they are no longer their own self, but rather an echoic image of the radiating partner.16 the creation of such an echoic image involves first the invasion of the object of affection by means of the egocentric expression of emotion and then the conversion or transformation of the individual into a likeness of self through the demand that that object become a reflective, regurgitative mirroring likeness for those expressions. now, newly armed with woolf ’s theories of love’s potential to act as a mirroror convert-making force through its invasive intrusion into internality, when we return to the evaluation of lucrezia’s, peter’s, and richard’s performances as partners, we discover curious patterns emerging in their behavior. in the case of lucrezia smith, a return to her performance as a bridge between septimus’s mind and reality reveals that her methods involve less a bridging than an invading effect. indeed, as we tally them, we see that lucrezia’s basic strategy for “engaging” septimus amounts to a series of intrusions upon his stream of consciousness, as is apparent within her variations of the cry “look, look, 14. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 126-7, emphasis mine. 15. hawthorn, virginia woolf ’s mrs dalloway, 48 16. ibid., 45. hawthorn specifically notes that the “consuming” of identity involves homogenization when he opines while analyzing peter and clarissa’s relationship that, “to love someone is to recognize their distinctness, their separateness from us, but the act of loving can, paradoxically, bring the loved one closer, can start to reduce this separateness.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2022 septimus!” when he is deep in thought,17 her repeated inquiry after the time,18 and her attempts to force him into a display of reciprocity by interrupting his thoughts with the query, “what are you saying?”19 lucrezia herself—and with her, her supporters—seeks to justify this intrusion by casting it as an application of the fearsome dr. holmes’s orders that septimus “take an interest in things outside of himself ”;20 however, this is not an altogether honest framing of her behavior, for her own memories prove that her intrusiveness is not a new, but rather a longstanding habit.21 indeed, as her own memories reveal, a troubling number of lucrezia’s past interactions with septimus—interactions that date to before dr. holmes’s diagnosis—involve her interrupting septimus in some way: snatching a paper from him because he was “reading a paper instead of talking” and “shutting the inferno” when she finds him peacefully reading instead of speaking to her.22 indeed, her intrusion into his contemplative mode of existence has been of long enough standing that septimus responds to it in the novel not by pondering, “why had she begun to interrupt him?” but rather by sighing resignedly, “interrupted again! she was always interrupting.”23 given that this habit, contrary to the framing lucrezia would have us believe, is rooted less in dr. holmes’s orders and more in lucrezia’s own character—that her acting on dr. holmes’s advice is merely a furtherance of a pattern of action she had already pursued with septimus—we find ourselves beginning to question the more general narrative of lucrezia as being motivated primarily by a sense of care for septimus in her behavior towards her husband. in returning to lucrezia’s thoughts with this suspicion in mind, we find much to further complicate our understanding of her performance as an interpersonal partner: she could not sit beside him when he stared so and did not see her… she put on her lace collar. she put on her new hat and he never noticed; and he was happy without her. nothing could make her happy without him! nothing! he was selfish. so men are. for he was not ill. dr. holmes said there was nothing the matter with him. she spread her hand before her. look! her wedding ring slipped—she had grown so thin. it was she who suffered—but she had nobody to tell.24 17. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 21, 23, 25, 26. 18. ibid., 69-70. 19. ibid., 25. 20. ibid., 21. 21. even setting aside the question of lucrezia’s motive, theorists ghasemi, sasani, and abbaszadeh assert that, “this taking-an-interest-in-outside-things treatment implies a process of conformity, a plan for conversion” in “mrs. dalloway: consciousness ‘social homeostasis’ and marxism,” forum for world literature studies 9, no. 4 (december 2017): 680. conversion again! 22. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 16 and 88, respectively. 23. ibid., 25. 24. ibid., 23. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 9 the egocentrism of this passage is immediate and overwhelming. perhaps the most obvious instance of this egocentrism is the fact that, in a marvel of maneuvering, lucrezia has reframed the situation to cast herself as the victim, herself as the primary sufferer of the two. she has achieved this reframing by both diminishing septimus’s suffering and simultaneously aggrandizing her own, a strategy that appears more explicitly elsewhere when she reasons regarding his wartime losses, “[evans] had been killed in the war. but such things happen to every one. every one has friends who were killed in the war. every one gives up something when they marry.”25 in lucrezia’s view, the emotional toll of septimus’s wartime experience is comparable to her decision to choose to marry the man she loved; in lucrezia’s view, it is not septimus, the war-ravaged veteran, who lives daily under the knowledge that his closest friend’s body had been blown to lumps of flesh, that suffers, but rather it is she, who left her family in the best of health to marry a sensitive man, who suffers; it was she who suffered. only the greatest egocentrism—the most blatant belief that one’s own emotions are the center of existence—could effect such a comparison as lucrezia performs here. more essential, however, to our discussion of mirror-making within relationships is lucrezia’s conception of the nature of her suffering. this suffering she proposes as arising from septimus’s “selfishness,” a selfishness she equates, puzzlingly, with his ability to experience happiness independently of her. lucrezia ranges herself in passionate opposition to this “selfishness,” marking herself as “unselfish” in her own perspective by proclaiming, “nothing could make her happy without him! nothing!” on its surface, this declaration appears to be one of love—a proclamation of value and affection. however, when evaluated for its implications, this statement reveals itself to be less a declaration regarding septimus and more a declaration regarding lucrezia; less a declaration of affection and more a declaration of emotional dependency. indeed, in declaring that she cannot be made happy without septimus, lucrezia has, in essence, declared a deeper act of selfishness than any septimus perpetuated—has established that she is incapable of arriving at individual, self-generated happiness, but rather requires the constant emotional participation of or funding by a second party to experience happiness. that such dependency places a profound burden on the object of that dependency is so elementary as to need no explanation; more sinister, however, is the fact that such dependency, rather than elevating its object, instead reduces that object by linking its value to its ability to bear that burden, its ability to sustain and reflect the emotional pitch of the dependent feeler. indeed, throughout this passage (and the novel) we see that lucrezia’s primary frustrations with her marriage—her sources of “suffering”—are linked to septimus’s 25. ibid., 66. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2022 failure to sustain the burden of her emotions, to act as an echoic reflector of her emotional projections. his “selfishness,” in lucrezia’s view, consists of two primary aspects. the first is his ability to achieve happiness without reference to her, his ability to source happiness from within his own sense of self, independent of the emotions she is projecting—an ability that constitutes, in essence, a rejection of her echoic link. the second aspect of septimus’s “selfishness,” consists, in lucrezia’s view, of the fact that he does not respond to her attempts to cast him as an audience to herself—does not take notice of the superficial externalities (her new hat! her lace collar!) that she employs to try to bait him into a response to her. however, as painful as these marks of detachment must be for lucrezia, it is not septimus but lucrezia herself who enacts the more ultimate reduction, the more ultimate selfishness when she articulates her response to his unresponsiveness to her: “far rather she that he were dead!”26 such is the effect of entangling the value of one’s partner with their performance as a responder to self: over time the response itself becomes elevated over the value of the individual doing the responding—over time, as the responder falls stripped of emotional reserves, their value evaporates with those reserves. indeed, it is telling of lucrezia’s status as an egocentric mirror-maker that the pitch of her unhappiness is not the fact that there might be something wrong with septimus, but that she had nobody to tell of her emotions—that because septimus is refusing to participate in an echoic emotional link to the extent that he is able to be “happy without her,” she has nobody who might act as a reflective audience to her emotion. this desire for the audience, this need to have a participant in her own emotions, is cemented by a later passage: “since she was so unhappy, for weeks and weeks now, rezia… almost felt sometimes that she must stop people in the street, if they looked good, kind people, just to say to them ‘i am unhappy.’”27 key to our understanding of this fantasy is that lucrezia does not imagine these good, kind people as aiding her in the reparation of her marriage or as potentially becoming close friends whose individuality she might celebrate; their only function in her imagination is their momentary presence as an audience to her emotional expression, which bears ascendancy over all else in her system of value. having established lucrezia smith’s basic perception of interpersonal relations as a sphere of mirror-making, we turn to peter walsh with a sense of weather-worn wariness as we assay to examine the virtue most often attributed to his character: his ability to rouse clarissa to emotional expression. as the most concrete instance of the couple’s interaction occurs when peter calls upon clarissa on the morning of her party, 26. ibid., 23, emphasis mine. 27. ibid., 83. “rezia” is a nickname for lucrezia. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 11 it is to this instance that we first direct our attention. here we find that, upon arriving at clarissa’s home, peter’s first act is to put aside her maid (whom clarissa has erected as a symbolic barrier between herself and the invasive world) with the declaration“mrs. dalloway will see me… oh yes, she will see me,” after which he bursts upon clarissa, who, alarmed by the intrusion, “ma[kes] to hide her dress, like a virgin protecting chastity, respecting privacy.”28 this series of actions clearly illustrates that, whatever else may be true of the terms of their interaction, peter clearly perceives himself and his desires as taking precedence over any boundaries clarissa may devise to protect her privacy. indeed, the entire visit is marked for its usage of the language of invasion, which we already know to be the basic tactic for those attempting to engage in identity-conversion. this language is employed most noticeably by clarissa herself, who conceptualizes his call upon her explicitly in terms of a breach when she describes how, feeling “like a queen whose guards have fallen sleep and left her unprotected… [she] summoned to her help the things she did; the things she liked; her husband; elizabeth; her self, in short, which peter hardly knew now, all to come about her and beat off the enemy.”29 clarissa recognizes that this visit—that peter’s treatment of her—constitutes an assault on her inscape, and she calls upon the elements out of which she has volitionally forged her identity to aid her in conducting a defense of that inscape. their conversation in the wake of this breach is best described by clarissa herself, who ruminates later in the day, “he came to see her after all these years and what did he talk about? himself.”30 indeed, throughout their encounter, peter’s fixation upon and elevation of his own emotions—his egocentric sense that “only one person in the world could be as he was, in love”31—remains on constant display, leading clarissa to recall that it was this very trait that had formed a fundamental element of her frustration with him: “it was… his lack of the ghost of a notion what any one else was feeling that annoyed her, had always annoyed her.”32 that peter’s egocentrism does indeed, as clarissa asserts, distort his ability to assess accurately others’ (and particularly clarissa’s) emotions is demonstrated by the result of his awkward attempt to evoke an emotional reaction from clarissa through the parading of his new relationship before her.33 after springing his 28. for both quotations see ibid., 40. 29. ibid., 44. 30. ibid., 127. 31. ibid., 48. 32. ibid., 46. 33. it is also proven by peter’s hasty judgment of clarissa’s daughter, elizabeth (49), his evaluation of lucrezia and septimus smith (70), and his interpretation of the ambulance he hears on the streets (151); in each case, his projections represent his own emotions only, not a decentered perspective. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2022 news upon her, he reflects “second by second it seemed to him that the wife of the major in the indian army (his daisy) and her two small children became more and more lovely as clarissa looked at them… (for in some ways no one understood him, felt with him, as clarissa did).”34 however, the reality is that clarissa does not feel with him—clarissa thinks that peter has been duped by this wife of the major in the indian army and that his love for her is somewhat ridiculous.35 that peter so badly misjudges clarissa’s judgment in the same breath in which he opines that their feelings accord not only casts doubt upon his claim elsewhere that the two “went in and out of each other’s minds without any effort” (itself a questionable virtue), but also suggests that peter’s engagement with clarissa involves and has always involved a heavy measure of projection—that he regards her as and expects her to be reflective of his own projected emotions.36 he wishes to evoke emotions from her, certainly, but the emotions he wishes to evoke are not hers at all but are rather reflections of his own. indeed, the primary emotion that peter, the great evoker of clarissa’s emotions, succeeds in evoking from her is not an expression of her core self, but rather a reflection of the very emotion she so dislikes in him: a sensation of “indomitable egotism.”37 to defend herself against his advances, clarissa must tap into a version of the very trait that she regards as lesser and immature in peter. even so, it is still better than her alternative in interacting with him, which is to accept peter’s dictum that “everything had to be shared; everything gone into,”38 a process which, when undertaken with such an egocentric character as peter, could only result in catastrophe—in endless argumentation—should the second party refuse to echo the projector’s emotions. this, of course, is precisely what occurred in the past between peter and clarissa and is precisely what would occur in the future should she cave to peter’s attempts to pursue her as an echoic mirror for his emotions.39 34. ibid., 46, emphasis mine. 35. ibid. in regard to news of “his daisy,” clarissa has the following reaction: “she flattered him; she fooled him, thought clarissa; shaping the woman, the wife of the major in the indian army, with three sharp strokes of a knife. what a waste! what a folly! all his life long peter had been fooled like that; first getting sent down from oxford; next marrying the girl on the boat going out to india; now the wife of a major in the indian army—thank heaven she [clarissa] had refused to marry him!” as this passage demonstrates, peter’s evaluation of clarissa’s feelings is fatally colored by his own. 36. ibid., 63. 37. ibid., 45. 38. ibid., 8. 39. clarissa recalls multiple instances of her fights with peter, as when she contrasts her and peter’s argumentative habits—“she and peter frittered their time away bickering” (120)—with her life of efficacy with richard’s “divine simplicity” (120). a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 13 that peter is predisposed to perceive women as performing the role of the reflective mirror—that he assumes that a relationship between a man and a woman necessarily involves the woman acting as a reflector of her partner—is most tellingly, if subtly, demonstrated by his inability to conceptualize the dalloways’ marriage as anything other than a reflective union.40 indeed, as peter ruminates on clarissa’s marriage, we see him repeatedly assuming that clarissa has fallen into a reflective role with richard. this is most apparent when he contemplates clarissa’s party, which he refuses to accept might be an act of self-expression and regarding which he instead asserts, “these parties for example were all for him, or for her idea of him.”41 and yet, this perspective—so confidently set forth by peter—is a rank falsehood, as is proven by the monologues of both clarissa and richard. indeed, far from hosting these parties out of a sense of duty towards richard, clarissa perceives her parties as an ultimate offering of her person, a vibrant expression of her self; as “an offering for the sake of offering… her gift.”42 far from pressuring clarissa to host these parties, richard thinks of them that “it was a very odd thing how much clarissa minded about her parties.”43 richard regards the parties as an aspect of his wife that he does not completely understand—and yet, as they make her happy, he is happy for her to host them despite the fact that he does not understand precisely why she does so. that she is happy hosting them is enough for him; already differences are beginning to emerge between peter’s and richard’s approaches to loving clarissa. in turning, finally, to survey richard’s performance as a partner to clarissa, we again select for inspection the scene in that performance for which the performer is best known. in richard’s case, that scene begins as he wends his way homeward from lady bruton’s luncheon. in this scene, richard reflects on clarissa’s inscrutable qualities but 40. less immediately relevant but far more demonstrative of peter’s desire for a human mirror on which to project his emotions—and of his perception of women as just such a mirror—is his selection of a young woman on the streets of london who, with a few flourishes of his imagination becomes “the very woman he had always had in mind; young, but stately; merry, but discreet; black, but enchanting” (52). over the next few paragraphs, peter tracks this woman through the city, imputing to her—the reflective mirror—all that he desires of an encounter with the feminine while simultaneously imagining that if he were to ask her to “‘come and have an ice’” she “would answer, perfectly simply ‘oh yes.’” (53) as briggs opines in virginia woolf, 151, “[peter’s] imagination is most intensely aroused by the woman he follows across trafalgar square, a fantasy creature he can invent and control; unconscious of him, she makes no demands.” this is what peter, ultimately wants from a woman—this undemanding oh yes—and it is clarissa’s refusal to supply this undemanding oh yes, this echo of his fantasy, that so nettles him. 41. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 77. 42. ibid., 122. 43. ibid., 119. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2022 nevertheless celebrates the joy of being married to her, thinking, “it was a miracle that he should have married clarissa.”44 borne aloft by his love for her, richard wishes to give her a gift—“to open the drawing-room door and come in holding out something; a present for clarissa.”45 however, while he imagines the emotion of the scene, his emphasis in this gift-giving fantasy is on the act of the giving of the gift itself—on the bestowment of care and value, the expression of affection—not on any sort of rise of emotion he wishes to wrench from clarissa. moreover, in choosing his gift, richard explicitly avoids projecting his own preferences onto clarissa, and instead “doubt[s] his own taste” regarding what sort of jewelry clarissa would like, electing instead to bring her an offering that is less conventionally valuable, but which our experience with clarissa proves that she will find individually valuable: a bouquet of flowers.46 much has been made of the moment in which richard gifts these flowers to clarissa; much has been made of his supposed inability to express his love to clarissa in words rather than actions. however, a close examination of this encounter suggests an alternative interpretation of richard’s silence, one that derives itself from the fact that, as he hesitates before her, about to say the words, clarissa thinks, “why? there were the roses.”47 clarissa’s response suggests that she prefers the gift of the roses to the vocalization of love—suggests that she finds them more meaningful as an expression of affection than she would find the usage of a phrase that is capable of losing its meaning through over-usage.48 what this suggests is that richard pauses upon the verge of the words and finally chooses to refrain from speaking them not because he is unable to speak them but precisely because he is cognizant of clarissa’s preferences in this regard. herein lies the primary difference between clarissa’s two suitors, for while peter insists that everything be gone into, insists that everything be expressed and established in terms reflective of his own style of being, richard, as we have already seen, acknowledges that there are aspects of clarissa that he does not understand and yet he chooses to be 44. ibid., 115. 45. ibid., 114. 46. ibid. 47. ibid., 119. 48. while we might perhaps be tempted to regard peter’s explosion into tears on clarissa’s couch as a more frank display of emotion, clarissa herself regarded that display as sufficiently superficial as to describe it as a “gaiety” (47)—in her eyes, it was a type of performance. for clarissa, strength of expression does not necessarily equate to depth of expression. the deepest emotions may be expressed in the most commonplace, the most everyday gestures; as woolf herself opines in “modern fiction,” 2090, “let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.” clarissa takes this principle to heart. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 15 understanding in his non-understanding of them. richard allows clarissa the space to exist as herself without attempting to rouse or antagonize her; he does not seek to bend her out of shape or understand her to her own discomfort, but instead respects her autonomy and regards her as a separate, discrete individual. this allowance of autonomy—this allowance of individuality—demonstrates that, far from desiring to breach clarissa or coopt her to act as a reflective mirror of his emotions in the vein of lucrezia or peter, richard is instead dedicated to allowing clarissa freedom within their marriage, a coveted rarity within early twentieth-century discourse surrounding intimacy.49 indeed, rather than mount an assault on clarissa’s inscape, richard has accepted clarissa’s decree that “there is a dignity in people; a solitude even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect… for one would not part with it oneself, or take it, against his will, from one’s husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self respect—something, after all, priceless.”50 by accepting this dictum, richard has deeded clarissa the control of her own identity, a right to self-possession that is paramount to the happiness of inward-directed personalities such as clarissa, who need “to see their intimate lives as narratives over which they [can] exert… control, as self-authoring subjects.”51 rather than demand that clarissa’s sensitive soul reflect his own, more hearty consciousness, richard has allowed clarissa to choose her own methods of emotional expression within their marriage, methods that richard categorically refuses to breach. this series of examinations has served to illustrate that woolf explicitly perceived and depicted interpersonal relationships in terms of their impact upon or interference with the individual internalities of their participants. however, the true body of woolf ’s defense of the protection of internality within interpersonal relationships—which i proposed as a fundamental theme of mrs. dalloway at the head of this essay—lies not within her cataloguing of the practices of both types of interpersonal relationship but rather in her depiction of the effects of those relationships on the psyche. these effects are 49. wolfe, bloomsbury, modernism, and the reinvention of intimacy, 22, emphasis mine; wolfe identifies the pursuit of independence in marriage as one of the hallmarks of modernist conceptions of intimacy, noting that, in distinction to the priorities of previous decades, “early-twentieth-century spouses needed to find freedom within marriage.” 50. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 120. 51. wolfe, “the sane woman,” 38. clarissa’s marriage to richard has also facilitated her ability to host parties, through which she is enabled to interact socially with and define herself in relation to other people while yet remaining firmly in control of the terms of that interaction—while not running the risk of their invading or breaching her internality. this ability to self-protect is essential for clarissa, for whom, according to taylor in “erasure of definition,” 375, “the ability to choose when to open and when to close to others is important.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2022 best illustrated by the divergent fates of the doubling characters of septimus smith and clarissa dalloway, fates which are themselves the crux of woolf ’s defense of internality as an elemental aspect of identity and, therefore, existence. traditionally, the fate of septimus’s character has been read as a tragedy of war— his suicide as arising from his inability to reintegrate himself into reality in the wake of the trauma he endured as a soldier on the italian front of the great war.52 however, in recent years, an alternative vein of criticism has developed that employs woolf ’s early draft of mrs. dalloway to emphasize that septimus’s struggle with reality (and that struggle’s attendant symptoms), which have traditionally been attributed to the war by critics, actually began before the war—or, as kathryn van wert phrases it, “septimus has always been the bearer of a message he can neither relay nor tell himself.”53 this reading of septimus proposes that the war did not change septimus as much as it exacerbated his natural qualities—his ongoing struggle to express the inexpressible—and left him in possession of a sanity that would remain functional provided it was allowed to function in unintruded calm. the maintenance of this calm, however, is complicated by septimus’s sensation of possessing an inscape that is not quite what it ought to be—is complicated by his sensation of being unable to feel as humanity has prescribed that he, as a member of their army, ought to feel.54 it is as a means of rousing this feeling, which society tells him he must have to be of their number, that septimus proposes to lucrezia. it is upon the sensitive inscape he is seeking to soothe through marriage that lucrezia’s invasiveness crashes like a guillotine, for while he feels nothing, she feels everything and, moreover, is not satisfied to feel in isolation, but rather demands that her husband participate in those feelings the more fully to reinforce her own feeling of them. yet septimus cannot feel them—and she will not stop demanding his feeling of her feelings from him—a paradox 52. this interpretation is blithely assumed in much criticism, as when john batchelor declares, “septimus smith is, of course, a victim of the war, his suicide a delayed effect of shell shock” in “mrs. dalloway,” in virginia woolf: the major novels, ed. john batchelor (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991), 83. 53. kathryn van wert, “the early life of septimus smith,” journal of modern literature 36, no. 1 (2012): 77. in her close reading of the hours (woolf ’s original draft of mrs. dalloway), van wert specifically describes septimus’s early flight to london as being motivated by “the sense of besiegement he felt in his parents’ home,” (84) a besiegement with which his sensitive spirit could have no traffic, but which van wert identifies as being reproduced through his association with lucrezia. 54. septimus speaks of this lack of feeling alternatively as a crime and a sin: “so there was no excuse; nothing whatever the matter, except the sin for which human nature had condemned him to death; that he did not feel” (91). the irony, of course, is that septimus feels a good many things within the course of the book, most noticeably the fear that he does not feel; he simply does not feel as (he believes) others feel. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 17 that triggers his cyclical spiral deeper into rather than out of his internality: “his wife was crying, and he felt nothing; only each time she sobbed in this profound, this silent, this hopeless way, he descended another step into the pit. at last… he dropped his head on his hands. now he had surrendered; now other people must help him. people must be sent for. he gave in.”55 thus we see that it is not the impact of the war, but rather the impact of his life with a mirror-maker that sets the treatment of septimus smith in motion—that enables lucrezia to send for doctors to follow her into the breach she has formed into septimus’s psyche.56 the breach once effected, the doctors are upon septimus relentlessly, for “once you fall, septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you. holmes and bradshaw are on you.”57 this treatment, in turn, and the fact that it allows sir william to “dabble his fingers in septimus’ soul” as he campaigns to convert the whole world to his program of “proportion,”58 sets the suicide of septimus in motion—sets septimus in search of a defense for his soul.59 for perhaps the most essential aspect of septimus’s suicide is the fact that septimus is not suicidal. as woolf records septimus’s own thoughts, “the whole world was clamouring: kill yourself, kill yourself for our sakes. but why should he kill himself for their sakes? food was pleasant; the sun hot.”60 septimus has no distaste for living—has no dislike for the feel of the wind on his face, the sound of the dog upon his ear; even the war could not remove these things from him. no, his source of suicide arises from a different quarter than a distaste for life, as is proven by the last of his musings as he 55. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 90. 56. given the intensity of my tone here, i should note that, in my reading of mrs. dalloway, i do not believe that lucrezia is motivated by actual malignant intent; merely that her self-centeredness results in malignant effects. it is, however, curious that lucrezia does not exhibit sympathy with her husband’s feelings until she learns that he actually is sick, at which point—learning that his treatment would require that he be removed from her—we encounter the following passage: “never, never had rezia felt such agony in her life! she had asked for help and been deserted!” (98). again, although it is her husband who suffers, her husband who is soon to become the victim of sir william’s invasions, lucrezia’ perception of the event is that it is she who has been deserted by sir william. 57. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 92. 58. ibid., 99-100. 59. hawthorn, virginia woolf ’s mrs dalloway, 12. woolf specifically marks out sir william’s “proportion” as the sister of “conversion”; her account of bradshaw’s marriage in is also singularly revealing: “conversion, fastidious goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will. for example, lady bradshaw. fifteen years ago she had gone under. it was nothing you could put your finger on; there had been no scene, no snap; only the slow sinking, water-logged, of her will into his” (100). lady bradshaw, then, has been converted into a mirror for sir william’s more powerful will. 60. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 92. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2022 perches upon the windowsill preparing to plunge: “he did not want to die. life was good. the sun hot. only human beings—what did they want?”61 on the one hand, septimus is baffled by human nature; yet in a deeper sense, he knows exactly what they want— they want to be upon him in inwardness-breaching conversion. and this, septimus will not allow; this, his consciousness, which has survived the war (he would not go mad), septimus will not permit to be ravaged. and so he leaps—leaps to give his life in defense of the integrity of his internal world. all of this clarissa feels instinctually when she hears of septimus’s suicide later that night at her party. having encountered sir william bradshaw only moments before, she instinctually identifies that he is “capable of some indescribable outrage—forcing your soul, that was it,” instinctually identifies the impact this breaching must have had on septimus’s psyche “they make life intolerable, men like that,” and instinctually identifies that his suicide was linked to the protection of his internality as she wonders, “had he plunged holding his treasure?”62 moreover, while she cannot be aware of the role lucrezia played in introducing the great proportionist into septimus’s soul, clarissa is instinctually led by septimus’s suicide to reflect on the role of the spouse in protecting or defending the integrity of their partner’s soul: “even now, quite often if richard had not been there reading the times, so that she could crouch like a bird and gradually revive, send roaring up that immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to stick, one thing with another, she must have perished.”63 if she had not had richard—if she had not had the unbreached life richard allows her to lead, clarissa reflects—yes, if she had not had richard, she must have perished. given the circumstances that lead her to conclude this—and given our recent observation of the effect on septimus of lucrezia’s mirror-making treatment of his sensitive soul—we must realize that equally accurate would have been the declaration that if she had had peter, she must have perished. indeed, the truly cautionary nature of woolf ’s tale—the answer to the doubt clarissa has felt lurking about her soul all day concerning her decision to reject peter and accept richard as well as the most dramatic element of the novel’s defense of internality—lies in the fact that septimus, clarissa’s double, has committed suicide as a result of relational practices that lucrezia and peter share. within the narrative, peter, like lucrezia, has launched multiple assaults on his object’s will, which he identifies as “the devilish part of her—this coldness, this woodenness, something very profound in her… an impenetrability.”64 in a more sinister twist, however, we see that while lucrezia seemed 61. ibid., 149. 62. ibid., 184-85. 63. ibid., 185, emphasis mine. 64. ibid., 60, emphasis mine. a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 19 unaware that she was doing battle with septimus’s core, peter recognizes that clarissa is mounting a resistance to his attempts at invasion as he describes that “he felt that he was grinding against something physically hard; she unyielding. she was like iron, like flint, rigid up the backbone.”65 peter knows that he is locked in a battle with clarissa’s core self and yet continues grinding.66 indeed, rather than respect her resistance, peter derives a profound frustration from clarissa’s struggle to maintain a discrete sense of self before his grinding, a frustration that escapes him in pockets of bitterness, as when he shifts the responsibility for his present aimless state to her for refusing to marry him and live in an eternal mirroring state with him, thinking “what she might have spared him, what she had reduced him to.”67 much as lucrezia reframed her marriage to propose herself as the victim of her husband’s selfishness, peter here proposes that by refusing to mirror him— by refusing to enlarge him to himself and choosing instead to protect her internality—clarissa has reduced and therefore wronged him. all of these similarities lead necessarily to the conclusion that, had she lived in close association with peter as septimus had with lucrezia, clarissa must necessarily have, like septimus, given way before the grinding and succumbed to the trampling of her individual internality that is encompassed in peter’s idea of being one. because peter would have insisted on being in clarissa’s mind even while filtering that mind through his projections of his own emotions onto it, he would inevitably have driven her further into her own internality, have left her prostrated, have pushed her to her own windowsill, from which she, too, would have leapt. woolf ’s message is clear: relationships in which one member seeks to breach the individual internality of the other in the name of interpersonal intimacy commits an outrage against that internality whose psychic and emotional impact can only be accurately communicated in terms of literal death. 65. ibid., 64. 66. that peter’s version of mirror-making is slightly less simplistic—slightly more malicious—than lucrezia’s version is further proven by the fact that, while lucrezia never intentionally seeks to inflict pain upon septimus, peter records that he told clarissa that she would be “the perfect hostess” precisely because “he would have done anything to hurt her after seeing her with dalloway” (62). peter’s willingness intentionally to inflict pain on clarissa would have made the process of resisting his intrusions a dangerous business indeed. 67. woolf, mrs. dalloway, 80, emphasis mine. in a room of one’s own, 35-36, woolf describes the emotions of the resisted mirror-maker as being “not merely the cry of wounded vanity” but also “a protest against some infringement of [their] power to believe in [them]sel[ves]”; as registering “far more pain and rousing far more anger” than typical criticisms or rejections. this description sounds remarkably like peter walsh’s disproportionate frustration with clarissa. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 20 spring 2022 no reading of mrs. dalloway could argue that richard and clarissa’s relationship is an idyllic one. indeed, the very fact that clarissa continues to fantasize of the past— and specifically to mull over her rejection of peter—suggests that she is not as happy, perhaps, as she could be in her married life. however, this fact should not be regarded as a detraction from or shortcoming of woolf ’s portrayal of interpersonal intimacy, but rather as a fundamental element of that portrayal—an essential aspect of woolf ’s argument that the achievement of the idyll in an intimate interpersonal connection is less essential than the preservation of internality in the midst of that connection; that the pursuit of idealistic oneness in interpersonal, and particularly romantic relationships has, historically, resulted in the destruction of the real individuals who participate in those relationships. indeed, in distinction to the literature of previous decades—which had glamorized the individuality-consuming practices of grand passions—woolf in mrs. dalloway resolutely resists the widespread cultural conviction that one must be locked in a “passion” to enjoy a rewarding relationship and instead proposes a distinctly modernist attitude towards passion, an attitude that rejects the desirability of any association that grounds itself within the abrogation of that which she as a modernist valued above all else—the unhampered freedom of the self-defining mind. while previous centuries had been happy to subordinate the needs of the mind to those of the heart within relationships, woolf defiantly elevates internality by suggesting that internality, rather than passion, is the basic element that must be preserved within interpersonal relationships in order to avoid the catastrophic destruction of the individual. while modern critics may be tempted to interpret clarissa dalloway’s story as one of passionless stagnation, woolf herself passionately defends individual autonomy by proclaiming that the element that is most essential to ensuring happiness and integrity of soul within interpersonal relationships is not oneness of mind—which so often results in the destruction of the sensitive mind— but rather distinction of mind: that is, the preservation of a mind of one’s own. bibliography batchelor, john. “mrs dalloway.” in virginia woolf: the major novels, edited by john a mind of one’s own: individual internality vs. interpersonal intimacy in mrs. dalloway middle tennessee state university 21 batchelor, 73-90. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press, 1991. briggs, julia. “‘what a lark! what a plunge!’: mrs. dalloway (1925).” in virginia woolf: an inner life. new york: harcourt, inc., 2005. fowler, julianne. “‘(for she was with him)’: lucrezia warren smith as witness and scribe in mrs. dalloway.” virginia woolf miscellany 91 (spring 2017): 29-31. ghasemi, parvin, samira sasani, and jafar abbaszadeh. “mrs. dalloway: consciousness, ‘social homeostasis’ and marxism.” forum for world literature studies 9, no. 4 (december 2017): 663-86. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/323251465_mrs_dalloway_consciousness_social_homeostasis_ and_marxism. greenblatt, stephen ed. “the twentieth century and after.” in the norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, 8th ed., 1827-50. new york: w. w. norton & company, 2006. hawthorn, jeremy. virginia woolf ’s mrs dalloway: a study in alienation. london: sussex university press, 1975. sheikh, sheheryar b. “the walls that emancipate: disambiguation of the ‘room’ in a room of one’s own.” journal of modern literature 42, no. 1 (fall 2018): 19-31. https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.42.1.02. taylor, nancy. “erasure of definition: androgyny in mrs. dalloway.” women’s studies 18 (1991): 367-77. https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.1991.9978843. van wert, kathryn. “the early life of septimus smith.” journal of modern literature 36, no. 1 (2012): 71-89. https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.36.1.71. wolfe, jesse. bloomsbury, modernism, and the reinvention of intimacy. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011. ---. “the sane woman in the attic: sexuality and self-authorship in ‘mrs. dalloway.’” modern fiction studies 51, no. 1 (spring 2005): 34-59. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/26286352. woolf, virginia. a room of one’s own. new york: harcourt, inc., 1981. ---. “modern fiction.” in the norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, 8th ed., edited by stephen greenblatt, 2087-92. new york: w. w. norton & company, 2006. ---. mrs. dalloway. new york: harcourt, inc., 1981. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 1 a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise percy verret abstract a survey of british poet john milton’s early and extensive initiation into the language(s) of scholarship highlights that, through his intensive immersion within it, the language of scholarship became fundamental to milton’s perception of reality, ultimately dictating and defining his notions of meritorious living. this preeminence of the language of scholarship within milton’s understanding of his world further led milton to perceive the language of scholarship as the only truly satisfactory basis upon and means through which to pursue meaningful human relationships. through a survey of a selection of milton’s shorter works—the prolusions, “on the death of a fair infant dying of a cough,” “ad patrem,” and “epitaphium damonis”—as well as a detailed examination of his multilingual friendship with charles diodati, this paper demonstrates that milton not only perceived a linkage between love and language, but actively employed each in the service of the other, leading to a richer understanding and experience of both. *winner of the dean’s distinguished essay award scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2021 while studying for his master’s degree at christ’s college, cambridge, john milton was summoned by his college to speak before their company—to regale them on the subject that bound them together: scholarship.1 no longer the shy prodigy who had stood before their number years earlier as an undergraduate student, the adult milton held forth grandly and at length before his audience, demonstrating the breadth of his learning by expositing knowledge’s bearing upon virtue, vocation, companionship, and civilization in a prolusion upon his chosen theme: whether learning makes men happier than does ignorance. while musing upon the offences of uncivilized conversation in the midst of his speech, milton let slip a curious admission of an unresolved point in his thought, conceding, “i have wondered whether those who had neither human mouths nor human powers of speech, could have any human feelings inside them.”2 milton did not answer this question directly in the passages that follow—although his subsequent elevation of unspeaking animals over the man who refuses to improve himself through knowledge’s offerings hints at his answer—nor did he build upon its theme as he advanced towards the crux of his argument. the statement simply stands, balking, in the middle of milton’s speech. some critics might argue that this statement does not deserve probing, that it was simply a throwaway comment—an aside—that strayed from milton’s purpose in his prolusion. to such an objection i might drily respond that milton, not unlike milton’s god, worked all things for a purpose in accordance with his divine plan—i might indeed argue that milton never “threw away” a word in his life. the very fact that milton decided to include this outburst of feeling in the final draft of his speech despite its providing no essential evidence in support of his argument demonstrates that, far from being disposable, the statement must be regarded as one of supreme importance by students of milton. its obtrusion into the argument indicates the extent to which milton must already have ruminated 1. opinion varies regarding the precise period in which milton delivered this prolusion, with gregory chaplin dubbing it milton’s 1632 “farewell to cambridge” and campbell and corns rejoining, “it is not possible to map milton’s prolusions onto the exercises required by the university.” despite this confusion, the piece is universally regarded as having figured into milton’s graduate requirements. for chaplin’s comments see gregory chaplin, “education,” in milton in context, ed. stephen b. dobranski (cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 2010), 281. for campbell and corns see gordon campbell and thomas n. corns, john milton: life, work, and thought, (oxford, u.k.: oxford university press, 2008), 36. 2. john milton, “prolusion vii,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 627. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 3 upon the line of inquiry it proposes and foreshadows its ongoing importance to milton and, therefore, necessarily, to us. indeed, a close examination of milton’s life and canon provides evidence that, within milton’s thought, the usage of elevated language and the ability to feel and to love were curiously intertwined. to milton, the elevated modes of expression found in the forms and language of scholarship served not merely as amusing or enjoyable activities in which to engage as a scholar, but rather formed a foundational template through which the deepest companionship might be achieved: companionship that, in its turn, might elevate the language through which it was formed. although milton would later formalize his conception of the universal priority of the language of scholarship through his writings, that perspective’s origins in miltonic thought date to the period of life in which one does not form opinions but is formed by others’ opinions: childhood. indeed, an examination of this childhood reveals that it was structured in terms of the very prioritization of scholarship that milton would later espouse, for he spent his earliest moments immersed in linguistic expression. this prioritization was initiated by milton’s father, john milton, sr., whose own high appreciation of art’s offerings, as well as his desire to equip his son to occupy a superior social station, led to his determination to provide milton with an education of the highest quality. this education began under the care of several private tutors, who introduced the young boy into a language-based program that not only inflamed his imagination but also rendered him proficient in the classical languages of latin and greek. upon witnessing his son’s prodigious aptitude for language, the elder milton encouraged his son to widen his language studies to the artistic european tongues of italy and france; thus, by the time he was a student at st. paul’s school, milton already spoke five languages.3 3. due to a scarcity of records, the timing of milton’s education—including when he began his studies at st. paul’s—is difficult to establish, as is forcibly evidenced by the fact that milton’s most revered biographers, including not only campbell and corns but also barbara lewalski, are unwilling to hazard any more definite opinion regarding his enrollment at st. paul’s than that it must have occurred between 1615 and 1621. the available evidence is sufficient, however, for campbell and corns to provide the following timeline of milton’s language acquisition: “milton’s education began at home. in ad patrem (‘to my father’) milton was later to express his gratitude that his father had paid for lessons in latin, greek, hebrew, french, and italian. it is likely that instruction in these languages began with private tutors; although milton went on to study the ancient languages at school, modern languages were not taught in schools, and it seems likely that all of milton’s instruction in french and italian (and possibly spanish) was given in the domestic setting.” (see campbell and corns, john milton, 16.) for barscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2021 at st. paul’s school, then widely considered one of the best schools in london, the young milton plunged into a humanist curriculum that, reminiscent of his earlier education, was largely language-based.4 here, milton spent hours translating classical latin, greek, and hebrew texts as well as writing original compositions imitating the classical texts he had studied in each language.5 among the impactful exercises he encountered during this period was a translation exercise commonly dubbed “circle” or “double” translation, which required the student first to translate a text into an alternative language or mode and then to translate the translation, either into a third language or mode, or back into the original.6 each of these three exercises elevated milton’s command over and estimation of language, honing his ability to pierce through to the most essential or dynamic aspects of the texts he processed in order to separate the syntactic from the semiotic and deal in raw meaning. these exercises provided him with a meta-perspective of the mode-aspect of language, a perspective that transformed the budding language-user into a mature language-wielder. milton himself thrived on these exercises and, indeed, excelled at them bara lewalski’s observations, see barbara lewalski, the life of john milton, (oxford, u.k.: blackwell publishing, 2003), 6. 4. gregory chaplin identifies st. paul’s school as being not only “one of the finest grammar schools in england” but also as being “at the forefront of humanist education in england.” (see chaplin, “education,” 282.) 5. of the purpose of these exercises, chaplin writes, “imitation was at the center of humanist education: students were taught to write with the eloquence of cicero or virgil through the careful study and emulation of their works” while lewalski notes that milton himself became skillful in imitating specific models in different genres— “cicero for letters and orations, ovid and propertius for elegiac verse, verse letters and brief narratives, and virgil for other poetic styles and genres.” (see chaplin, “education,” 287 and lewalski, the life of john milton, 10.) 6. the virtues of “circle” translation are eloquently expounded by linguist john hale: “the value of the ‘circle’ method is that where words and ornaments are bound to be left behind, the thought is seized, ready to be expressed in whatever tongue. paradoxically, then, so verbal an exercise trains one in skills of thought, as much as skills of words.” (see john hale, milton’s languages: the impact of multilingualism on style (cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 1997), 10.) more fundamentally, estelle haan notes of this era’s emphasis on translation that “‘translations’ into and out of a variety of languages formed a central part of the core educational system of the day.” (see estelle haan, “the ‘adorning of my native tongue’: latin poetry and linguistic metamorphosis,” in the oxford handbook of milton, ed. nicholas mcdowell and nigel smith (oxford, u. k.: oxford university press, 2009), 55.) for an extensive discussion of the types of translations milton would have practiced in school and their effect on milton’s writings, see either hale or haan. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 5 from an early age.7 his talent at language, clearly rooted in natural proclivity, exploded to genius through the facilitation of his studies. given his intrinsic affinity for the ideals and modes of scholarship, it is unsurprising that the immersion of his mind in scholarship during its formative years served to mold milton’s mind, and thus his perception of and expressions regarding reality, wholly in terms of those ideals and modes. any analysis of milton’s prescriptions for superior living must root itself in a recognition of the thoroughness with which scholarly motions had infiltrated his perception of day-to-day activities by prescribing to him what was normal, what was preferable, or how one might go about accomplishing anything. indeed, both milton’s own professions and the mute testimony of his life demonstrate his overweening admiration of and delight in scholarship. such professions abound in milton’s canon, but we need look no further than the text of the very prolusion in which we began our study to find milton joyously singing the praises of scholarship: without learning, the mind is quite sterile and unhappy, and amounts to nothing. for who can rightly observe and consider the ideas of things human and divine, about which he can know almost nothing, unless his spirit has been enriched and cultivated by learning and discipline? so the man who knows nothing of the liberal arts seems to be cut off from all access to the happy life.8 in succeeding decades, milton would masterfully develop his theories of knowledge’s merits through his tracts of education and areopagitica. however, it is his early formulations on the subject with which we are concerned, and thus we turn to his prolusions’ ample provisions for our study. in the same passage as that quoted, milton removes any possible doubt of his high conception of the scholarly life’s surpassing superiorities by anchoring that life squarely to divinity itself: “contemplation is by almost universal consent the only means whereby the mind can… concentrate its powers for the unbelievable delight of participating in the life of the immortal gods.”9 this obliquely platonic and boethian statement of sentiment reinforces his more christianized, but otherwise corresponding declaration in a previous prolusion regarding his own ongoing intent to pursue “the 7. haan highlights the excellence of milton’s early efforts both in translation and imitation, while in her biography lewalski describes milton’s accounts of his early study as ultimately emitting “the image of a delighted child enthralled by learning and literature.” (see haan, “the adorning,” 58 and lewalski, the life of milton, 6.) 8. milton, “prolusion vii,” 623. 9. ibid. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2021 scholarly leisure which is the kind of life that i believe that the souls in heaven enjoy.”10 together these statements demonstrate that, to milton, scholarship was next to—and possibly overlapped with—godliness. the extreme antecedence of scholarship in milton’s mind manifests itself elsewhere in the prolusions, in which we see milton evaluating the merits even of non-scholarly activities through scholarship’s scrupulous lens. the most memorable of these evaluations occurs in “prolusion vi,” where milton proclaims, “no one can jest gracefully and handsomely unless he has first learned how to handle serious business” to his fellow schoolmates.11 even joking, milton would have us believe, requires the reasoned pace of scholarship to be rightly performed. given this preeminence of the language of scholarship in his theoretical and pragmatic perception of reality, it comes as little shock to find that, as milton began to cast about himself for a means to interact meaningfully with other humans, he once again adopted the forms of scholarship as his template. development of one’s mind to its use of reason was the primary means by which an individual might achieve personal superiority; ergo, a bonding of minds through scholarly forms was the primary means by which to achieve the highest forms of interpersonal concourse. milton himself confirms this, once again, in “prolusion vii,” in which he dramatically proclaims, “what is more pleasant—what can be imagined more delightful than the talks of learned and serious men together... but stupid talk or what goes on among those who encourage one another in extravagance and debauchery, is the friendship of ignorance, or, rather, it is ignorance of what friendship is.”12 his dependence upon learned language for his own sense of identity led milton to idealize those elements of a relationship that were based upon the language of scholarship and could therefore be achieved through bonding over shared valuation of reason and knowledge. as we have already noted, milton completed “prolusion vii,” with its grand theories of knowledge and human companionship, as he was nearing the completion of his master’s degree. by this juncture, milton had earned the leisure to theorize grandly on the cardinal themes debated by classical authors; however, a closer examination of milton’s young years reveals that these later abstractions on human feeling were forged through a rather more intense search for companionship in which milton not only utilized but actively relied upon the scholarly 10. john milton, “prolusion vi,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 613. 11. milton, “prolusion vi,” 617. 12. milton, “prolusion vii,” 625, emphasis added. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 7 language with which he was so familiar. among the earliest of milton’s extant texts is a piece that demonstrates just such a reliance—the unusual and somewhat mystifying poem, “on the death of a fair infant dying of a cough,” commonly held to have been written by milton when he was seventeen. in this poem, milton memorializes the recently-deceased daughter of his sister, anne, by embedding the child in a series of classical images before ultimately offering a consolation on her loss to his sister. the language of this piece is striking in its grandeur, a grandeur that impresses the reader as being contextually discordant given the non-scholarly status of its recipient. in milton’s reimagining of the loss, the infant’s illness is personified as ovid’s northeast wind, aquilo, her death compared to apollo’s accidental slaying of his beloved hyacinth, and her person itself addressed as a figure of ancient mythology, as in the following stanza in which milton apostrophizes the infant directly: wert thou some star which from the ruin’d roof of shak’t olympus by mischance didst fall; which careful jove in nature’s true behoof took up, and in fit place did reinstall?13 given the context of this poem, its tone feels almost artificial. if milton’s purpose in penning the piece were simply to console his sister, he might easily—and more effectively—have achieved this end by writing a letter couched in simple tones that she would more readily understand. indeed, milton himself seems, hazily, to recognize the misdirection of his poem given its audience, and at its end he remodulates that tone to address his sister not as a fabled goddess of old, but as “the mother of so sweet a child” in a stanza that includes no classical references but only straightforward—if straitlaced—christian consolation.14 a second text that merits examination in this survey of milton’s searching after companionship is “ad patrem,” a poem-letter milton wrote to his father approximately twelve years after penning “on the death of a fair infant” to his sister. although the poem is written in the high classical tongue of latin and contains an equal if not greater number of allusions to classical subjects as “on the death of a fair infant,” its integration of those allusions into the overarching theme of the letter is much more sophisticated. indeed, milton utilizes these al13. john milton, “on the death of a fair infant dying of a cough,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 36, lines 43-46. 14. milton, “fair infant,” 37, line 71. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2021 lusions not simply to decorate or even to elevate his missal, but rather to advance the theme of that missal—the consolidation of his relationship with his father. in a series of classical images, milton reframes and reinforces their relationship by positing language itself as the binding or fundamental element in his relationship with his musician-father. he accomplishes this by homogenizing their separate languages—poetry and music—into the single, united language of song, parading a series of classical figures in whom these arts are united—the ministrants of the gods, the priest-bard or vates, the muses, and, lastly, the god phoebus—to reinforce this union not only of poetry and music, but of father and son: now, since it is my lot to have been born a poet, why does it seem strange to you that we, who are so closely united by blood, should pursue sister arts and kindred interests? phoebus himself, wishing to part himself between us too, gave some gifts to me and others to my father; and, father and son, we share the possession of the divided god.15 where milton failed to adapt his classicism to his audience in “on the death of a fair infant,” here he achieves a far more considerable degree of success.16 although we have no extant evidence of a response from his father, the subtle attendance to the details of their relationship evident throughout the verse-letter makes it impossible that the elder milton’s response could have been any other than one of appreciation, and possibly admiration, for the skill with which his son had plied his high artistic language to create a piece that so thoroughly reflected and celebrated their relationship. milton’s employment of elevated scholarly language in his correspondence was not wholly original, as classical authors had emphasized the priority of elevated discourse in the interactions between scholars long before milton attached himself to the discussion.17 however, milton’s personal interpretation 15. john milton, “ad patrem,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 84. 16. m. n. k. mander describes this verse-letter as “a brilliant apologia pro arte sua, in itself witness to his poetic ability.” for a full exploration of milton’s adept conflation of poetry and music and the effect of his early exposure to music on his poetry see m. n. k. mander “the ‘epistola ad patrem’: milton’s apology for poetry,” milton quarterly 23, no. 4 (1989): 159. 17. gregory chaplin provides a fascinating overview of classical views of elevated friendships (see gregory chaplin, “one flesh, one heart, one soul’: renaissance friendship and miltonic marriage,” modern philology 99, no. 2 (2001): 267-69) while cedric b. brown embarks upon an examination of specific instances of language offerings within those elevated friendships (see cedric b. brown, “letters, verse letters, and gift-texts,” in milton in context, ed. stephen b. dobranski (cambridge, u.k.: cambridge a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 9 of that emphasis, as manifested in the two texts just examined, feature original characteristics that sharply differentiate his version from the archetypal one. the most striking of these characteristics revolves around the question of audience. whereas classical tradition dictated only that scholars employ their high language in interaction with their intellectual cohorts, milton did not reserve elevated language for his fellow scholars; on the contrary, as in his offerings to his father and sister, we see him attempting to universalize this language as a means of elevating not only his scholarly relationships, but also the non-scholarly relationships he most valued. when reexamined in light of this discovery, both of the two pieces just reviewed—but particularly “on the death of a fair infant”—assume new significance within milton’s canon and further display new features to our probing eyes. indeed, when approached through the lens we have just been establishing, the ornamental language of “fair infant,” so baffling when read solely as an attempt at consolation, becomes comprehensible as an exercise in elevation. in writing this poem on the subject of his niece’s death to gift to his sister, milton was attempting not only to console his sister but also to communicate the deep regard in which he held both his sister and his niece, an effect he believed he could only accomplish through elevated language. the discordance of the attempt fell less to milton’s motives and more to his immaturity—to his lack of experience in modulating his pen to establish a common language with his audience. likewise, “ad patrem,” already an admirable piece that is far better modulated than “fair infant” to the personal audience for whom it is intended, shines brighter through this lens. while milton’s attentiveness to rhetorical positioning within this poem is admirable through any reading, the intensity of his desire to establish a common language—and the integrity of his belief that muse-inspired song might form that language—becomes all the more compelling in light of this new interpretive position. thus, we begin to see that the young milton, as he struggled toward adulthood, used language as a reaching out point, a means of feeling about for relationships and establishing rapport of mind with those he desired to engage. moreover, by extending the language of scholarship to his personal relationships, milton proved how unusually high his estimation of that language’s value towered. to employ this language in scholarly interactions was to involve oneself in a longstanding tradition—to play at a clever game and possibly even to engage in university press, 2010), 35-45.) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2021 self-aggrandizing posturing. to employ that language in personal relationships, however, evidenced an inordinate trust in the language itself, and further a linkage of it not only to cerebral activities, but also to deep feelings and emotions. thus, we see that the language of scholarship, holding as it did profound meaning to milton, had become integral to milton’s attempts to establish meaning in his personal relationships; high language and deep feeling had quietly conjoined in milton’s mind. the most dramatic instance, of course, of milton employing heightened academic language to elevate a valued relationship may be found in his decades-long correspondence with his closest friend and fellow schoolmate, charles diodati. indeed, it was likely the success of his early scholarly missives to diodati that emboldened milton to extend a similar offering to his sister, and it was certainly through his correspondence with diodati that milton cultivated the adaptive skill so boldly on display in “ad patrem.” the friendship between diodati and milton commenced while both lads were students at st. paul’s school where, together, they studied the language-offerings of scholarship.18 although several months younger than milton, diodati moved through the program more swiftly, and his advancement to university prior to milton’s completion at st. paul’s precipitated the intermittent correspondence that would prove the basis for and chief example of milton’s treasured conceptions of companionate love.19 while this love was undoubtedly rooted in a mutual enjoyment of the other’s personality, it was equally predicated upon their possession of and delight in the language of scholarship. although not as technically proficient as his more meticulous friend, diodati was a polyglot of no mean ability and he, like milton, was fluent in latin and greek.20 moreover, their participation in the same scholastic program at st. paul’s school ensured that their knowledge of fundamental texts, both classical and modern, would have been very similar if not almost identical. thus, in discovering diodati, milton discovered a person in whom a responsive spirit was wed not only to a ready wit, but also to a love of the same language that milton himself valued. perhaps more than any other human that milton would ever meet, diodati spoke milton’s language, and their friendship 18. campbell and corns, john milton, 21. 19. chaplin, “education,” 287. 20. campbell and corns drily remark of diodati’s two extant letters to milton that, “the greek… is unambitious and not perfect, and in one of the letters there is a marginal correction in what seems to be milton’s hand.” (see campbell and corns, john milton, 31.) a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 11 bound tightly upon that shared language, expanding to heights neither could have achieved singly through an exchange of intellect that was also an encrypted language of love. a full sense of the vivacity, the urbanity, and the jubilance at play in this exchange cannot be provided in so short a space as we have here. cedric c. brown, a scholar who has plunged the exchanges’ depths in several lengthy analyses, summatively describes the correspondence as one in which “mastery of ovidian elegiac style sits easily with the role-play and the manner of a familiar letter to a friend.”21 in their affectionate missals, the men write of themselves, of each other, of meeting together and of the pleasure they anticipate those meetings will entail; equally as often, however, their writing tends towards the scholastic subjects and forms that bound them together. their exchanges are often witty, often artistic, often dramatic, but always calculated towards the engagement of their scholastic selves. occasionally this emphasis manifests through a discussion of their studies, as when milton, in his last extant letter to diodati, grandiosely describes his recent absorption of greek and italian history before begging diodati to send him a history of genoa.22 milton even makes cambridge itself the subject of a witty elegy in which he playfully muses upon the nature of exile and complains of the university city’s inelegance.23 the majority of their correspondence, however, concerns itself with writing, both as a subject and as a mode. indeed, the two men seem fully to have recognized the rare advantages of their friendship as a platform for composition, and they capitalized on the opportunity it provided them to air their full linguistic capabilities before their most “fit” possible audience. as cedric brown further proclaims in his study of their textual exchanges, “in exercising their linguis21. cedric c. brown, “john milton and charles diodati: reading the textual exchanges of friends,” in young milton, ed. edward jones (oxford, u.k.: oxford university press, 2013), 115. 22. john milton to charles diodati, september 23, 1637, in milton’s familiar letters, trans. john hall (philadelphia: e. littell, 1829), 33-34. 23. in “elegia prima” milton makes light of his temporary “exile” from cambridge, proclaiming, “at present i feel no concern about returning to the sedgy cam and i am troubled by no nostalgia for my forbidden quarters there. the bare fields, so niggardly of pleasant shade, have no charm for me. how wretchedly suited that place is to the worshippers of phoebus!” after thus jibing at the city’s environs, he then offers a contrasting view of his hometown and current seat, london, where he professes to derive deep pleasure from the great wealth of art, theater, and beauty that grace her streets. (see john milton, “elegia prima,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 8.) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2021 tic skills, the two young students often wrote in verse, thus raising the level of difficulty in congenial competition.”24 the mere fact that they could write to one another in this vein and be understood amplified their pleasure in the writing and inspired them to an exchange of pieces that sprawled across the vales of latin, greek, and italian. the men wrote letters, verse-letters, elegies, and sonnets to one another, always expecting—and sometimes soliciting—better in return. perhaps the best example of this dynamic exchange may be found in “elegia sexta,” a latin elegy milton wrote to diodati in 1630. in his letter of the previous month, diodati had evidently sent through a number of his own poems together with a complaint regarding the mirthful occasions that had distracted his pen from its occupation and a request that milton write a song to him in return. what he received in reply was a latin elegy written in a tone of jocular but prolusion-like pugilism upon the question of his poetic impotence. with the assured ease characteristic of their correspondence, milton flatly contradicts diodati’s position that merry-making is the enemy of poetry-making, remarking, “but why do you complain that poetry is a fugitive from wine and feasting? song loves bacchus and bacchus loves songs.”25 he then proceeds to marshal a litany of classical evidence to controvert diodati’s claims and, eventually, to generously praise his friend’s poetry by naming the gods as the source of his inspiration: “in your single self the favor of bacchus, apollo, and ceres is united. no wonder, then, if the three gods by their combined potency should have brought forth such sweet songs through you!”26 milton’s wholesale lack of explanation of his prolusion-elegy signals that this type of extravagance was common in their friendship—was appreciated and possibly even anticipated. nor does the significance of “elegia sexta” as an example of the diodati-milton exchange end here. in this letter that is itself an act of poetry, poetry itself is enthroned as the regal theme. this theme manifests both in the abstract as milton’s pen cavorts betwixt the gods of poetry, the poetic temperament, and the lifestyle of the poet with playful panache, as well as in the specific when milton writes revealingly of the poetic endeavors on which he has been engaged—the verses he has been stocking up for diodati’s pleasure and evaluation. indeed, brown proclaims of this poem that, “elegy 6 shows milton’s practice of submitting poems for diodati’s comment,” a practice he observes “became very import24. brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 109. 25. john milton, “elegia sexta,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 50-51. 26. milton “elegia sexta,” 51. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 13 ant” in their developing relationship.27 in this elegy alone, milton hints definitely at his english ode “on the morning of christ’s nativity” and his italian sonnet sequence, the fourth of which was explicitly addressed to diodati. milton clearly valued diodati’s engagement with his work, just as diodati sought milton’s; this ability to act as a meaningful audience for one another was wholly rooted in their shared languages and was thus another means by which language advanced their friendship. among the metaphorical languages the men shared was undoubtedly numbered that disseminated by renaissance friendship, which was, itself, based on classical conceptions of male friendships transmuted into sixteenthand seventeenthcentury forms. this ideal of friendship, gregory chaplin explains, held that “a friendship between two men, if practiced properly, was the perfect human relationship,” one that was characterized by an “absolute equality and [an] intellectual and spiritual intimacy.”28 this description sounds very like the friendship between diodati and milton, a perspective chaplin presses as not only his own but also as milton’s, claiming, “milton saw his intimacy with diodati in this light: they were partners on a divinely inspired quest toward virtue and self-perfection.”29 indeed, milton himself frames their friendship as one that is compulsive to him on this very basis of questing after perfection when he posits that his love for diodati wells up involuntarily in him, explaining, “whenever i find any one who despises the opinions of the vulgar, in their erroneous estimation of things, and dares to judge, and speak, and be that which the highest wisdom has in every age taught to be best, impelled by some necessity, i join myself to him.”30 in diodati, milton found a man sculpted by application to scholarship, schooled in wisdom and uprightness, in pursuit of highest beauty; their language-mediated relationship was predicated upon and involved their usage of language as a sculpting tool, deliberately deployed to improve the inner man. in writing within the vein of this archetypal relationship, the men adhered to its ideals while improving brilliantly upon them in exchanges that the multilingual miltonist john hale describes as characterized, particularly on milton’s part, by “ovidian flourish[es].”31 participation in the renaissance friend27. brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 114. 28. chaplin, “one flesh, one heart,” 267, 269. 29. ibid, 276. 30. milton to diodati, 31-32. 31. hale, milton’s languages, 35. in this passage, hale embarks upon an intensive examination of ovidian traits in milton’s canon. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2021 ship tradition involved a number of tropes including intellectual banter, which dominates their writing, and role playing, which appears as both milton and diodati cast milton as a more restrained, disciplined scholar and diodati as the more vivacious, spontaneous spirit.32 indeed, portions of their communications rise to extreme levels of playfulness such that they might even be regarded as examples of milton’s toffish theory that intellectualism is an ineludible prerequisite for jest. the men posture and tease, proclaim and demur, and engage in the sorts of reversals and ironies that only a close friend could appreciate, as when milton responds to diodati’s request for a song by complaining “but why does your muse provoke mine, instead of permitting her to seek the obscurity that she craves?” before proceeding to catalogue the many poems that his muse has stored up for diodati’s at the end of his letter.33 for his part, diodati cajoles milton over his unwavering application to his books and playfully tempts him to a day of mirthful relaxation, which he justifies by declaring it will allow them to “feast on one another’s philosophical and well-bred words.”34 this exchange highlights the easy intellectualism the two enjoyed through their mutual knowledge of one another, a knowledge that allows them to anticipate the thoughts of the other, divulge their plans for future writings, and experiment with their friendship through experiments in word-play across their many gift-texts. the men partake in the forms of friendships provided them by tradition but improve upon them by insistently elevating both the traditions and themselves while striving towards a more soulish connection through the tongue of scholarship. tragically, that soulish connection was snapped after nearly twenty years of careful cultivation when diodati died in 1638 while milton was engaged upon his first and only tour of the european continent.35 upon his return to england, milton’s grief, though inexpressible, found expression in a final gift-act to diodati—epitaphium damonis. in this text, milton memorializes diodati’s memory through the grief-stricken tongue of the shepherd thyrsis, who mourns the loss 32. brown discusses these tropes—and milton and diodati’s participation in them—in his examination of their textual exchange, noting particularly the way in which the codes of renaissance friendship “govern the discourse” of milton and diodati’s correspondence. he further identifies diodati’s early letters to milton and milton’s september 1637 letter to diodati as significant examples of their ritual role-play. (see brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 109, 113.) 33. milton, “elegia sexta,” 50. 34. this translation of a line from diodati’s earliest greek letter to milton appears to be brown’s own. (see brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 111.) 35. campbell and corns, john milton, 135. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 15 of his closest companion, damon, in a series of shattered wails. in his evaluation of epitaphium damonis, raymond mackenzie observes that thyrsis—and possibly milton himself as represented by thyrsis—seems to have “slipped into despair that is a kind of living death,” further asserting that we see a oneness with his companion in the way that thyrsis seems to have suffered a death blow of his own; an erasure of his will to live.36 thyrsis’s pain is so profound, so acute, that, rather than enticing its onlookers to join his lamentations in the role of mourners, instead rouses in those onlookers an astonishment that causes them to gape in wonder as thyrsis’s voice rises to an acme of anguish over his singular loss of his singular friend: but what at last is to become of me? what faithful companion will stay by my side as you always did when the cold was cruel and the frost thick on the ground, and when the herbs were dying of thirst under a consuming sun… who now is to beguile my days with conversation and song? go home unfed, for your master has no time for you, my lambs. to whom shall i confide my heart? who will teach me to alleviate my mordant cares and shorten the long night with delightful conversation while the ripe pear simmers before the grateful fire?37 this passage reveals milton expending the fever of his grief in the full strength of his lyrical eloquence. milton’s pain is palpable, and it pervades even the most inconsequential aspects of his life. his words are haunting in their plaintiveness— and in their simplicity. the poem is, simply, a paean of pain. a closer examination of the poem, however, reveals that pain is not the only presence channeled in its body; in its lines we see not only the visage of grief, but also the resurgence of the hallmark themes of milton and diodati’s singular relationship. the intellectual aspect of their relationship surfaces in milton’s clamor for the one who would “teach” him; their easy comradery lurks in his moan for beguiling “conversation and song.” the playful linguistic role-play that had proven such a delight in their correspondence reemerges in milton’s almost bitter reflection on the inefficacy to his dead friend of the language-roles they had mutually prized, a reflection that is expressed through a conditional clause that is actually, elementally, a stark expression of doubt—a desperate query to the gods as to—“if there be any profit 36. raymond n. mackenzie, “rethinking rhyme, signifying friendship: milton’s lycidas and epitaphium damonis,” modern philology 106, no. 3 (2009): 548. 37. john milton, “epitaphium damonis,” in john milton complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957), 133. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2021 in having cultivated the ancient faith and piety and the arts of pallas athene, and in having possessed a comrade who was a poet.”38 the pain of the poet’s loss has caused him to doubt the schema on which his identity-role is based, and thyrsis here grapples not only with the death of his friend, but also with the assault that death has launched upon his understanding of universal justice—his belief that those who through application, deprivation, and discipline pursue the arts of pallas athene will receive any reward of the gods for their agonizing self-consecration. through these grapplings with the gods, milton engages in a role-play that is more than play and embarks on a search for meaning that yields a tortured yet clear definition of role: thyrsis—milton—is not simply a friend mourning a friend; he is a poet mourning a poet. near the conclusion of the piece, a subtler theme from their correspondence emerges when milton embarks upon a catalogue of the subjects to which he intends to address his pen as he attempts to function in the wake of his grief.39 upon an initial reading, this section of the text jars upon the inward ear, erupting forcibly as it does from a rubble of grief and focusing perversely on milton alone rather than on milton’s love for or loss of diodati. however, when the piece is read in light of the men’s previous correspondence, we recognize in this passage not a burst of ego on milton’s part but rather a continuation of the men’s treasured habit of sharing their writing with one another. this passage, though it hardly mentions diodati, is the deepest possible description of him, for this passage casts him finally and forever as milton’s confidence-receiver, the perfect audience of a poet’s muse. the final manner in which the piece evidences the themes of milton and diodati’s scholarly love for one another is in its very essence—in its status as a high classic pastoral elegy written in latin and in its transmutation of the men themselves into greek figures within a classical landscape. as such, epitaphium damonis stands as the final offering in a lofty chain of gift-texts, an offering that is not only an eternal memorialization of the themes that had both constructed and been constructed by that relationship—an ultimate summation of the singular elements of their friendship—but also the greatest, most sophisticated 38. milton, “epitaphium damonis,” 133. 39. his catalogue proceeds thus: “i, for my part, am resolved to tell the story of the trojan ships in the rutupian sea and of the ancient kingdom of inogene, the daughter of pandrasus, and of the chiefs, brennus and arviragus, and of old belinus, and of the armorican settlers who came at last under british law. then i shall tell of igraine pregnant with arthur by fatal deception, the counterfeiting of gorlois’ features and arms by merlin’s treachery.” (see milton, “epitaphium damonis,” 137.) a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 17 text that this friendship produced. as that summation of the highest elements of the highest friendship milton ever achieved, epitaphium damonis stands as an unparalleled testimony of the many ways in which milton imagined language as a means of elevating, commemorating, and sculpting relationships. moreover, as that testimony, epitaphium damonis provides us with incomparable insight into milton’s conception of the relationship between scholarly language and ideal companionship, for in producing a piece that so thoroughly captured their friendship, milton shed light on the salient themes of that friendship—themes that, when examined, reveal a startling reversal. heretofore in this essay, we have clearly established that milton utilized languages to elevate and commemorate his relationships and have further demonstrated that his conception of an ideal relationship was one in which the measured languages of scholarship reigned supreme. this conception resulted in his employment of a variety of language practices to reinforce and magnify those relationships, practices that we see captured ineffably in epitaphium damonis. however, a closer examination of the hallmarks of miltonic friendship unmasks a further dimension to its integration of elevated language and feeling. this examination reveals that, within its system, friendship was not only elevated by but also itself serviced language. the relationship between elevating scholarly language and the ideal companionate relationship was not one in which only one member benefited; just as surely as the usage of scholarly language elevated the ideal friendship, so too the ideal friendship was one whose mechanics acted as a catalyst to developing the skilled usage of that scholarly language. a brief recapitulation of the themes of milton’s friendship with diodati serves to reinforce this reversal. brown’s observation that “in exercising their linguistic skills, the two young students often wrote in verse, thus raising the level of difficulty in congenial competition,” earlier employed to demonstrate the enthusiasm diodati and milton felt upon finding a fit partner who spoke the language prerequisite to appreciating those texts, now also highlights the manner in which the relationship drove each man to produce better, more finely spun instances of scholarly work.40 not only this, but the relationship between the students also elevated the materials they could both write and have understood, a phenomena whose rarity is proven by milton’s unavailing attempts to establish audience with his sister and father. indeed, the effect of possessing perpetual audience with diodati cannot 40. brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 109. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2021 be overstated when evaluating milton’s productions of this time, for the knowledge that diodati stood and waited for his texts was clearly a source of pleasure and inspiration for milton.41 an author can feel almost no greater spur to writing than the knowledge that an eager, intelligent reader awaits one’s offering, and, just as the chief desire of friendship is to be known and valued upon the basis of intimate knowledge, the chief desire of authorship is to find an audience who will read one’s work and both know and value what it is that one has read. in diodati, these roles of friend and audience merged seamlessly, providing milton with an impetus to write. in this sense, diodati, as the fit reader, can have figured second only to the inspiration—or indeed have performed the role—of milton’s muse. that diodati was that fit reader-friend for milton is proven over and again not only by the texts addressed to him, but also by the many texts milton eagerly shared and spoke of sharing with him. perhaps the most blatant example of the latter—and of diodati’s perpetual reader-presence in milton’s mind—is milton’s italian sonnet sequence which, though ostensibly written for an italian woman, gives textual evidence of having been written with the multilingual diodati in view as its fittest audience.42 progressing further into the theme of multilingual exchange, we find that this shared multilingualism itself furnished significant scope to the friendship’s efficacy as a sculpting tool for advancing each man’s practice of language. as john hale has explained in his inimitable work milton’s languages, scholars of the seventeenth century inherited a centuries-long struggle between the various classical and modern languages, each of which carried particular cultural and classist connotations and each of which was favored within particular genres of writ41. milton himself explicitly describes his delight in his audience in his earliest preserved missive to diodati: “there is great delight, believe me, in the fact that remote regions have bred a heart that is so loving and a head so devoted to me, that i have a claim for a charming comrade upon a distant land, which is willing soon to return him to me at my bidding.” see milton, “elegia prima,” 7. 42. in his examination of the sequence, john hale identifies diodati as a primary audience of these poems while brown proposes him as their most quintessential reader: “who better to relish the playful change than half-italian charles? the confession about neglecting religious reading also fits, both friends having been thought of for the ministry. so does the bold literary exploration: diodati, friend of multiculturalism, stands out from the skeptical, more insular others. there may be self-reflexive revelation in the series, and diodati, from the community that probably supported milton’s italian studies when he was immersing himself in italian sonnets, may be the supportive reader best placed to understand.” (see brown, “john milton and charles diodati, 116.) for hale’s evaluation of the sequence’s linguistic intricacies, see hale, milton’s languages, 49. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 19 ing.43 to write in any given language, therefore, was not simply to write in that language, but rather to participate in a complex semiotic system; one occupied a different language-role, exuded a different author-persona when one wrote in one of the several languages one could command. an author’s decision regarding which language to employ in any given piece of prose, poetry, or correspondence, therefore, both reflected his sense of and determined his position within the scene of letters.44 language choice was as much an act of identity construction as one of textual construction. clearly, then, experimenting with and choosing language was a significant endeavor for the would-be author and, indeed, was linked to determining the vocational office of that author. it is at this juncture that the diodati-milton friendship once again emerges as inimitable, for the fact that the two men shared at least four languages (english, greek, latin, and italian) meant that, in addition to engaging in role play as a means for cementing their renaissance friendship, the men were also able to use their friendship as a scene for engaging in role-play of an authorial nature. with diodati, milton was able to explore multiple presentations of himself—to be known in many faces—and he utilized their friendship as a means to engage in self-constructionist toying with language-mediated roles. moreover, the fact that diodati spoke many of the languages that milton knew meant that the friendship provided milton with the rare opportunity of having his many-languaged offerings evaluated by a single ear, one that could develop familiarity with his strengths and weaknesses across languages. so successful was this role-playing that, by the time milton wrote his last text to diodati, it had enabled milton to make his decision regarding his vocational future: his pipe would 43. in the introductory chapter to his scintillating examination of milton’s multilingualism, hale provides a miniscule history of various languages’ battle for dominance in the linguistic hierarchy of european scholasticism dating from the year 1300 to milton’s present. unsurprisingly, latin often held sway in this milieu although, hale notes, by the seventeenth century french was favored by many cultures in the realm of poetry and england had adopted its own vernacular for legal and ecclesiastical matters. (see hale, milton’s languages, 4.) 44. hale remarks of milton’s own participation within this milieu that, “languages grant access for their reader to intellectual and spiritual diversity. milton seized his chances, in an all-round way worthy of humanist aspiration. languages in use release the speaker or writer into new roles, and a modified self. milton relished this release, at times for its own sake, often later to play a series of humanist roles. surveying the number of his languages and of the genres in which he wrote (and not forgetting subgenres like satire and insult within his major work), i infer that he relished the entering by his languages into as many personae as possible. they show he shared the renaissance eagerness for versatility.” (see hale, milton’s languages, 15.) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 20 spring 2021 sound forth, he declared, “a british theme to [its] native muses.”45 even this declaration of the future is, in itself, an example of how the relationship serviced the language. to bestow the confidence of one’s plans for future attempts at language is surely one of the highest expressions of friendship an author can bestow, but just as certainly it is a means of hammering out—of testing and trying—those plans. declaring the nature of his writings, both real and imagined, to diodati as he does in elegia sexta and epitaphium damonis enabled milton to feel what it was to be the author of those texts and thus to make decisions about that authorship. the men’s divulgence of language-aspirations to one another not only ratified their sense of friendship but also, in much the same way that their playful competitiveness led them to produce better texts, inspired them to aspire to greater linguistic heights. thus in his last extant letter to diodati, milton may confide, “do you ask what i am thinking of ?—so may providence protect me—of immortality! what am i doing? ‘i am pluming,’ and meditate a flight,” and, through writing it, make it something nearer reality.46 although the manner in which each of these employments of their friendship served to improve milton and diodati’s language practices is individually evident, it is only as we collect those practices together that we begin to grasp how forcefully they demonstrate the manner in which milton and diodati utilized tropes within their friendship to improve their language. this discovery enables us to perceive the underlying theme of those practices—the final means by which the friendship advanced each’s language. in reading diodati’s desire that the men might “feast on one another’s philosophical and well-bred words” and in witnessing milton’s proclamation of his love for diodati as proceeding compulsively from his love of truth’s beauties, we realize that not simply the practices of the friendship but also the friendship itself—the bond of love between the men—serviced their pursuit of elevated language.47 the knowledge of the other— each’s simple existence as a vessel of virtue, language, and beauty—served itself as a wellspring of inspiration; the communion of their spirits fueled each man’s creative urge—their ability to conceive and construct linguistic beauty. their love for one another was linked to a sharp hunger for intellectual, generative creativity, which they found in the other’s rejuvenating philosophical companionship. through this simple linkage between two souls joined in worship of beauty, those 45. milton, “epitaphium damonis,” 137. 46. milton to diodati, 33. 47. diodati translated in brown, “john milton and charles diodati,” 111. for milton’s professions see milton to diodati, 32 a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 21 souls might dwell within an elevated plane of scholarship occupied only by themselves—each other the dominant figure, their muses interlinked.48 thus, the loss of diodati was not simply the loss of a friend, but the wreckage of a scene of creation, an intellectual eden. we see the effects of this blow to milton’s creative landscape in epitaphium damonis, in which he declares, “i do not know what grand song my pipe was sounding—it is now eleven nights and a day—perhaps i was setting my lips to new pipes, but their fastenings snapped and they fell asunder and could carry the grave no further.”49 these lines bespeak not merely soulish sadness but linguistic disorientation. the loss of the speaker’s friend has interrupted his song; with the disappearance of his coparticipant in the creative endeavour, his tune also has vanished.50 in this, his ideal friendship, milton transformed that friendship into nothing less than an exalted handmaiden of his muse. that milton’s view of relationships represented a complex interlinkage of love and language has been amply demonstrated by the preceding pages. the degree to which milton was cognizant of the extent of that interlinkage is, however, a matter for speculation. he was certainly conscious of and, indeed, explicit in his linkage of elevated language to love, having celebrated the elevating effect that the language of scholarship has upon relationships in the passage from “prolusion vii” quoted earlier: “what is more pleasant—what can be imagined 48. in their respective pieces on milton’s relationship with diodati, john rumrich and gregory chaplin each separately identify this intense bond as an instance of “platonic eroticism,” a term that clangs suggestively upon our modern ears, but which both rumrich and chaplin take pains to establish did not necessarily entail sexual behavior in classical dialogue. indeed, chaplin assures us, “as socrates describes it using several myths, eros stems from the soul’s longing to regain sight of the realm of absolute beauty and knowledge,” while rumrich relies on both plato and freud in his clarification that, “although it is risky to speak synthetically and summarily of such a large, complex, long-lived, and easily misconstrued notion, plato and freud agree on this: eros is a constitutional human drive motivating creative endeavor, one that is expressed in sexual reproduction, but also in the arts of civilization.” in this sense—in the sense that milton and diodati’s relationship was characterized by an amorous passion for beauty and ardent pursuit of its creation—that relationship was erotic. (see chaplin, “one heart, one flesh,” 274 and john rumrich, “the erotic milton,” texas studies in literature and language 41, no. 2 (1999): 131.) 49. milton, “epitaphium damonis,” 137. 50. in her brief sketch of milton’s life, annabel patterson notes just such an interruption in milton’s productivity, musing immediately following her analysis of “epitaphium damonis” that “after [the writing of epitaphium] there were no signs of poetic activity for several years.” (see annabel patterson, “biography,” in milton in context, ed. stephen b. dobranski (cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 2010), 7.) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 22 spring 2021 more delightful than the talks of learned and serious men together.”51 indeed, as the entire weight of milton’s canon proves, milton believed that the language of scholarship—the reasoned pursuit of knowledge—improved all it touched. but was milton aware that the reverse was also true in his practices—that the notion of companionship he idealized was one which served to elevate his usage of language? or was this motion the unconscious act of a man for whom language was the greatest love? we have seen that milton used his language as a reaching out point—was it equally his language as his heart that sought a companion? the answers to these questions may be impossible to determine. what is clear is that milton believed and, indeed, demonstrated, that language and love where conjoined are both improved. love and language were in a sense a two-handed engine; milton’s love found its greatest expression in his offerings of language, and, where he was able to share the language he loved, there he loved best. where he loved he attempted to give that love higher life in language, and he best loved those friendships that best served his language. whether ultimately either language or love rose higher than its mate in milton’s estimation may never be determined; that they resided in indissoluble union in his language-loving mind, his own eloquent testimony places beyond any shadow of dispute. as that testimony proves, love and language found truly in milton’s mind the idyllic landscape of companionate paradise that he, through them, strove to achieve throughout his long and lyrical lifetime; in this manner milton’s life elevated his ideals’ strains just as surely as their presiding presences had so enriched his own. 51. milton, “prolusion vii,” 625. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 23 bibliography campbell, gordon and thomas n. corns. john milton: life, work, and thought. oxford, u. k.: oxford university press, 2008. brown, cedric c. “john milton and charles diodati: reading the textual exchanges of friends.” in young milton, edited by edward jones, 107-136. oxford, u.k.: oxford university press, 2013. --. “letters, verse letters, and gift-texts.” in milton in context, edited by stephen b. dobranski, 35-45. cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 2010. chaplin, gregory. “education.” in milton in context, edited by stephen b. dobranski, 281-291. cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 2010. ---. “‘one flesh, one heart, one soul’: renaissance friendship and miltonic marriage.” modern philology 99, no. 2 (2001): 266-92. https://www.jstor. org/stable/438971. haan, estelle. “the ‘adorning of my native tongue’: latin poetry and linguistic metamorphosis.” in the oxford handbook of milton, edited by nicholas mcdowell and nigel smith, 51-65. oxford, u.k.: oxford university press, 2009. hale, john k. milton’s languages: the impact of multilingualism on style. cambridge, u. k.: cambridge university press, 1997. lewalski, barbara. the life of john milton. oxford, u.k.: blackwell publishing, 2003. mackenzie, raymond n. “rethinking rhyme, signifying friendship: milton’s lycidas and epitaphium damonis.” modern philology 106, no. 3 (2009): 530-54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/605075. mander, m. n. k. “the ‘epistola ad patrem’: milton’s apology for poetry.” milton quarterly 23, no. 4 (1989): 158-66. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24464199. milton, john. “ad patrem.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 82-86. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. ---. “elegia prima.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 7-10. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 24 spring 2021 ---. “elegia sexta.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited merritt y. hughes, 50-53. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. ---. “epitaphium damonis.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 132-39. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. ---. john milton to charles diodati, september 23, 1637. in milton’s familiar letters, translated by john hall, 29-34. philadelphia: e. littell, 1829. ---. “on the death of a fair infant dying of a cough.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 35-37. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. ---. “prolusion vi.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 612-21. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. ---. “prolusion vii.” in john milton complete poems and major prose, edited by merritt y. hughes, 621-29. new york: macmillan publishing company, 1957. patterson, annabel. “biography.” in milton in context, edited by stephen b. dobranski, 3-14. cambridge, u.k.: cambridge university press, 2010. rumrich, john p. “the erotic milton.” texas studies in literature and language 41, no. 2 (1999): 128-41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40755284. a landscape of linguistic love: milton’s mind as a seat of companionate paradise middle tennessee state university 25 _hlk68460253 _hlk68463488 _hlk68463715 _hlk68464206 _hlk69732158 classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1 classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland dennis wise abstract the sixteenth-century english poet edmund spenser has long seemed full of contradictions. on one hand, spenser is a poet of “twelue priuate morall vertues,” falling into the civic-humanist tradition advocated by his predecessor sir philip sidney. on the other hand, spenser’s a view of the state of ireland advocates a brutal and bloody colonial policy in relation to the irish, views that seem incompatible with a master of moral poetry. i suggest that we understand the apparent contradiction as a conflict between spenser’s classicism and his apparent acceptance of modern political philosophy, initiated by niccolò machiavelli. according to leo strauss, machiavelli was an “esoteric” writer, someone who did not openly proclaim his doctrines of realpolitik. machiavelli’s method broke with classical political philosophy, which—like the classical literature championed by sidney—often taught moral or imaginary ideals as a guide to action. i argue that spenser read machiavelli well, understanding those chapters of the prince most closely pertaining to spenser’s own colonial situation in ireland, and wrote a view according to those views. spenser’s personal experience as a colonial administrator led him (following machiavelli) to break decisively with classical political philosophy, even while spenser’s literary theory refused to diverge from sidney. in other words, spenser is ancient in his art and modern in his politics. rather than being simply a poet of the “state” or of nascent english nationalism, spenser actually understands and encompasses the contradictions and changes of his own historical moment. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 32 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research politics. in a view on the state of ireland, spenser seems to argue for a harsh—even brutal—colonial policy towards ireland. the dialogue’s main speaker, irenius, proposes a number of solutions: permanent garrisons, forced relocations, despoliation of land. that despoliation would lead to famine, leading in turn to wide-scale starvation and death and thereby “solving” the so-called irish problem. the policy aids and abets the brutal use of executive power against indigenous peoples, whose purpose is the maintenance of colonial rule and the increase of wealth and power for the english nation. tracing spenser’s intellectual history, as andrew hadfield notes, is a tricky business. hadfield himself suggests that spenser’s irish policy shares some correspondences with jean bodin. bodin “took issue with machiavelli’s contention that a republic was the most lasting form of government, alleging that despotism was in fact more durable because subjects could be controlled more easily and were unable to resist as free men were” (10). yet hadfield is careful to say that he notes only a correspondence, not necessarily a direct connection. for my part, i believe that, while a comparison with bodin may be fruitful, a comparison with niccolò machiavelli can be more fruitful still. for now let me suggest that machiavelli—as the first truly modern political philosopher—is the theorist most aware of the possibilities and dangers of realpolitik. besides spenser’s own reference to discourses on livy at the end of a view, we know that machiavelli was well-known during spenser’s school years; spenser’s friend gabriel harvey boasted “[y]ou can not stepp into a schollars studye but (ten to on) you shall litely finde open” a volume either by bodin or machiavelli (79). spenser’s own familiarity seems assured. but it seems impossible to reconcile the ideality of spenser’s poetry and the dauntingly pragmatic approach of his politics. his poetry creates a knight of perfect virtue while spenser’s political views effectively sneer at those virtues—for example, elizabeth’s mercy—as mere obstacles for a puissant political practice. my argument is that this tension never becomes resolved within spenser’s thought; not only that, this tension results in a continuous and living contradiction. by a “living” contradiction i mean that, rather than threatening the foundations of his views as a normal foundation contradiction might, this contradiction actually spares spenser from falling into ineffective practice. the keystone of my argument is xenophon—or, rather, xenophon’s interpretation of cyrus. machiavelli, like spenser and many others prior to the nineteenth century, also rated xenophon higher than plato. yet machiavelli realized (in a way that spenser apparently did not3 ) that xenophon’s cyrus never actually existed. he was a literary figure romanticized and idealized by xenophon. machiavelli recognized that cyrus acquired and kept his empire 3 for a contrary view, see christopher nadon. he views the cyropaedia as a “drama” rather than a political treatise or a work of history, and he approvingly cites spenser and sidney for recognizing this fact (24). in his view, their belief that xenophon is a “poet” seemingly equates to xenophon’s “dramatic” qualities. yet nadon’s own insightful analysis of cyropaedia requires the most exhaustive close and critical reading of the text—the same sort of reading required by plato’s “dramas.” for my part, i see spenser’s and sidney’s art as strictly within the civic-humanist tradition. their categorization of xenophon as a poet indicates certain elements of ideality and moral virtue excluded by nadon’s (and machiavelli’s) reading of xenophon’s text. in other words, the art of spenser and sidney seems entirely antithetical the political philosophy and hermeneutics of machiavelli, who would not approve of the faerie queene. in “a letter of the authors,” annexed to the 1590 the faerie queene, edmund spenser makes an interesting remark concerning the nature of the ideal. in defending his poetic practice, he contrasts xenophon with plato. according to spenser, plato had, “in the exquisite depth of his judgmement, formed a commune welth such as it should be,” whereas xenophon—writing about the (allegedly) perfect ruler in the cyropaedia—“fashioned a gouernement such as might best be” (15). what fascinates spenser about xenophon is how xenophon portrays his ideal ruler in terms of human figures and examples rather than through a series of doctrines, precepts, or rules. to put the matter in another way, talking about the “twelue priuate morall vertues” (16) in treatise form might have certain uses, spenser believes, but it lacks the pure value of demonstrating those virtues as incarnated by exemplary figures. the faerie queene constitutes spenser’s own contemporary attempt to demonstrate virtue incarnated. no mere treatise, risking dullness and pedantry, should hope to convey the loveliness of virtue as powerfully as masterfully-wrought poetry.1 what makes “a letter of the authors” remarkable, though, is not just that spenser values xenophon more highly than later centuries typically did.2 rather, it is that spenser explicitly likens his poetic king arthur to xenophon’s cyrus the great. thus spenser follows in the footsteps not only of xenophon but also of vergil with aeneas, ariosto with orlando, and tasso with rinaldo and godfredo, and homer with agamemnon and ulysses. poetry—as a genre—enjoys a higher spot on the pedestal than either philosophy or history. philosophy, on spenser’s view, is the genre of rules and abstractions, exemplified by plato’s republic, and the historical shackles of historiography prevents historiography from attaining the freedom and power that poetry acquires easily. yet, beneath spenser’s advocacy of poetry, lies a problem. he claims that poetry— the highest genre—concretely represents the virtues, but spenser offered only silence on what poetry of his sort cannot do, that is, discourse well on the realm of practical 1 spenser’s debt to an apology for poetry and sir philip sidney (to whom he dedicated the shepheardes calenders) is clear. sidney had defended poetry by arguing that it combined the precepts of historians with the moral focus of philosophers—arguing, in effect, that poetry surpasses both history and moral philosophy. especially in terms of teaching morality, sidney greatly prefers poets. “for, indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have vespasian’s picture right as he was, or, at the painter’s pleasure, nothing resembling. but if the question be for your own use and learning, whether it be better to have it set down as it should be or as it was, then certainly is more doctrinable the feigned cyrus in xenophon than the true cyrus in justin” (337-8). because sidney conceives the greek writer xenophon as an exemplary teacher of virtue, he categorized xenophon as the “most excellent poets that never versified” (333). niccolò machiavelli’s task was to shatter the respect of potential rulers for those feigned cyruses which they learned from men like sidney; my argument will be that spenser accepted that shattering for his political writings in terms of his practical politics, but that he kept those politics strictly separate from his poetical writings. by implication, although i will not have time to explore the point in great depth, i suggest that even the fifth book of the faerie queene owes its theoretical allegiance to sidney rather than to machiavelli. 2 to take one example out of many, the translator of one of xenophon’s penguin editions says quite easily that those “ages and people who dislike moral earnestness will not find xenophon attractive.” moral earnestness is all that xenophon has, apparently, since “[c]ertainly, he is not an original thinker or writer” (waterfield 8). in such works as on tyranny and xenophon’s socrates, however, the political philosopher leo strauss has done much to revive xenophon’s modern reputation. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 32 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research politics. in a view on the state of ireland, spenser seems to argue for a harsh—even brutal—colonial policy towards ireland. the dialogue’s main speaker, irenius, proposes a number of solutions: permanent garrisons, forced relocations, despoliation of land. that despoliation would lead to famine, leading in turn to wide-scale starvation and death and thereby “solving” the so-called irish problem. the policy aids and abets the brutal use of executive power against indigenous peoples, whose purpose is the maintenance of colonial rule and the increase of wealth and power for the english nation. tracing spenser’s intellectual history, as andrew hadfield notes, is a tricky business. hadfield himself suggests that spenser’s irish policy shares some correspondences with jean bodin. bodin “took issue with machiavelli’s contention that a republic was the most lasting form of government, alleging that despotism was in fact more durable because subjects could be controlled more easily and were unable to resist as free men were” (10). yet hadfield is careful to say that he notes only a correspondence, not necessarily a direct connection. for my part, i believe that, while a comparison with bodin may be fruitful, a comparison with niccolò machiavelli can be more fruitful still. for now let me suggest that machiavelli—as the first truly modern political philosopher—is the theorist most aware of the possibilities and dangers of realpolitik. besides spenser’s own reference to discourses on livy at the end of a view, we know that machiavelli was well-known during spenser’s school years; spenser’s friend gabriel harvey boasted “[y]ou can not stepp into a schollars studye but (ten to on) you shall litely finde open” a volume either by bodin or machiavelli (79). spenser’s own familiarity seems assured. but it seems impossible to reconcile the ideality of spenser’s poetry and the dauntingly pragmatic approach of his politics. his poetry creates a knight of perfect virtue while spenser’s political views effectively sneer at those virtues—for example, elizabeth’s mercy—as mere obstacles for a puissant political practice. my argument is that this tension never becomes resolved within spenser’s thought; not only that, this tension results in a continuous and living contradiction. by a “living” contradiction i mean that, rather than threatening the foundations of his views as a normal foundation contradiction might, this contradiction actually spares spenser from falling into ineffective practice. the keystone of my argument is xenophon—or, rather, xenophon’s interpretation of cyrus. machiavelli, like spenser and many others prior to the nineteenth century, also rated xenophon higher than plato. yet machiavelli realized (in a way that spenser apparently did not3 ) that xenophon’s cyrus never actually existed. he was a literary figure romanticized and idealized by xenophon. machiavelli recognized that cyrus acquired and kept his empire 3 for a contrary view, see christopher nadon. he views the cyropaedia as a “drama” rather than a political treatise or a work of history, and he approvingly cites spenser and sidney for recognizing this fact (24). in his view, their belief that xenophon is a “poet” seemingly equates to xenophon’s “dramatic” qualities. yet nadon’s own insightful analysis of cyropaedia requires the most exhaustive close and critical reading of the text—the same sort of reading required by plato’s “dramas.” for my part, i see spenser’s and sidney’s art as strictly within the civic-humanist tradition. their categorization of xenophon as a poet indicates certain elements of ideality and moral virtue excluded by nadon’s (and machiavelli’s) reading of xenophon’s text. in other words, the art of spenser and sidney seems entirely antithetical the political philosophy and hermeneutics of machiavelli, who would not approve of the faerie queene. in “a letter of the authors,” annexed to the 1590 the faerie queene, edmund spenser makes an interesting remark concerning the nature of the ideal. in defending his poetic practice, he contrasts xenophon with plato. according to spenser, plato had, “in the exquisite depth of his judgmement, formed a commune welth such as it should be,” whereas xenophon—writing about the (allegedly) perfect ruler in the cyropaedia—“fashioned a gouernement such as might best be” (15). what fascinates spenser about xenophon is how xenophon portrays his ideal ruler in terms of human figures and examples rather than through a series of doctrines, precepts, or rules. to put the matter in another way, talking about the “twelue priuate morall vertues” (16) in treatise form might have certain uses, spenser believes, but it lacks the pure value of demonstrating those virtues as incarnated by exemplary figures. the faerie queene constitutes spenser’s own contemporary attempt to demonstrate virtue incarnated. no mere treatise, risking dullness and pedantry, should hope to convey the loveliness of virtue as powerfully as masterfully-wrought poetry.1 what makes “a letter of the authors” remarkable, though, is not just that spenser values xenophon more highly than later centuries typically did.2 rather, it is that spenser explicitly likens his poetic king arthur to xenophon’s cyrus the great. thus spenser follows in the footsteps not only of xenophon but also of vergil with aeneas, ariosto with orlando, and tasso with rinaldo and godfredo, and homer with agamemnon and ulysses. poetry—as a genre—enjoys a higher spot on the pedestal than either philosophy or history. philosophy, on spenser’s view, is the genre of rules and abstractions, exemplified by plato’s republic, and the historical shackles of historiography prevents historiography from attaining the freedom and power that poetry acquires easily. yet, beneath spenser’s advocacy of poetry, lies a problem. he claims that poetry— the highest genre—concretely represents the virtues, but spenser offered only silence on what poetry of his sort cannot do, that is, discourse well on the realm of practical 1 spenser’s debt to an apology for poetry and sir philip sidney (to whom he dedicated the shepheardes calenders) is clear. sidney had defended poetry by arguing that it combined the precepts of historians with the moral focus of philosophers—arguing, in effect, that poetry surpasses both history and moral philosophy. especially in terms of teaching morality, sidney greatly prefers poets. “for, indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have vespasian’s picture right as he was, or, at the painter’s pleasure, nothing resembling. but if the question be for your own use and learning, whether it be better to have it set down as it should be or as it was, then certainly is more doctrinable the feigned cyrus in xenophon than the true cyrus in justin” (337-8). because sidney conceives the greek writer xenophon as an exemplary teacher of virtue, he categorized xenophon as the “most excellent poets that never versified” (333). niccolò machiavelli’s task was to shatter the respect of potential rulers for those feigned cyruses which they learned from men like sidney; my argument will be that spenser accepted that shattering for his political writings in terms of his practical politics, but that he kept those politics strictly separate from his poetical writings. by implication, although i will not have time to explore the point in great depth, i suggest that even the fifth book of the faerie queene owes its theoretical allegiance to sidney rather than to machiavelli. 2 to take one example out of many, the translator of one of xenophon’s penguin editions says quite easily that those “ages and people who dislike moral earnestness will not find xenophon attractive.” moral earnestness is all that xenophon has, apparently, since “[c]ertainly, he is not an original thinker or writer” (waterfield 8). in such works as on tyranny and xenophon’s socrates, however, the political philosopher leo strauss has done much to revive xenophon’s modern reputation. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 54 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research rebellion (1579-1583)—itself a protest against english interference in munster country— and resettled those lands among wealthy english colonists. on the other hand, none of these biographical details necessarily link spenser to the draconian views promulgated by irenius. spenser himself apparently understoods the horror of the famine irenius advocates. one mere year of famine, for example, will—despite the richness of the land—bring the populace to such wretchednesse, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. out of every corner of the woods and glynnes they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legges could not beare them; they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eate the dead carrions, happy where they could finde them, yea, and one another soone after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithall; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentifull countrey suddainely left voyde of man and beast; yet sure in all that warre, there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremitie of famine, which they themselves had wrought. (spenser 101-2) the crux of the argument separating spenser from irenius seems to be an overwhelming doubt that someone with his humanist education and poetical genius could sincerely espouse such horrors. to induce wide scale famine such as irenius proposes—and suddenly to absolve the english from responsibility by saying that the irish “themselves had wrought” it—seems monstrous and beyond belief. irenius, so the argument might run, is an unreliable narrator, along the lines of sir raphael hythloday in sir thomas more’s utopia. that hythloday does not equal more is clear, even beyond the fact that he seems to advocate positions that more himself argues against in different writings.5 many of the names within utopia are jokes set to distance the reader from its views. “utopia” means both a “good place” and a “no place”—a place that exists nowhere. the first name of the main speaker harkens to the archangel raphael while his last name means “peddler of nonsense.” and many of the names within utopia call attention to their own fictiveness, as more himself obliquely points out. while maintaining a veneer of verisimilitude, more writes that, if he had indeed written a fiction, he would have managed it so that, even though i might have wanted to deceive the ignorant mob, i would at least have inserted some pointed 5 some examples include the ease with which the utopians practiced divorce and euthanasia, as well as how they permitted female priests as well as male—all practices anathema to a devout catholic like more. a further contradiction might be seen in hythloday’s epicurean argument concerning philosophy and politics, i.e., that it runs counter to true philosophy for a philosopher to engage in politics, even as an advisor. advisors must lead by indirection and half-truths (because full truths cannot be uttered safely). philosophers, however, should never say what is not true. more himself, of course, was an extremely active political figure, thus leading to doubt about the equivalence between more himself and hythloday. via frauds; he could never have acquired his empire simply through those virtues ascribed to him by xenophon: justness, benevolence, cool rationality, and a keen ambition nonetheless free from cruelty, vengefulness, and avarice.4 yet where spenser’s poetry unproblematically accepts the “poetic” creation of xenophon, spenser’s political science accepts machiavelli and a machiavellian interpretation of xenophon—views irreconcilable with the poetic view. spenser’s own practical experience as a colonial administrator showed him the limitations of the xenophonic ideal; that, along with his sense of nationalism, led him into a political modernity first articulated by machiavelli, a man who shattered classical models of political philosophy and their “imaginary” republics and princedoms (machiavelli 40), even while spenser’s artistic practice—based on unshattered classical models—created a separate intellectual sphere for his idealistic inclinations. edmund spenser stands astride the dividing point between the ancient world and modernity—a divide of which he seems blithely unaware. yet it is this fundamental divide that leads spenser, almost instinctively, to shy away from applying the moral virtues of the faerie queene to a view on the state of ireland. the second section of this paper examines the potentially greatest challenge to my view of spenser as embodying a living intellectual contradiction—namely, that a view is not a work by spenser at all. the third section aims to place spenser more squarely within machiavellian thought—emphasizing the distinctiveness of machiavelli’s views and ways of reading ancient authors like xenophon. additionally, many chapters of the prince bear directly on spenser’s situation in ireland, and i will suggest that we have good reasons for identifying irenius quite closely with spenser himself. my fourth section is a brief conclusion in which i suggest that little fruit is born from praising or censuring spenser for his political views or his apparent contradictions (although from a modern perspective they certainly deserve censure). ultimately, i recommend scholars consider spenser in a pre-modern manner as much as possible, since only in such a way can we grasp how keenly attuned spenser was to his revolutionary historical moment. spenser and the authorship of a view some debate exists on how closely we can identify spenser with the main speaker of a view of the state of ireland, irenius. on one hand, we know that spenser himself benefitted significantly from irish colonialism, gaining the estate of kilcolman in cork county in 1589, earning the status of “gentleman.” he served as secretary to lord arthur grey, the lord deputy of ireland, and therefore probably witnessed the massacre of a spanish garrison at smerwick in 1580. he seems to have been involved with the munster plantation scheme, a plan that took confiscated lands arising from the second desmond 4 in chapter xviii, machiavelli says that a ruler should seem to be “the embodiment of mercy, good faith, integrity, humanity, and religion” (47). the appearance of those virtues are more important than their reality, however. we must “understand that a prince, and most of all a new prince, cannot observe all those rules of conduct in respect whereof men are accounted good, being often forced, in order to preserve his princedom, to act in opposition to good faith, charity, humanity, and religion” (46). nobility and honor are honored by their breach. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 54 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research rebellion (1579-1583)—itself a protest against english interference in munster country— and resettled those lands among wealthy english colonists. on the other hand, none of these biographical details necessarily link spenser to the draconian views promulgated by irenius. spenser himself apparently understoods the horror of the famine irenius advocates. one mere year of famine, for example, will—despite the richness of the land—bring the populace to such wretchednesse, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. out of every corner of the woods and glynnes they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legges could not beare them; they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eate the dead carrions, happy where they could finde them, yea, and one another soone after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithall; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentifull countrey suddainely left voyde of man and beast; yet sure in all that warre, there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremitie of famine, which they themselves had wrought. (spenser 101-2) the crux of the argument separating spenser from irenius seems to be an overwhelming doubt that someone with his humanist education and poetical genius could sincerely espouse such horrors. to induce wide scale famine such as irenius proposes—and suddenly to absolve the english from responsibility by saying that the irish “themselves had wrought” it—seems monstrous and beyond belief. irenius, so the argument might run, is an unreliable narrator, along the lines of sir raphael hythloday in sir thomas more’s utopia. that hythloday does not equal more is clear, even beyond the fact that he seems to advocate positions that more himself argues against in different writings.5 many of the names within utopia are jokes set to distance the reader from its views. “utopia” means both a “good place” and a “no place”—a place that exists nowhere. the first name of the main speaker harkens to the archangel raphael while his last name means “peddler of nonsense.” and many of the names within utopia call attention to their own fictiveness, as more himself obliquely points out. while maintaining a veneer of verisimilitude, more writes that, if he had indeed written a fiction, he would have managed it so that, even though i might have wanted to deceive the ignorant mob, i would at least have inserted some pointed 5 some examples include the ease with which the utopians practiced divorce and euthanasia, as well as how they permitted female priests as well as male—all practices anathema to a devout catholic like more. a further contradiction might be seen in hythloday’s epicurean argument concerning philosophy and politics, i.e., that it runs counter to true philosophy for a philosopher to engage in politics, even as an advisor. advisors must lead by indirection and half-truths (because full truths cannot be uttered safely). philosophers, however, should never say what is not true. more himself, of course, was an extremely active political figure, thus leading to doubt about the equivalence between more himself and hythloday. via frauds; he could never have acquired his empire simply through those virtues ascribed to him by xenophon: justness, benevolence, cool rationality, and a keen ambition nonetheless free from cruelty, vengefulness, and avarice.4 yet where spenser’s poetry unproblematically accepts the “poetic” creation of xenophon, spenser’s political science accepts machiavelli and a machiavellian interpretation of xenophon—views irreconcilable with the poetic view. spenser’s own practical experience as a colonial administrator showed him the limitations of the xenophonic ideal; that, along with his sense of nationalism, led him into a political modernity first articulated by machiavelli, a man who shattered classical models of political philosophy and their “imaginary” republics and princedoms (machiavelli 40), even while spenser’s artistic practice—based on unshattered classical models—created a separate intellectual sphere for his idealistic inclinations. edmund spenser stands astride the dividing point between the ancient world and modernity—a divide of which he seems blithely unaware. yet it is this fundamental divide that leads spenser, almost instinctively, to shy away from applying the moral virtues of the faerie queene to a view on the state of ireland. the second section of this paper examines the potentially greatest challenge to my view of spenser as embodying a living intellectual contradiction—namely, that a view is not a work by spenser at all. the third section aims to place spenser more squarely within machiavellian thought—emphasizing the distinctiveness of machiavelli’s views and ways of reading ancient authors like xenophon. additionally, many chapters of the prince bear directly on spenser’s situation in ireland, and i will suggest that we have good reasons for identifying irenius quite closely with spenser himself. my fourth section is a brief conclusion in which i suggest that little fruit is born from praising or censuring spenser for his political views or his apparent contradictions (although from a modern perspective they certainly deserve censure). ultimately, i recommend scholars consider spenser in a pre-modern manner as much as possible, since only in such a way can we grasp how keenly attuned spenser was to his revolutionary historical moment. spenser and the authorship of a view some debate exists on how closely we can identify spenser with the main speaker of a view of the state of ireland, irenius. on one hand, we know that spenser himself benefitted significantly from irish colonialism, gaining the estate of kilcolman in cork county in 1589, earning the status of “gentleman.” he served as secretary to lord arthur grey, the lord deputy of ireland, and therefore probably witnessed the massacre of a spanish garrison at smerwick in 1580. he seems to have been involved with the munster plantation scheme, a plan that took confiscated lands arising from the second desmond 4 in chapter xviii, machiavelli says that a ruler should seem to be “the embodiment of mercy, good faith, integrity, humanity, and religion” (47). the appearance of those virtues are more important than their reality, however. we must “understand that a prince, and most of all a new prince, cannot observe all those rules of conduct in respect whereof men are accounted good, being often forced, in order to preserve his princedom, to act in opposition to good faith, charity, humanity, and religion” (46). nobility and honor are honored by their breach. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 76 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research of the apparently appalling realization that “spenser the political scientist” does irreparable harm to “spenser the moral-humanist poet.” in a post-deconstructionist age, i take it as axiomatic that all texts are inherently unstable, and that it is legitimately possible to read a view against the grain. in other words, texts are not unified wholes intended to portray one clear meaning (or a finite number of such meanings) to a passively responsive reader. rather, texts carry within themselves the seeds of their own subversion, dependent only on the willingness of some daring critic to point them out. even if we do not grant a view the same sort of irony recognized for utopia or even a text like erasmus’s in praise of folly, someone might legitimately argue that ambiguity lies at the core of a view. ciaran brady, claiming that a view was originally written as a prose tract on politics, argues that spenser eventually switched to the dialogue form because he wanted to place his brutal policies within the humanist tradition—worried that, if he simply stated his views bluntly in treatise form, the english may otherwise become “brutalized by the task which they were being urged to undertake in ireland” (47). this spenser may be more palatable to some, insofar as it seems to explain why spenser may have felt no contradiction between his roles as poet and politician, but hardly constitutes a defense of spenser, especially under a postcolonial viewpoint. reconciling the poet with the colonial administrator does not, in the end, absolve the colonial administrator. 6 the question then becomes: how likely is it that spenser’s political tract would subvert its own surface meaning? to this question i would like to make two comments. my first point involves what political philosopher leo strauss calls “esoteric writing.” users of this art incorporate both an exoteric and an esoteric teaching into their texts. the exoteric teaching is meant for cursory readings of texts; the content seems relatively culturally and politically acceptable. the esoteric teaching, however, contains more heterodox opinions— the sorts of opinions that might question the foundations of what the society considers to be sacred and unanimous, or, less dramatically, question opinions held to be salutatory to society in general (such as belief in a god who upholds the moral order). those who hold heterodox views must provisionally accept orthodox opinion before guiding readers with a philosophical disposition into replacing the orthodox opinion with heterodox (and philosophical) knowledge. thus (discussing the muslim philosopher fārābī), strauss says that it is “rash to identify the teaching of the falāsifa with what they taught most frequently or most conspicuously” (17). these careful writers must be take the fate of socrates as their 6 wesley kisting also attempts to mitigate some of the sting of spenser’s imperialism. he argues that critics such as ciaran brady and nicholas canny improperly ignore a view’s dialogue form, seeing it as a “monovocal” text; under their view, spenser equals irenius and eudoxus constitutes the straw man. nonetheless, even kisting can only achieve so much by arguing that “equivocal language infuses” spenser’s two most relevant works, a view and book v of the faerie queene, which allegedly results in a “moral ambivalence” equally present in both works (29). that is to say, kisting claims that spenser simultaneously acknowledges irenius’s violent strategy and sees “mercy as a dire threat to justice as well as a serious failure of the reader’s moral responsibility to rescue ireland from damnable savagery” (32). even if we accept the claim that the logic behind a view is ultimately “self-subverting” (29), spenser’s concrete position as an advocate of bloody-minded english imperialism does not save him from the ultimate charge, one also leveled by chinua achebe against joseph conrad—that he is a “a thoroughgoing racist” (1789). hints which would have let the more learned discover what i was about. thus even if i had done nothing more than assign to the ruler, river, city and island such names as would have informed learned readers that the island is nowhere, the city is a phantom, the river has no water, the ruler no people, which would not have been hard to do and would have been much more elegant than what i actually did, for if i had not been forced by historical accuracy, i am not so stupid as to use those barbarous and meaningless names utopia, anyder, amaurot, and ademus. (139) the joke, of course, is that more does precisely what he disavows doing. a view contains no such pointed hints, however. the dialogue operates on a quite surface level. eudoxus (whose name means “good belief ”) listens to—and gradually becomes persuaded by—his friend irenius. throughout the first half of the dialogue, eudoxus’s literary existence enables irenius conveniently to discourse on the laws, customs, and religion of the irish natives. in the second half of the dialogue, eudoxus serves as the voice of natural sentiment and mercy. he protests irenius’s increasingly violent “solutions” to the irish problem before, finally, succumbing to the inexorable pressure of irenius’s “logic.” the primary motivation for reading a view against the grain, it seems to me, is the desire to “salvage” spenser as a poet. yeats, for one, had readily distinguished between spenser the poet and spenser the colonial administrator, lamenting that spenser the man had been so unfortunately subservient to “the state,” someone who wrote “out of thoughts and emotions that had been organized by the state” and saw nothing “but what he was desired to see” (372), blinding the poet in him to the native genius of the irish whom he should have admired. nonetheless, as ciaran brady accurately notes, we cannot so easily gloss over the fact that spenser’s apparent “ethical defense of brutality” calls into question spenser’s entire “moral sensibility” (18)—a stunning denouement for a poet whose great theme is the “twelue priuate morall vertues.” stephen greenblatt’s conclusion might seem doubly outrageous, suggesting as he does that edmund spenser saw the destruction of irish culture (seen as the barbarous other) as vital to maintaining english identity and therefore english colonial power. greenblatt concludes, “spenser’s art does not lead us to perceive ideology critically, but rather affirms the existence and inescapable moral power of ideology as that principle of truth toward which art forever yearns” (192). for some, it is difficult to accept that spenser’s art—seen as a paragon of humanistic learning and virtue—connotes the “inescapable moral power of ideology,” which would effectively undermine the entire renaissance humanist project of virtuous citizenship and active participation in civic life. the desire to exculpate spenser can go to amazing lengths. jean brink argues, for example, that “the grounds for attributing the view to spenser are highly circumstantial” (221)—the logic being that spenser cannot be held accountable for views that do not belong to him. while her argument rests mainly on the fact that no scholar has yet done significant textual analysis on a view’s numerous extant manuscripts, brink at best only raises a few questions against the long-held view of spenser’s authorship. yet such questions are only raised out classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 76 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research of the apparently appalling realization that “spenser the political scientist” does irreparable harm to “spenser the moral-humanist poet.” in a post-deconstructionist age, i take it as axiomatic that all texts are inherently unstable, and that it is legitimately possible to read a view against the grain. in other words, texts are not unified wholes intended to portray one clear meaning (or a finite number of such meanings) to a passively responsive reader. rather, texts carry within themselves the seeds of their own subversion, dependent only on the willingness of some daring critic to point them out. even if we do not grant a view the same sort of irony recognized for utopia or even a text like erasmus’s in praise of folly, someone might legitimately argue that ambiguity lies at the core of a view. ciaran brady, claiming that a view was originally written as a prose tract on politics, argues that spenser eventually switched to the dialogue form because he wanted to place his brutal policies within the humanist tradition—worried that, if he simply stated his views bluntly in treatise form, the english may otherwise become “brutalized by the task which they were being urged to undertake in ireland” (47). this spenser may be more palatable to some, insofar as it seems to explain why spenser may have felt no contradiction between his roles as poet and politician, but hardly constitutes a defense of spenser, especially under a postcolonial viewpoint. reconciling the poet with the colonial administrator does not, in the end, absolve the colonial administrator. 6 the question then becomes: how likely is it that spenser’s political tract would subvert its own surface meaning? to this question i would like to make two comments. my first point involves what political philosopher leo strauss calls “esoteric writing.” users of this art incorporate both an exoteric and an esoteric teaching into their texts. the exoteric teaching is meant for cursory readings of texts; the content seems relatively culturally and politically acceptable. the esoteric teaching, however, contains more heterodox opinions— the sorts of opinions that might question the foundations of what the society considers to be sacred and unanimous, or, less dramatically, question opinions held to be salutatory to society in general (such as belief in a god who upholds the moral order). those who hold heterodox views must provisionally accept orthodox opinion before guiding readers with a philosophical disposition into replacing the orthodox opinion with heterodox (and philosophical) knowledge. thus (discussing the muslim philosopher fārābī), strauss says that it is “rash to identify the teaching of the falāsifa with what they taught most frequently or most conspicuously” (17). these careful writers must be take the fate of socrates as their 6 wesley kisting also attempts to mitigate some of the sting of spenser’s imperialism. he argues that critics such as ciaran brady and nicholas canny improperly ignore a view’s dialogue form, seeing it as a “monovocal” text; under their view, spenser equals irenius and eudoxus constitutes the straw man. nonetheless, even kisting can only achieve so much by arguing that “equivocal language infuses” spenser’s two most relevant works, a view and book v of the faerie queene, which allegedly results in a “moral ambivalence” equally present in both works (29). that is to say, kisting claims that spenser simultaneously acknowledges irenius’s violent strategy and sees “mercy as a dire threat to justice as well as a serious failure of the reader’s moral responsibility to rescue ireland from damnable savagery” (32). even if we accept the claim that the logic behind a view is ultimately “self-subverting” (29), spenser’s concrete position as an advocate of bloody-minded english imperialism does not save him from the ultimate charge, one also leveled by chinua achebe against joseph conrad—that he is a “a thoroughgoing racist” (1789). hints which would have let the more learned discover what i was about. thus even if i had done nothing more than assign to the ruler, river, city and island such names as would have informed learned readers that the island is nowhere, the city is a phantom, the river has no water, the ruler no people, which would not have been hard to do and would have been much more elegant than what i actually did, for if i had not been forced by historical accuracy, i am not so stupid as to use those barbarous and meaningless names utopia, anyder, amaurot, and ademus. (139) the joke, of course, is that more does precisely what he disavows doing. a view contains no such pointed hints, however. the dialogue operates on a quite surface level. eudoxus (whose name means “good belief ”) listens to—and gradually becomes persuaded by—his friend irenius. throughout the first half of the dialogue, eudoxus’s literary existence enables irenius conveniently to discourse on the laws, customs, and religion of the irish natives. in the second half of the dialogue, eudoxus serves as the voice of natural sentiment and mercy. he protests irenius’s increasingly violent “solutions” to the irish problem before, finally, succumbing to the inexorable pressure of irenius’s “logic.” the primary motivation for reading a view against the grain, it seems to me, is the desire to “salvage” spenser as a poet. yeats, for one, had readily distinguished between spenser the poet and spenser the colonial administrator, lamenting that spenser the man had been so unfortunately subservient to “the state,” someone who wrote “out of thoughts and emotions that had been organized by the state” and saw nothing “but what he was desired to see” (372), blinding the poet in him to the native genius of the irish whom he should have admired. nonetheless, as ciaran brady accurately notes, we cannot so easily gloss over the fact that spenser’s apparent “ethical defense of brutality” calls into question spenser’s entire “moral sensibility” (18)—a stunning denouement for a poet whose great theme is the “twelue priuate morall vertues.” stephen greenblatt’s conclusion might seem doubly outrageous, suggesting as he does that edmund spenser saw the destruction of irish culture (seen as the barbarous other) as vital to maintaining english identity and therefore english colonial power. greenblatt concludes, “spenser’s art does not lead us to perceive ideology critically, but rather affirms the existence and inescapable moral power of ideology as that principle of truth toward which art forever yearns” (192). for some, it is difficult to accept that spenser’s art—seen as a paragon of humanistic learning and virtue—connotes the “inescapable moral power of ideology,” which would effectively undermine the entire renaissance humanist project of virtuous citizenship and active participation in civic life. the desire to exculpate spenser can go to amazing lengths. jean brink argues, for example, that “the grounds for attributing the view to spenser are highly circumstantial” (221)—the logic being that spenser cannot be held accountable for views that do not belong to him. while her argument rests mainly on the fact that no scholar has yet done significant textual analysis on a view’s numerous extant manuscripts, brink at best only raises a few questions against the long-held view of spenser’s authorship. yet such questions are only raised out classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 98 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research of recorded history. and the brutality spenser advocated in regard to ireland had wide precedent. the pity and pathos of the fall of troy, for example, would today have served as the rallying cry for anti-colonialism, but the greek world, while recognizing the tragedy of the event, nevertheless engaged in warfare and conquest. calls for “mercy” often went unheeded. euripides’s play trojan women objected to the athenian actions to the island of delos during the peloponnesian war. delos was a neutral city-state, small in size, but the athenians wished to conquer it in order to intimidate the spartans. the city-state was conquered, eventually; its men killed, its women and children enslaved—the standard greek practice for cities defeated in war. early during the peloponnesian war, thucydides relates a story of how the athenian assembly decided to put a rebellious polis in its empire to the sword, sent off a small force to do so—and repented of its decision two days later. fortunately, their message reached the navy in time to forestall a slaughter, but on such slender threads did ancient imperial policy hang. rome was even harsher. julius caesar nearly depopulated gaul in his subjugation of that province, and carthage was leveled to the ground and its fields sown with salt so that nothing might grow there again. as for the forced relocation spenser advocated, these too have their historical precedents— most famously with the babylonian captivity of the jews. what is important is not that the elizabethans might find spenser’s views shocking (many certainly did—otherwise eudoxus would not have been necessary), but that such shock or horror cannot be seen in the same way as in a world that has witnessed both the holocaust and de-colonization. indeed, catherine g. canino makes the argument—which fits nicely with my own general point—that the massacre of the spanish garrison at smerwick would not have earned lord grey the censure accorded him by irenius in a view. in other words irenius, in defending lord grey’s actions, is actually the source of the lord grey’s reputation as a “bloody” man. according to state papers and personal correspondence during the period, grey was never censured, whether in ireland, england, or the continent. elizabeth’s wellknown letter to grey mentioning his “happy success against the invaders” and “wishing [only] that those who have been spared had been reserved for her to have extended either justice or mercy” is more congratulations than condemnation—despite being frequently cited as indicating condemnation (qtd. in canino 7). canino notes that foreign reaction to smerwick also seems muted. overall, while grey was criticized and maligned by many, which eventually led to his recall, this criticism was not, as the view states, because of his representation as a ‘bloody’ man. the state papers clearly demonstrate that grey was under suspicion of mishandling or overspending state funds; his recall, and virtually all of elizabeth’s decisions about ireland, were not caused so much by moral outrage as by simple economics. (canino 8) unfortunately, canino cites this as evidence supporting jean brink’s view questioning the authorship of a view. to be fair, although canino herself think spenser’s authorship of a view unlikely, she also offers two potential alternative explanations: either spenser might guiding principle, a man accused for introducing new gods into the city and for thereby corrupting the young. the questioning stance implied by all philosophy poses dangers to political societies and political regimes, who need a fundamental agreement (without serious argument) about “sacred” things in order to maintain social and political stability. esoteric writers, wishing to philosophize while avoiding persecution, therefore place contradictions, ambiguities, instabilities within their texts that undermine the exoteric interpretation (36). such clues guide the careful reader towards the hidden—but personally dangerous—real teaching of the text. unfortunately, notwithstanding the (anti-deconstructive) thesis that texts may contain secret-but-true meanings, spenser’s view does not qualify for esoteric reading. this art is meant to protect the holder of heterodox opinions from persecution. in such texts, a bland meaning masks more subversive or dangerous meanings. a view, however, operates in precisely the opposite way—the shocking opinion is stated outright, seemingly convincing the rational eudoxus. if “mercy” toward the colonized were the text’s actual purposes, there seems to be no reason for hiding it—especially as irenius explicitly links that mercy to queen elizabeth. although anti-irish sentiment was rampant at the time, it did not exist to the extent that advocates of mercy would have been persecuted. indeed, framing an argument for a “merciful” policy toward ireland might have found a number of palatable forms for a christian humanist audience. one such argument could simply be a worry about saving souls—acquiring and maintaining an empire, bloody process that it is, does not lead to the sort of spiritual purity conducive to entering heaven. (such an argument puts a religious slant on spenser’s worry—according to ciaran brady’s— about the effect imperial brutality would have on the english subjects who carried them out.) another argument might rest upon classical foundations. many ancient political theorists held that a good state (such as athens or sparta) must be small in order to be successful. the far-flung persian empire was the ultimate symbol of luxury and decadence, and it would not have been lost on spenser that the precipitous decline of sparta as a greek power began almost as soon as its victory in the peloponnesian war granted it athens’s empire. additionally, many conservative romans of the later republic blamed the perceived decline of roman virtue on the wealth acquired from newly conquered carthage and greece. such views were readily available to the classically trained spenser. he might well have employed such arguments—but chose not to. writing at a time before any value was placed on multiculturalism, universal rights, or the autonomy of indigenous peoples, “diversity” within a state was not a sign of its progress but a potential cause of its decay. even the religious “tolerance” of john locke—a noted liberal thinker—two centuries later did not include atheists or muslims under the umbrella of that tolerance. the anachronistic desire to judge spenser according to multiculturalist or postcolonial values leads to my second observation. this one also derives from the classics— namely, the examples set by antiquity. colonialism was not something stumbled upon with ireland or the discovery of the new world—it has existed literally through the entirety classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 98 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research of recorded history. and the brutality spenser advocated in regard to ireland had wide precedent. the pity and pathos of the fall of troy, for example, would today have served as the rallying cry for anti-colonialism, but the greek world, while recognizing the tragedy of the event, nevertheless engaged in warfare and conquest. calls for “mercy” often went unheeded. euripides’s play trojan women objected to the athenian actions to the island of delos during the peloponnesian war. delos was a neutral city-state, small in size, but the athenians wished to conquer it in order to intimidate the spartans. the city-state was conquered, eventually; its men killed, its women and children enslaved—the standard greek practice for cities defeated in war. early during the peloponnesian war, thucydides relates a story of how the athenian assembly decided to put a rebellious polis in its empire to the sword, sent off a small force to do so—and repented of its decision two days later. fortunately, their message reached the navy in time to forestall a slaughter, but on such slender threads did ancient imperial policy hang. rome was even harsher. julius caesar nearly depopulated gaul in his subjugation of that province, and carthage was leveled to the ground and its fields sown with salt so that nothing might grow there again. as for the forced relocation spenser advocated, these too have their historical precedents— most famously with the babylonian captivity of the jews. what is important is not that the elizabethans might find spenser’s views shocking (many certainly did—otherwise eudoxus would not have been necessary), but that such shock or horror cannot be seen in the same way as in a world that has witnessed both the holocaust and de-colonization. indeed, catherine g. canino makes the argument—which fits nicely with my own general point—that the massacre of the spanish garrison at smerwick would not have earned lord grey the censure accorded him by irenius in a view. in other words irenius, in defending lord grey’s actions, is actually the source of the lord grey’s reputation as a “bloody” man. according to state papers and personal correspondence during the period, grey was never censured, whether in ireland, england, or the continent. elizabeth’s wellknown letter to grey mentioning his “happy success against the invaders” and “wishing [only] that those who have been spared had been reserved for her to have extended either justice or mercy” is more congratulations than condemnation—despite being frequently cited as indicating condemnation (qtd. in canino 7). canino notes that foreign reaction to smerwick also seems muted. overall, while grey was criticized and maligned by many, which eventually led to his recall, this criticism was not, as the view states, because of his representation as a ‘bloody’ man. the state papers clearly demonstrate that grey was under suspicion of mishandling or overspending state funds; his recall, and virtually all of elizabeth’s decisions about ireland, were not caused so much by moral outrage as by simple economics. (canino 8) unfortunately, canino cites this as evidence supporting jean brink’s view questioning the authorship of a view. to be fair, although canino herself think spenser’s authorship of a view unlikely, she also offers two potential alternative explanations: either spenser might guiding principle, a man accused for introducing new gods into the city and for thereby corrupting the young. the questioning stance implied by all philosophy poses dangers to political societies and political regimes, who need a fundamental agreement (without serious argument) about “sacred” things in order to maintain social and political stability. esoteric writers, wishing to philosophize while avoiding persecution, therefore place contradictions, ambiguities, instabilities within their texts that undermine the exoteric interpretation (36). such clues guide the careful reader towards the hidden—but personally dangerous—real teaching of the text. unfortunately, notwithstanding the (anti-deconstructive) thesis that texts may contain secret-but-true meanings, spenser’s view does not qualify for esoteric reading. this art is meant to protect the holder of heterodox opinions from persecution. in such texts, a bland meaning masks more subversive or dangerous meanings. a view, however, operates in precisely the opposite way—the shocking opinion is stated outright, seemingly convincing the rational eudoxus. if “mercy” toward the colonized were the text’s actual purposes, there seems to be no reason for hiding it—especially as irenius explicitly links that mercy to queen elizabeth. although anti-irish sentiment was rampant at the time, it did not exist to the extent that advocates of mercy would have been persecuted. indeed, framing an argument for a “merciful” policy toward ireland might have found a number of palatable forms for a christian humanist audience. one such argument could simply be a worry about saving souls—acquiring and maintaining an empire, bloody process that it is, does not lead to the sort of spiritual purity conducive to entering heaven. (such an argument puts a religious slant on spenser’s worry—according to ciaran brady’s— about the effect imperial brutality would have on the english subjects who carried them out.) another argument might rest upon classical foundations. many ancient political theorists held that a good state (such as athens or sparta) must be small in order to be successful. the far-flung persian empire was the ultimate symbol of luxury and decadence, and it would not have been lost on spenser that the precipitous decline of sparta as a greek power began almost as soon as its victory in the peloponnesian war granted it athens’s empire. additionally, many conservative romans of the later republic blamed the perceived decline of roman virtue on the wealth acquired from newly conquered carthage and greece. such views were readily available to the classically trained spenser. he might well have employed such arguments—but chose not to. writing at a time before any value was placed on multiculturalism, universal rights, or the autonomy of indigenous peoples, “diversity” within a state was not a sign of its progress but a potential cause of its decay. even the religious “tolerance” of john locke—a noted liberal thinker—two centuries later did not include atheists or muslims under the umbrella of that tolerance. the anachronistic desire to judge spenser according to multiculturalist or postcolonial values leads to my second observation. this one also derives from the classics— namely, the examples set by antiquity. colonialism was not something stumbled upon with ireland or the discovery of the new world—it has existed literally through the entirety classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1110 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research what he could not control. under my interpretation, what machiavelli really intends here is to show how princes can always subjugate new kingdoms that differ from the original kingdom in matters of language, usages, and laws. the easiest way to pacify a mixed princedom, continues machiavelli, is for the prince to dwell there himself. he gives the example of the turks. dwelling in a province tends to solve problems before they arise; it also ensures that the province “is not pillaged by [the prince’s] officers” (4). such a relocation would not have been palatable for elizabeth of course, though colonization might have succeeded better if she had. according to nicholas canny in making ireland british, a key reason england never succeeded in making ireland “british” was the greed of low-level british officials called “servitors” who, in their rapacity for new “plantation” lands, basically sabotaged attempts to assimilate the irish. ardently protestant in their sympathies, these servitors—using spenser’s political tract as a rallying cry—permanently alienated the native catholic irish. otherwise, if princes will not abide in the new kingdom, they might also establish colonies, a proposal strongly championed by irenius. 8 a problem emerges even here, however. as machiavelli says, the only people harmed by colonies are the displaced natives. those “who are thus injured form but a small part of the community, and remaining scattered and poor can never become dangerous” (4). as irenius points out, however, dispossessed irish can become problematic, since the bogs and marshes can provide shelter for potential rebels, and even their attire—such as the gaelic mantle—can prove dangerous to the colonizer because of its immense utility. irenius, in his practical experience of ireland, knows that the dispossessed can be a significant problem. yet here we have encountered a faux statement by machiavelli, a case of misdirection. famously, machiavelli later states that “men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony” (44)—basically asserting the primacy of wealth over kinship, meaning that confiscating the lands of natives is the most potent means of radicalizing them against a new prince. yet machiavelli contradicts the “colonies are safe options” principle even within the same chapter. when machiavelli discusses king louis ix’s failure in italy, for example, he lists five blunders committed by that king, such as aggrandizing another foreign power (pope alexander vi), dividing his new princedom with yet another power (spain), and so forth. no sooner does machiavelli recount these errors, however, then he dismisses them. “[a]ll these blunders might not have proved disastrous to him while he lived, had he not added to them a sixth in depriving the venetians of their dominions” (7). so while colonies can successfully aid in the subjugation of a new princedom, dispossessed natives like the venetians or the irish are a problem—perhaps the most important problem. having brought attention to this problem, however, machiavelli once again grows coy. the natural maneuver at this point would be to explain how louis might have successfully deprived the venetians of their dominions. machiavelli instead changes the topic; he 8 machiavelli also disparages garrisons as too costly, but irenius seems to have understood that objection when he, several times, answers eudoxus’s concerns about cost by saying that the garrisons should live off the rent of the land they occupy. have misremembered or misreported the man he had once served as secretary, or he might have been attempting to damn grey under the veneer of praising him. we might choose a fourth option, though. it may be that a view is not concerned with accurately reporting on lord grey; modern positivistic or scientific historiography would be anachronistic during spenser’s time. rather, irenius’s lord grey could be a primarily literary character, or someone appropriated by spenser for literary purposes, in order to highlight what i consider to be the special significance of a view—the tension of art as conceived under classical models and of political philosophy as conceived by the first modern political philosopher: niccolo machiavelli. machiavelli and xenophon; or, machiavelli’s reading of scipio reading xenophon a key section of the prince might be the third chapter, “of mixed princedoms” (by which machiavelli means adding newly conquered lands to the inherited kingdom). it seems to pertain most directly to the english situation in ireland. the previous chapter had been “of hereditary princedoms,” a vastly shorter chapter indicative of machiavelli’s relative disinterest in that topic. according to machiavelli, hereditary princedoms are easy to maintain, because “the very antiquity and continuance of [the prince’s] rule will efface the memories and causes which lead to innovation” (2)—meaning that people are likely to have forgotten the various acts of evil that must be done in order to subjugate a new province. machiavelli might also have said that, in such princedoms, it is easier for a prince to practice those virtues as praised by the poets and the philosophers and as incarnated by marcus aurelius—ruler of the hereditary kingdom par excellence, rome during the pax romana. yet mixed princedoms abound in difficulties. not only will the people one has harmed become enemies, but so potentially will the people one has helped—if such allies could once open their gates to a foreign conqueror, they might do so again. a greater difficulty, machiavelli notes, is when the acquired kingdom differs from the imperial kingdom in matters of language, usages, and laws—differences that irenius amply demonstrates in a view after allegedly proving their “barbaric” scythian origins. in such a situation, says machiavelli, a “great good fortune, as well as address, is needed to overcome” these obstacles (3). and it is important to note that while “great good fortune” and “address” are necessary7—implying a distinction between a controlling fate outside the self and the prince’s own personal virtù—elsewhere in the prince machiavelli seems to collapse two terms into one—that is, virtù simply, without any exterior guiding fate. one of machiavelli’s most famous sayings is the maxim that “fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches” (68). yet this saying comes only at the end of the prince, long after demonstrating the character and necessity of virtù. so machiavelli’s initial distinction between fortuna and virtù is only a façade, a sop to ancient political thought that held man to be partially helpless against 7 by “address” machiavelli means how a prince handles or addresses a situation. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1110 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research what he could not control. under my interpretation, what machiavelli really intends here is to show how princes can always subjugate new kingdoms that differ from the original kingdom in matters of language, usages, and laws. the easiest way to pacify a mixed princedom, continues machiavelli, is for the prince to dwell there himself. he gives the example of the turks. dwelling in a province tends to solve problems before they arise; it also ensures that the province “is not pillaged by [the prince’s] officers” (4). such a relocation would not have been palatable for elizabeth of course, though colonization might have succeeded better if she had. according to nicholas canny in making ireland british, a key reason england never succeeded in making ireland “british” was the greed of low-level british officials called “servitors” who, in their rapacity for new “plantation” lands, basically sabotaged attempts to assimilate the irish. ardently protestant in their sympathies, these servitors—using spenser’s political tract as a rallying cry—permanently alienated the native catholic irish. otherwise, if princes will not abide in the new kingdom, they might also establish colonies, a proposal strongly championed by irenius. 8 a problem emerges even here, however. as machiavelli says, the only people harmed by colonies are the displaced natives. those “who are thus injured form but a small part of the community, and remaining scattered and poor can never become dangerous” (4). as irenius points out, however, dispossessed irish can become problematic, since the bogs and marshes can provide shelter for potential rebels, and even their attire—such as the gaelic mantle—can prove dangerous to the colonizer because of its immense utility. irenius, in his practical experience of ireland, knows that the dispossessed can be a significant problem. yet here we have encountered a faux statement by machiavelli, a case of misdirection. famously, machiavelli later states that “men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony” (44)—basically asserting the primacy of wealth over kinship, meaning that confiscating the lands of natives is the most potent means of radicalizing them against a new prince. yet machiavelli contradicts the “colonies are safe options” principle even within the same chapter. when machiavelli discusses king louis ix’s failure in italy, for example, he lists five blunders committed by that king, such as aggrandizing another foreign power (pope alexander vi), dividing his new princedom with yet another power (spain), and so forth. no sooner does machiavelli recount these errors, however, then he dismisses them. “[a]ll these blunders might not have proved disastrous to him while he lived, had he not added to them a sixth in depriving the venetians of their dominions” (7). so while colonies can successfully aid in the subjugation of a new princedom, dispossessed natives like the venetians or the irish are a problem—perhaps the most important problem. having brought attention to this problem, however, machiavelli once again grows coy. the natural maneuver at this point would be to explain how louis might have successfully deprived the venetians of their dominions. machiavelli instead changes the topic; he 8 machiavelli also disparages garrisons as too costly, but irenius seems to have understood that objection when he, several times, answers eudoxus’s concerns about cost by saying that the garrisons should live off the rent of the land they occupy. have misremembered or misreported the man he had once served as secretary, or he might have been attempting to damn grey under the veneer of praising him. we might choose a fourth option, though. it may be that a view is not concerned with accurately reporting on lord grey; modern positivistic or scientific historiography would be anachronistic during spenser’s time. rather, irenius’s lord grey could be a primarily literary character, or someone appropriated by spenser for literary purposes, in order to highlight what i consider to be the special significance of a view—the tension of art as conceived under classical models and of political philosophy as conceived by the first modern political philosopher: niccolo machiavelli. machiavelli and xenophon; or, machiavelli’s reading of scipio reading xenophon a key section of the prince might be the third chapter, “of mixed princedoms” (by which machiavelli means adding newly conquered lands to the inherited kingdom). it seems to pertain most directly to the english situation in ireland. the previous chapter had been “of hereditary princedoms,” a vastly shorter chapter indicative of machiavelli’s relative disinterest in that topic. according to machiavelli, hereditary princedoms are easy to maintain, because “the very antiquity and continuance of [the prince’s] rule will efface the memories and causes which lead to innovation” (2)—meaning that people are likely to have forgotten the various acts of evil that must be done in order to subjugate a new province. machiavelli might also have said that, in such princedoms, it is easier for a prince to practice those virtues as praised by the poets and the philosophers and as incarnated by marcus aurelius—ruler of the hereditary kingdom par excellence, rome during the pax romana. yet mixed princedoms abound in difficulties. not only will the people one has harmed become enemies, but so potentially will the people one has helped—if such allies could once open their gates to a foreign conqueror, they might do so again. a greater difficulty, machiavelli notes, is when the acquired kingdom differs from the imperial kingdom in matters of language, usages, and laws—differences that irenius amply demonstrates in a view after allegedly proving their “barbaric” scythian origins. in such a situation, says machiavelli, a “great good fortune, as well as address, is needed to overcome” these obstacles (3). and it is important to note that while “great good fortune” and “address” are necessary7—implying a distinction between a controlling fate outside the self and the prince’s own personal virtù—elsewhere in the prince machiavelli seems to collapse two terms into one—that is, virtù simply, without any exterior guiding fate. one of machiavelli’s most famous sayings is the maxim that “fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who so treat her than by those who are more timid in their approaches” (68). yet this saying comes only at the end of the prince, long after demonstrating the character and necessity of virtù. so machiavelli’s initial distinction between fortuna and virtù is only a façade, a sop to ancient political thought that held man to be partially helpless against 7 by “address” machiavelli means how a prince handles or addresses a situation. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1312 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research mixture of admiration for cyrus and reservations about him makes xenophon unwilling to depict cyrus either as an out-and-out tyrant or as morally flawless” (126). 9 although machiavelli approves of xenophon’s approbation of ambition, he must also distinguish between a textual cyrus and a real cyrus—viz., the actual prince versus the literary prince created by xenophon. whereas achilles, alexander, and caesar had all imitated forebears, scipio along had imitated not a forebear but the textual cyrus: and whoever reads the life of cyrus, written by xenophon, will recognize afterwards in the life of scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality scipio conformed to those things which have been written of cyrus by xenophon. (machiavelli 66) and it was commonly accepted that scipio did greatly admire xenophon. cicero described the education of cyrus as a “model of the just empire” and the constant guide of scipio (newell 110). but the problem is that those qualities described by xenophon are not the sorts of qualities that enable one to acquire new princedoms, as machiavelli well understood. scipio’s career in the province of spain was not successful until he adopted more “brutal” practices. we see such disjunction between political literature and political reality repeatedly in machiavelli. marcus aurelius succeeded only because he inherited his kingdom; king louis ix lost his kingdoms in italy because he “kept faith” with the foreign powers he invited to share power there. and, as spenser’s irenius no doubt realizes, having deprived native irish of their estates in order to plant english colonies, the noblest virtues of a prince—chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality—cannot be practiced safely. unlike the english themselves—a people, once conquered by the romans, who have forgotten the concrete measures taken by the romans to subjugate them successfully10 — the displaced irish would rebel, for they—remember all too well the measures necessary to 9 many scholars have wondered at the apparent discrepancy in cyropaedia of presenting the “ideal” ruler, only to show the collapse of that ruler’s empire in the final chapter. james tatum argues that xenophon suffered from a divided mind. according to tatum, the “gap between the political and historical world of the cyropaedia finally outweighed [xenophon’s] authorial desire to preserve the integrity of the text he created” (224). for a different view, see christopher nadon’s xenophon’s prince: republic and empire in the cyropaedia. nadon argues that cyrus was far from xenophon’s ideal ruler. dante, petrarch, and boccacio [had] all referred to cyrus as a “rapacious” king, and it was only in the fifteenth century that he began appearing “in a number of ‘mirrors of princes’ as an ideal ruler” (13). nonetheless, nadon agrees that machiavelli read xenophon from within the civic-humanist tradition and, therefore, as illegitimately idealizing a political figure. “instead of recording what cyrus must have done in order to succeed, xenophon, in his naivety, imagined rather what he thought a good prince ought to do. he thereby misled scipio as to the kind of duties imposed by the necessities faced by real generals and statesmen” (16). for machiavelli had imagined that young scipio had read the cyropaedia cursorily, noticing only the fairy tale cyrus on the surface of the text without seeing the treacherous, grasping, deceitful cyrus at the core. following leo strauss, nadon believes that xenophon wrote esoterically, containing a safe “surface” meaning and hidden yet dangerous “inner” meaning—a mode of writing that machiavelli recognized and practiced himself. the civic-humanist tradition of a philip sidney, who praised teachers of virtue in general—and xenophon over plato specifically, because the former wrote poetry with philosophy in contrast to writing philosophy simply—is therefore subverted. in a way, my argument is that spenser’s political science is a subversion of his poetry (and vice versa). 10 all the difference in the world exists between remembering intellectually the process of colonization, and remembering it psychologically. moves onto a discussion concerning the idea that it is better (following roman practice) to engage in war sooner rather than later. machiavelli hereby shows his reluctance to make his points explicit. yet given his statements about how easily hereditary princes maintain their princedoms (since the people have “forgotten” the measures taken to subjugate the principality originally), irenius seems to have successfully grasped machiavelli’s meaning when he advocates for extermination. claims that colonies are worthwhile consequences with negligible consequences do not fool irenius; those consequences urgently require handling. a clearer example of machiavelli’s ultimate goal may be gleamed from the following passage: because it would have been useless and dangerous for pertinax and alexander, being new princes, to imitate marcus, who was heir to the principality; and likewise it would have been utterly destructive to caracalla, commodus, and maximinus to have imitated severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them to tread in his footsteps. (55) the passage comes from the chapter, “that one should avoid being despised and hated.” a great disparity lies between the two examples: marcus aurelius (the beloved emperor) and septimus severus (a brutal but successful one). many princes with virtù have attempted to imitate either one or the other, but those who failed to successfully imitate marcus did so because they were not the heirs of principalities—a truth recognized by pertinax and alexander, who therefore did not attempt to cultivate the same virtues cultivated by marcus. yet, machiavelli continues, of those princes who failed to successfully imitate severus, their failure was not due to some external circumstance (such as the misfortune not to inherit a principality), but to a failure of personal virtù. in other words, a prince may fail to imitate marcus aurelius if he lacks either virtù or an inherited kingdom, but princes who fail to imitate severus fail only through lacking virtù. in a prince, morality is a luxury, nothing more—neither necessary nor even desirable. princely morality is superfluous. as such, machiavelli has no special theoretical space for it within a truly modern political philosophy. the superfluity of morality in politics leads us, slowly, into machiavelli’s reading of xenophon. in the renaissance, xenophon enjoyed a high reputation, more so than now, and machiavelli discusses him more often than he does plato, aristotle, and cicero combined. according to w.r. newell, xenophon was the closest of all the ancient political thinkers to the italian political philosopher; xenophon alone of ancient thinkers “allowed the ambition for limitless rule to unfold in all its grandeur” (121). whereas plato and aristotle sought to limit the desire for acquisitiveness, xenophon took it seriously as a political principle. yet where machiavelli disagreed with xenophon was in xenophon’s failure to emancipate himself completely from the distinction between illegitimate and legitimate, tyrant and king, base and noble, vice and virtue. often taken as the portrait of the ideal prince, xenophon’s cyropaedia contains some ambivalence towards the persian monarch: “this classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1312 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research mixture of admiration for cyrus and reservations about him makes xenophon unwilling to depict cyrus either as an out-and-out tyrant or as morally flawless” (126). 9 although machiavelli approves of xenophon’s approbation of ambition, he must also distinguish between a textual cyrus and a real cyrus—viz., the actual prince versus the literary prince created by xenophon. whereas achilles, alexander, and caesar had all imitated forebears, scipio along had imitated not a forebear but the textual cyrus: and whoever reads the life of cyrus, written by xenophon, will recognize afterwards in the life of scipio how that imitation was his glory, and how in chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality scipio conformed to those things which have been written of cyrus by xenophon. (machiavelli 66) and it was commonly accepted that scipio did greatly admire xenophon. cicero described the education of cyrus as a “model of the just empire” and the constant guide of scipio (newell 110). but the problem is that those qualities described by xenophon are not the sorts of qualities that enable one to acquire new princedoms, as machiavelli well understood. scipio’s career in the province of spain was not successful until he adopted more “brutal” practices. we see such disjunction between political literature and political reality repeatedly in machiavelli. marcus aurelius succeeded only because he inherited his kingdom; king louis ix lost his kingdoms in italy because he “kept faith” with the foreign powers he invited to share power there. and, as spenser’s irenius no doubt realizes, having deprived native irish of their estates in order to plant english colonies, the noblest virtues of a prince—chastity, affability, humanity, and liberality—cannot be practiced safely. unlike the english themselves—a people, once conquered by the romans, who have forgotten the concrete measures taken by the romans to subjugate them successfully10 — the displaced irish would rebel, for they—remember all too well the measures necessary to 9 many scholars have wondered at the apparent discrepancy in cyropaedia of presenting the “ideal” ruler, only to show the collapse of that ruler’s empire in the final chapter. james tatum argues that xenophon suffered from a divided mind. according to tatum, the “gap between the political and historical world of the cyropaedia finally outweighed [xenophon’s] authorial desire to preserve the integrity of the text he created” (224). for a different view, see christopher nadon’s xenophon’s prince: republic and empire in the cyropaedia. nadon argues that cyrus was far from xenophon’s ideal ruler. dante, petrarch, and boccacio [had] all referred to cyrus as a “rapacious” king, and it was only in the fifteenth century that he began appearing “in a number of ‘mirrors of princes’ as an ideal ruler” (13). nonetheless, nadon agrees that machiavelli read xenophon from within the civic-humanist tradition and, therefore, as illegitimately idealizing a political figure. “instead of recording what cyrus must have done in order to succeed, xenophon, in his naivety, imagined rather what he thought a good prince ought to do. he thereby misled scipio as to the kind of duties imposed by the necessities faced by real generals and statesmen” (16). for machiavelli had imagined that young scipio had read the cyropaedia cursorily, noticing only the fairy tale cyrus on the surface of the text without seeing the treacherous, grasping, deceitful cyrus at the core. following leo strauss, nadon believes that xenophon wrote esoterically, containing a safe “surface” meaning and hidden yet dangerous “inner” meaning—a mode of writing that machiavelli recognized and practiced himself. the civic-humanist tradition of a philip sidney, who praised teachers of virtue in general—and xenophon over plato specifically, because the former wrote poetry with philosophy in contrast to writing philosophy simply—is therefore subverted. in a way, my argument is that spenser’s political science is a subversion of his poetry (and vice versa). 10 all the difference in the world exists between remembering intellectually the process of colonization, and remembering it psychologically. moves onto a discussion concerning the idea that it is better (following roman practice) to engage in war sooner rather than later. machiavelli hereby shows his reluctance to make his points explicit. yet given his statements about how easily hereditary princes maintain their princedoms (since the people have “forgotten” the measures taken to subjugate the principality originally), irenius seems to have successfully grasped machiavelli’s meaning when he advocates for extermination. claims that colonies are worthwhile consequences with negligible consequences do not fool irenius; those consequences urgently require handling. a clearer example of machiavelli’s ultimate goal may be gleamed from the following passage: because it would have been useless and dangerous for pertinax and alexander, being new princes, to imitate marcus, who was heir to the principality; and likewise it would have been utterly destructive to caracalla, commodus, and maximinus to have imitated severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them to tread in his footsteps. (55) the passage comes from the chapter, “that one should avoid being despised and hated.” a great disparity lies between the two examples: marcus aurelius (the beloved emperor) and septimus severus (a brutal but successful one). many princes with virtù have attempted to imitate either one or the other, but those who failed to successfully imitate marcus did so because they were not the heirs of principalities—a truth recognized by pertinax and alexander, who therefore did not attempt to cultivate the same virtues cultivated by marcus. yet, machiavelli continues, of those princes who failed to successfully imitate severus, their failure was not due to some external circumstance (such as the misfortune not to inherit a principality), but to a failure of personal virtù. in other words, a prince may fail to imitate marcus aurelius if he lacks either virtù or an inherited kingdom, but princes who fail to imitate severus fail only through lacking virtù. in a prince, morality is a luxury, nothing more—neither necessary nor even desirable. princely morality is superfluous. as such, machiavelli has no special theoretical space for it within a truly modern political philosophy. the superfluity of morality in politics leads us, slowly, into machiavelli’s reading of xenophon. in the renaissance, xenophon enjoyed a high reputation, more so than now, and machiavelli discusses him more often than he does plato, aristotle, and cicero combined. according to w.r. newell, xenophon was the closest of all the ancient political thinkers to the italian political philosopher; xenophon alone of ancient thinkers “allowed the ambition for limitless rule to unfold in all its grandeur” (121). whereas plato and aristotle sought to limit the desire for acquisitiveness, xenophon took it seriously as a political principle. yet where machiavelli disagreed with xenophon was in xenophon’s failure to emancipate himself completely from the distinction between illegitimate and legitimate, tyrant and king, base and noble, vice and virtue. often taken as the portrait of the ideal prince, xenophon’s cyropaedia contains some ambivalence towards the persian monarch: “this classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1514 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research onto an old princedom a new princedom differing in laws and customs, adopts the modern attitude that his artistry cannot theoretically accept. conclusion according to leo strauss, machiavelli’s great innovation in political philosophy is that machiavelli—the paramount “teacher of evil” (9)—had proclaimed “openly and triumphantly a corrupting doctrine that ancient writers had taught covertly or with all signs of repugnance” (10).13 we have seen how machiavelli can be deliberately coy with his doctrines, deliberately contradicting himself in certain places, avoiding stating his true meaning explicitly in others, and generally talking around certain issues that he simply expects his readers to intuit. what spenser does in a view is proclaim a machiavellian teaching with an openness that even the famed italian hesitated to use. a view is remarkably straight-forward in its policies of extermination, famine, cultural destruction, and forced relocation. rather than writing esoterically, spenser ameliorates the shockingness of his proposals via the dialogue form, a rhetorical device situating those views within the humanist tradition. it is intriguing to note that spenser mentions machiavelli only once, at the very end of his text—and the reference is not to the prince but to discourses on livy, machiavelli’s republican tract. so, whereas machiavelli chooses to couch his true teaching in misdirection and innuendo, spenser proclaims that teaching openly—but attempts to soften its horror under more “liberal” auspices. spenser’s reputation as a moral poet, we might also suppose, perhaps partially insulated him against the same contemporary english opprobrium applied to machiavelli himself, whom they believed to be an atheist and the worst kind of cynic. ultimately, i have argued for a fundamental split in how we should read spenser. his poetry harkens back to classical moral writing, brought to spenser by his admiration for sir philip sidney; however, his political science shows a divisive break with ancient political philosophy. the incompatibility of the two positions shows the influence of two entirely different traditions of thought (ancient and modern) and two entirely different genres of writing (poetry and political science). perhaps my particular position does not absolve spenser from blame, although that is not really my intent. my greatest worry is that a modern moral framework might blind our judgment to methods of valuing and interpreting that have since become obscured by the centuries—spenser’s insight into machiavelli’s esoteric writing may seem implausible today, but only because esoteric writing has ceased to be necessary within modern liberal democracy. now, on whether spenser’s humanist-realpolitik or machiavelli esoteric-realpolitik is the more invidious or subversive method, that i leave up to the individual reader. needless to say, for an age steeped in universal human rights, an age that too well remembers the holocaust and decolonization, neither method is entirely palatable. but that is a modern perspective. even if we lament spenser as a poet of the state, as yeats does, we should also acknowledge that he possessed 13 for example, see plato’s treatment of thrasymachus and callicles, or thucydide’s dialogue between the melians and the athenian envoys. evict them from their ancestral lands. this is the essential point about machiavelli’s reading of xenophon. as newell says, scipio (initially) followed the textual cyrus, but a ruler such as hannibal followed the real cyrus—who, like hannibal, had to rule a wide variety of peoples with different languages and different customs. (newell notes that machiavelli’s interpretation of xenophon’s cyrus is possibly polemically sugar-coated, since xenophon does portray his cyrus as inspiring fear.)11 machiavelli’s understanding of xenophon offers, i believe, a way to grasp the seeming disparity between spenser’s art and spenser’s political science. spenser’s art owed a great debt to classical models, however so much he revised and expanded them. not only does spenser attempt to portray the “twelue priuate morall virtues” in the ideal realm of faerie, but he—like xenophon—cannot completely emancipate his art from distinctions between the noble and the base or between vice and virtue. even book v of the faerie queene, which defends lord grey in the figure of artegall, remains beholden to the distinctions between tyranny and legitimate rule, right and wrong, and justice and injustice that belong to classical political philosophy. grantorto, for example, is explicitly called “tyrant” (v.xii.25). artegall himself studied “true iustice how to deale / and day and night employ’d his busie paine” (v.xii.26). true justice. the word “justice” does not occur anywhere in the prince, however. justice—true or otherwise—has no place within machiavelli’s political philosophy, nor does the term “tyrant.” it is precisely this same sort of “emancipation” from classical political philosophy that finds its way into a view, however. by my count, excluding titles like “justice of the peace,” the concept of justice or injustice appears as an abstract general concept acting as a foundational legal principle only four times in the text.12 (the words “just” and “unjust” appear more frequently, but only as individual attributes or deeds.) every instance is spoken by irenius—not the moral and trustworthy eudoxus, significantly. by the latter half of the book, though, all instances of “justice” and even most of the instances for “just” disappear. . . except in relation to lord grey, whom spenser (and irenius?) have a stake in defending. (incidentally, the defense of lord grey is where eudoxus’s own references to justness grow most forceful and frequent.) “tyranny” or “tyrant” appears absolutely nowhere in a view. so it seems safe to say that spenser, in contrast to his art, felt comfortable in phasing out an important concept like justice from his political tract, except where it might polemically serve irenius’s needs. spenser, seeing the practical problems of colonial rule, of annexing 11 when “machiavelli wants to emphasize the need to use fraud, he buttresses his argument with xenophon’s version of cyrus. when he wants to emphasize the need to use force, however, he ignores xenophon’s version in favor of his own. the implication is that while xenophon teaches well enough the need for fraud, he does not make his readers sufficiently aware of the need to use force” (124-25). 12 the first two instances are the most significant, and they both occur relatively early in the text: “laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people” so as to not “pervert iustice to extreame iustice” (20); “true iustice punisheth nothing but the evill act or wicked word” (30). these two cases are the only places where irenius comes close to formulating a theoretical concept of justice. the next two instances of the term are less global in scope. first, in the scoffing words of irenius, the irish “complaine hee hath no iustice” due to the partiality of non-irish magistrates (31), and the last reference is a politically charged for irenius, critiquing thomas butler, eleventh earl of ormond, against whom spenser may have had a grudge for his role in having lord grey recalled in 1582 (37). the term justice appears nowhere in the following three-fourths of the text. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1514 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research onto an old princedom a new princedom differing in laws and customs, adopts the modern attitude that his artistry cannot theoretically accept. conclusion according to leo strauss, machiavelli’s great innovation in political philosophy is that machiavelli—the paramount “teacher of evil” (9)—had proclaimed “openly and triumphantly a corrupting doctrine that ancient writers had taught covertly or with all signs of repugnance” (10).13 we have seen how machiavelli can be deliberately coy with his doctrines, deliberately contradicting himself in certain places, avoiding stating his true meaning explicitly in others, and generally talking around certain issues that he simply expects his readers to intuit. what spenser does in a view is proclaim a machiavellian teaching with an openness that even the famed italian hesitated to use. a view is remarkably straight-forward in its policies of extermination, famine, cultural destruction, and forced relocation. rather than writing esoterically, spenser ameliorates the shockingness of his proposals via the dialogue form, a rhetorical device situating those views within the humanist tradition. it is intriguing to note that spenser mentions machiavelli only once, at the very end of his text—and the reference is not to the prince but to discourses on livy, machiavelli’s republican tract. so, whereas machiavelli chooses to couch his true teaching in misdirection and innuendo, spenser proclaims that teaching openly—but attempts to soften its horror under more “liberal” auspices. spenser’s reputation as a moral poet, we might also suppose, perhaps partially insulated him against the same contemporary english opprobrium applied to machiavelli himself, whom they believed to be an atheist and the worst kind of cynic. ultimately, i have argued for a fundamental split in how we should read spenser. his poetry harkens back to classical moral writing, brought to spenser by his admiration for sir philip sidney; however, his political science shows a divisive break with ancient political philosophy. the incompatibility of the two positions shows the influence of two entirely different traditions of thought (ancient and modern) and two entirely different genres of writing (poetry and political science). perhaps my particular position does not absolve spenser from blame, although that is not really my intent. my greatest worry is that a modern moral framework might blind our judgment to methods of valuing and interpreting that have since become obscured by the centuries—spenser’s insight into machiavelli’s esoteric writing may seem implausible today, but only because esoteric writing has ceased to be necessary within modern liberal democracy. now, on whether spenser’s humanist-realpolitik or machiavelli esoteric-realpolitik is the more invidious or subversive method, that i leave up to the individual reader. needless to say, for an age steeped in universal human rights, an age that too well remembers the holocaust and decolonization, neither method is entirely palatable. but that is a modern perspective. even if we lament spenser as a poet of the state, as yeats does, we should also acknowledge that he possessed 13 for example, see plato’s treatment of thrasymachus and callicles, or thucydide’s dialogue between the melians and the athenian envoys. evict them from their ancestral lands. this is the essential point about machiavelli’s reading of xenophon. as newell says, scipio (initially) followed the textual cyrus, but a ruler such as hannibal followed the real cyrus—who, like hannibal, had to rule a wide variety of peoples with different languages and different customs. (newell notes that machiavelli’s interpretation of xenophon’s cyrus is possibly polemically sugar-coated, since xenophon does portray his cyrus as inspiring fear.)11 machiavelli’s understanding of xenophon offers, i believe, a way to grasp the seeming disparity between spenser’s art and spenser’s political science. spenser’s art owed a great debt to classical models, however so much he revised and expanded them. not only does spenser attempt to portray the “twelue priuate morall virtues” in the ideal realm of faerie, but he—like xenophon—cannot completely emancipate his art from distinctions between the noble and the base or between vice and virtue. even book v of the faerie queene, which defends lord grey in the figure of artegall, remains beholden to the distinctions between tyranny and legitimate rule, right and wrong, and justice and injustice that belong to classical political philosophy. grantorto, for example, is explicitly called “tyrant” (v.xii.25). artegall himself studied “true iustice how to deale / and day and night employ’d his busie paine” (v.xii.26). true justice. the word “justice” does not occur anywhere in the prince, however. justice—true or otherwise—has no place within machiavelli’s political philosophy, nor does the term “tyrant.” it is precisely this same sort of “emancipation” from classical political philosophy that finds its way into a view, however. by my count, excluding titles like “justice of the peace,” the concept of justice or injustice appears as an abstract general concept acting as a foundational legal principle only four times in the text.12 (the words “just” and “unjust” appear more frequently, but only as individual attributes or deeds.) every instance is spoken by irenius—not the moral and trustworthy eudoxus, significantly. by the latter half of the book, though, all instances of “justice” and even most of the instances for “just” disappear. . . except in relation to lord grey, whom spenser (and irenius?) have a stake in defending. (incidentally, the defense of lord grey is where eudoxus’s own references to justness grow most forceful and frequent.) “tyranny” or “tyrant” appears absolutely nowhere in a view. so it seems safe to say that spenser, in contrast to his art, felt comfortable in phasing out an important concept like justice from his political tract, except where it might polemically serve irenius’s needs. spenser, seeing the practical problems of colonial rule, of annexing 11 when “machiavelli wants to emphasize the need to use fraud, he buttresses his argument with xenophon’s version of cyrus. when he wants to emphasize the need to use force, however, he ignores xenophon’s version in favor of his own. the implication is that while xenophon teaches well enough the need for fraud, he does not make his readers sufficiently aware of the need to use force” (124-25). 12 the first two instances are the most significant, and they both occur relatively early in the text: “laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people” so as to not “pervert iustice to extreame iustice” (20); “true iustice punisheth nothing but the evill act or wicked word” (30). these two cases are the only places where irenius comes close to formulating a theoretical concept of justice. the next two instances of the term are less global in scope. first, in the scoffing words of irenius, the irish “complaine hee hath no iustice” due to the partiality of non-irish magistrates (31), and the last reference is a politically charged for irenius, critiquing thomas butler, eleventh earl of ormond, against whom spenser may have had a grudge for his role in having lord grey recalled in 1582 (37). the term justice appears nowhere in the following three-fourths of the text. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1716 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research enough freedom of mind and intellectual acumen not to mix his poetry with his politics. perhaps the best that can be said for now is that we should agree with nicholas canny’s assessment that a view ranks as “a social and political statement of the first importance” (“spenser” 203). works cited achebe, chinua. “an image of africa.” the norton anthology of theory and criticism. ed. vincent b. leitch. new york: w.w. norton, (2001): 1783-94. print. brady, ciaran. “spenser’s irish crisis: humanism and experience in the 1590s.” past and present 111 (1986): 17-49. jstor. web. 28 january 2014. brink, jean r. “constructing the view of the present state of ireland.” spenser studies: a renaissance poetry annual 11 (1994): 203-28. print. canino, catherine g. “reconstructing lord grey’s reputation: a new view of the view.” sixteenth century journal 29.1 (1998): 3-18. jstor. web. 28 january 2014. canny, nicholas. making ireland british, 1580-1650. oxford: oxford up, 2003. print. ---. “spenser’s irish crisis: humanism and experience in the 1590s.” past & present 120 (1988): 201-9. jstor. web. 13 july 2013. greenblatt, stephen. renaissance self-fashioning. chicago: u of chicago p, 1980. print. hadfield, andrew. “spenser, ireland, and sixteenth-century political theory.” the modern language review 89.1 (1994): 1-18. jstor. web. 27 january 2014. harvey, gabriel. letter-book of gabriel harvey, a.d. 1573-1580. ed. edward john long scott. new york: johnson reprint corporation, 1965. print. kisting, wesley. “conscience and the ‘gentle paines’ of reform in a view of the present state of ireland.” clio 37.1 (2007): 27-48. web. 8 july 2013. machiavelli, niccolò. the prince. trans. n.h. thompson. mineola, ny: dover, 1992. print. more, thomas. utopia. trans. clarence h. miller. new haven, ct: yale up, 2001. print. nadon, christopher. xenophon’s prince: republic and empire in the cyropaedia. berkeley, ca: u of california p, 2001. print.\ newell, w.r. “machiavelli and xenophon on princely rule: a double-edged encounter.” the journal of politics 50.1 (1988): 108-30. jstor. web. 22 january 2014. sidney, philip. “an apology for poetry.” the norton anthology of theory and criticism. ed. vincent b. leitch. new york: w.w. norton, 2001. 326-62. print.\ spenser, edmund. a view of the state of ireland. ed. andrew hadfield and willy maley. maldon, ma: blackwell, 1997. print. ---. the faerie queene. new york: penguin, 1987. print. strauss, leo. persecution and the art of writing. chicago: u of chicago p, 1952. print. ---. thoughts on machiavelli. chicago: u of chicago p, 1958. print. tatum, james. xenophon’s imperial fiction: on the education of cyrus. princeton, nj: princeton up, 1989. print. waterfield, robin. introduction. xenophon: conversations of socrates. by xenophon. ed. robin waterfield. trans. hugh tredennick and robin waterfield. new york: penguin, 1990. 5-26. print. classical poetry and modern political philosophy: spenser and machiavelli in a view of the state of ireland middle tennessee state university 1716 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research enough freedom of mind and intellectual acumen not to mix his poetry with his politics. perhaps the best that can be said for now is that we should agree with nicholas canny’s assessment that a view ranks as “a social and political statement of the first importance” (“spenser” 203). works cited achebe, chinua. “an image of africa.” the norton anthology of theory and criticism. ed. vincent b. leitch. new york: w.w. norton, (2001): 1783-94. print. brady, ciaran. “spenser’s irish crisis: humanism and experience in the 1590s.” past and present 111 (1986): 17-49. jstor. web. 28 january 2014. brink, jean r. “constructing the view of the present state of ireland.” spenser studies: a renaissance poetry annual 11 (1994): 203-28. print. canino, catherine g. “reconstructing lord grey’s reputation: a new view of the view.” sixteenth century journal 29.1 (1998): 3-18. jstor. web. 28 january 2014. canny, nicholas. making ireland british, 1580-1650. oxford: oxford up, 2003. print. ---. “spenser’s irish crisis: humanism and experience in the 1590s.” past & present 120 (1988): 201-9. jstor. web. 13 july 2013. greenblatt, stephen. renaissance self-fashioning. chicago: u of chicago p, 1980. print. hadfield, andrew. “spenser, ireland, and sixteenth-century political theory.” the modern language review 89.1 (1994): 1-18. jstor. web. 27 january 2014. harvey, gabriel. letter-book of gabriel harvey, a.d. 1573-1580. ed. edward john long scott. new york: johnson reprint corporation, 1965. print. kisting, wesley. “conscience and the ‘gentle paines’ of reform in a view of the present state of ireland.” clio 37.1 (2007): 27-48. web. 8 july 2013. machiavelli, niccolò. the prince. trans. n.h. thompson. mineola, ny: dover, 1992. print. more, thomas. utopia. trans. clarence h. miller. new haven, ct: yale up, 2001. print. nadon, christopher. xenophon’s prince: republic and empire in the cyropaedia. berkeley, ca: u of california p, 2001. print.\ newell, w.r. “machiavelli and xenophon on princely rule: a double-edged encounter.” the journal of politics 50.1 (1988): 108-30. jstor. web. 22 january 2014. sidney, philip. “an apology for poetry.” the norton anthology of theory and criticism. ed. vincent b. leitch. new york: w.w. norton, 2001. 326-62. print.\ spenser, edmund. a view of the state of ireland. ed. andrew hadfield and willy maley. maldon, ma: blackwell, 1997. print. ---. the faerie queene. new york: penguin, 1987. print. strauss, leo. persecution and the art of writing. chicago: u of chicago p, 1952. print. ---. thoughts on machiavelli. chicago: u of chicago p, 1958. print. tatum, james. xenophon’s imperial fiction: on the education of cyrus. princeton, nj: princeton up, 1989. print. waterfield, robin. introduction. xenophon: conversations of socrates. by xenophon. ed. robin waterfield. trans. hugh tredennick and robin waterfield. new york: penguin, 1990. 5-26. print. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 1918 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research yeats, w.b. “edmund spenser.” essays and introductions. new york: macmillan, 1961. print. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite load in equines from middle tennessee ellen goertzen abstract in this study fecal egg counts were performed on horses in six barns in middle tennessee to assess parasite load and the effectiveness of deworming programs. samples were collected and tested before and after deworming and results found through the mcmaster technique were compared with currently practiced deworming programs. results showed the presence of parasites in all barns, though parasite load varied with a number of factors such as consistency of treatment, deworming frequency, and products used. all deworming products were found to be effective. this research provides insight to a more informed alternative deworming protocol, based on actual parasite load, than is typically used throughout the horse industry today. future studies are suggested to compare the effectiveness of rotating products vs. use of a single product, and evaluating parasite load of stallions vs. mares or geldings. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 15 disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices katie stringer abstract this paper addresses questions about disability history, the history of the relationship between museums and people with disabilities, the history of museums and exhibits as collections of curiosities including people with disabilities, and how that past has informed the present.  preserving and distributing knowledge have been the major pillars of museums’ work during the modern age.  racial and ethnic inclusiveness were addressed throughout the civil rights movement and the decades that followed, and accommodations have also been made in society for physical disabilities with the americans with disabilities act.   many times the community has excluded disabled people, whether intentionally or not. in addition to evaluating information on how museums and other organizations of the past, the sideshow, and the community in general treated people with disabilities, this paper also presents information about how modern museums react to their learning disabled visitors. the paper presents information about research into possibilities of a model for museums to use to develop specific programming and exhibits for people with cognitive delay and disabilities deans’ distinguished essay award recipient 16 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research introduction the words museum and exhibit have different meanings and evoke different feelings for every person. age, race, and other demographics could affect the way that a person views museums, exhibits, and educational programming; furthermore, museums from the distant past would hardly be recognizable to many people today. from the collections by ancient kings and nobles to the early cabinets of natural curiosities of europe, museums have an extensive history. additionally, people with disabilities have had a long and storied past, which is often forgotten or excluded from the history that is presented in classrooms, museums, or at historic sites. dime museums and the birth of the sideshow artist, inventor, and entrepreneur charles willson peale opened the first major “museum” in philadelphia in 1794. in a broadside distributed to the american philosophical society and other prominent social figures of philadelphia, peale emphasized that his museum would both collect and exhibit publicly a wide range of artifacts, focusing on natural history and art but including historical items as well. his museum was a for-profit enterprise, but peale would have liked government support. to keep the doors open, he depended on attractions that ensured repeat customers.1 peale’s museum struggled, and eventually entertainment broker p.t. barnum bought most of the collection. barnum’s american museum, opened in new york city in 1840, advertised itself as a museum, but it was really little more than a “freak show.” indeed, following the opening of barnum’s “museum” in 1840, freak shows would remain at their height until 1940. the museum contained many exhibits and gaffes, but it also housed many people who were considered to be rarities worthy of exhibition. these people included: general tom thumb, a person with dwarfism; “the aztec twins,” albinos; the “what is it?,” who was also a person with microcephaly; and many other “living curiosities.”2 for over 100 years, entrepreneurs organized exhibitions of people with physical, mental, and behavioral disabilities or impairments to amuse the public and generate a profit. barnum’s “museum” and others like it became a sub-category of museums, known as “dime museums” which advertised exhibitions as educational and scientific activities, but the exhibits were actually a profitable business for those in charge.3 the dime museum began its rise in american popular culture in the mid-nineteenth century. dime museums charged a low admission fee for the general population to see “dioramas, panoramas, georamas, cosmoramas, paintings, relics, freaks, stuffed animals, menageries, waxworks, and theatrical 1 hugh h. genoways and mary anne andrei, eds. museum origins: readings in early museum history and philosophy (walnut creek, ca: left coast press, 2008), 23. 2 phineas t. barnum, an illustrated catalogue and guide book to barnum’s american museum (new york : wynkoop, hallenbeck & thomas, circa 1860). microcephaly literally means “small head.” 3 godkin, 9. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 17 performance.”4 the museums served as varyingly educational experiences for victorian people who wanted to spend their leisure time advancing their lives in some way.5 many “freaks” performed at these sites and were exhibited in buildings that were called museums. whether or not these institutions fit the definition of a museum today is not determined here, but the term was irrevocably associated with the weird, strange, and unknown.6 the museums often housed gaffes or fake objects and people and, as in the case of barnum’s museum following its downfall, were often transformed into a circus or carnival sideshow exhibits. the people of the time likely did not conflate museums with sideshows; however, the sideshows were generally billed as educational events and opportunities. in 1865 barnum’s american museum was destroyed by fire. a few days later, critic edwin lawrence godkin described and chastised the museum in the pages of the nation: “the worst and most corrupt classes of our people must seek some new place of resort.” he then questioned whether visitors were more upset by the fire that destroyed the museum or the state of the artifacts in the museum when it stood. godkin asserted that the “insufficiency, disorder, [and] neglected condition” of the museum should have insulted visitors.7 the barnum american museum fire was reported in the new york times, and the article listed many of the items of interest that had been lost in the fire, though none of the people who were exhibited had been killed.8 after the fire claimed the museum, an article published in 1865 claimed that barnum was constructing a new museum to replace the old. the author claimed: “[t]he fact is, that the loss of the museum was a national calamity.”9 however, the museum yet again burned to the ground in 1868 and was not again rebuilt.10 instead, barnum took his show on the road where it became one of the most famous traveling circuses. 4 andrea stulman dennett, weird and wonderful: the dime museum in america (new york: new york university press, 1997), 5. 5 ibid., 7. 6 more information about the rise and impact of dime museums and entertainment industry as a whole is available in dennett’s weird and wonderful: the dime museum in america (new york: new york university press, 1997); john kasson, amusing the million: coney island at the turn of the century (new york: hill and wang, 1978); hugh h. genoways, and mary anne andrei, eds. museum origins: readings in early museum history and philosophy, (walnut creek, ca: left coast press, 2008); charles c. sellers, mr. peale’s museum: charles wilson peale and the first popular museum of natural science and art (new york: w.w. norton, 1980); gary kulik, “designing the past: history museums exhibitions from peale to the present,” in history museums in the united states: a critical assessment, eds. warren leon and roy rosenweig. (urbana: university of illinois press, 1989), 3-37. 7 edwin l. godkin, “a word about museums,” the nation, ( july 27, 1865): 113-114. 8 “disastrous fire: total destruction of barnum’s american museum.” in new york times (1857-1922); jul 14, 1865; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 9 “barnum’s new museum project.: museum will contain...” in new york times (18571922); jul 18, 1865; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009) pg. 5. 10 “burning of barnum’s museum: list of losses and insurances” in new york times (1857-1922); mar 4, 1868; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009) pg. 8. 18 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research by the end of the nineteenth century, barnum and bailey’s “greatest show on earth” boasted “peerless prodigies of physical phenomena” with both born and created anomalies. in the image are a strong man, a bearded lady, a pin-head, two small men, a dog-faced girl, two unidentified ladies, a man with a parasitic twin, a sword swallower, conjoined twins, and a giant. organizers named the people who were integral to these attractions curiosities, rarities, oddities, wonders, mistakes, prodigies, special people, and even monsters. they categorized performers into different races and natural mistakes, such as giants, people without arms or legs, the obese, conjoined twins, “wild” men allegedly hailing from foreign and unexplored lands, little people, albinos, and more. today’s freak shows consist mainly of people who are “made freaks” who do dangerous tricks or have rare talents, though there are some instances of “born differents” still exhibited today. from the popular coney island amusement area in new york city to traveling circuses and sideshows, exhibits that featured people with physical differences were some of the most prevalent attractions. dime museums and national exhibitions up to the mid-twentieth century often featured humans who were considered “different” for the public to view. the exhibition of people in these shows was sometimes voluntary and sometimes decided by the guardians of the people considered to be “freaks.” the exhibitions of people considered different have been called many things: raree shows, halls of human curiosities, sideshows, pitshows, odditoriums, congress of oddities, collections of human wonders, museum of nature’s mistakes, and freakshows. one of the first examples of a traveling exhibit of a person appeared in 1738 in a colonial american newspaper; the paper ran an advertisement for an exhibit of a person who “was taken in a wood at guinea, tis a female about four feet high, in every part like a woman excepting her head which nearly resembles the ape.”11 throughout the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, freakshows or sideshows were among the most popular attractions for the middle-class public. the situation of those individuals with disabilities, especially those with cognitive delays, is an important piece of the past that informs present displays and exhibits, museum policies, and popular attitudes. what is a “freak”? to understand the impact that these past exhibitions have on the present, it is important first to understand what a freak show is or was, and what defines a “freak.” robert bogdan argues in 1988 that freak was a metaphor for separation, marginality, and an aspect of the dark side of human experience. he goes on to assert that “freak” is a frame of mind for the person called a freak, a set of practices that person employs and a way of thinking about and presenting people. to be a freak is to enact a tradition of stylized presentation.12 sideshow u.s.a. by rachel adams defines “freakishness” as “a historically variable quality, derived less from particular physical attributes than the spectacle of the extraordinary body swathed in 11 robert bogden. freak show: presenting human oddities for amusement and profit (chicago, il: the university of chicago press, 1988), 25. 12 ibid., 3. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 19 theatrical props.”13 rather than a medical or standardized term, adams argues that “freak” serves as a classification for those who performed or displayed themselves for the public. adams also claims that those who are called freaks “announce themselves as the antithesis of normality” by participating in exhibitions.14 rosemarie garland-thomson is a disability historian who analyzes disability and the freak show; she claims instead of self-naming that the road to “enfreakment” comes from the “normal” people with more power who need to validate their own regularity by calling attention to differences in others. garland-thomas argues that “freaks are above all products of perception: they are the consequences of a comparative relationship in which those who control the social discourse and the means of representation recruit the seeming truth of the body to claim the center for themselves and banish others to the margins.”15 humans have created the aspects of freakishness as a cultural construct, and the attributes of “freakishness” are not intrinsic to a person with any certain disability or ability. by creating this separate cultural category, society takes away the humanity of the people who are considered to be freaks. bogdan warns viewers not to conflate the performance with the person behind his or her role in the sideshow.16 building upon bogdan’s assertion, garland-thomson again argues that: [t]he body envelops and obliterates the freak’s potential humanity. when the body becomes pure text, a freak has been produced from a physically disabled human being. such accumulation and exaggeration of bodily details distinguishes the freak from the unmarked and unremarked ordinary body that claims through its very obscurity to be universal and normative.17 by labeling a person a freak, the sideshow takes away the humanity of the performer because he or she might not have the same physical characteristics of the “normal” person. adams summarizes the phenomenon by claiming that “[l]abeling a person freak evacuates her from humanity, authorizing the paying customer to approach her as an object of curiosity and entertainment.”18 to reconcile the exploitation of people who were different as curiosities worthy of admission price, society had only to take away the humanity of those individuals. people with cognitive impairments in sideshows sideshows were not limited to the physically disabled, however, since some of the most popular performers had both physical and cognitive impairments. some of p.t. barnum’s most successful and famous exhibitions were those performers known as pinheads. the term 13 rachel adams, sideshow u.s.a: freaks and the american cultural imagination (chicago: university of chicago press, 2001), 6. 14 adams, sideshows u.s.a, 9. 15 rosemarie garland-thomson, extraordinary bodies: figuring physical disability in american culture and literature (new york, ny: columbia university press, 1997), 63. 16 bogdan, 10. 17 garland-thomson, 60. 18 adams, 10. 20 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was used to label sideshow performers who had small heads throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. many of these people who were labeled as pinheads for the show had a medical condition called microcephaly in which the patient has a small skull, and thus, a smaller brain than the average person. some people with microcephaly have normal intelligence, but most experience some level of mental retardation or cognitive delay. additionally, many people with microcephaly also have characteristics of dwarfism and seizures, and though many performers who were labeled pinheads had microcephaly, not all were afflicted with the disease 19 the aztec children, the wildmen of borneo, the wild australian children, zip thewhat is it?, and many other pinheads gained national fame through the sideshows and other media. all of these acts had smaller heads than the average person, and all except the wildmen of borneo had sloping foreheads common among individuals with microcephaly. the individuals categorized as pinheads were all purported to have been captured in wild lands outside of the civilized united states. this categorization assisted in stripping the humanity from people who were presented as unintelligent creatures that needed care from a “keeper,” much like animals at a zoo.20 the first known exhibition of people with microcephaly, the aztec twins, began in the mid-nineteenth century. while traveling in central america in 1849, a spanish trader named ramon selva discovered two small children in san miguel, el salvador, named maximo and bartola. the children were described as dwarfish and idiotic, and selva convinced their mother that he would be able to cure the children if he was allowed to take them to the united states. when selva returned to new york, he sold the children to the man who became their manager and owner and displayed them in freak shows up to the end of the nineteenth century.21 publicity reports called maximo and bartola “the last of the ancient aztecs” in an attempt to gain popularity for their mysterious backgrounds and heritage. to validate their history, their manager sold a booklet called life of the living aztec children which told the fabricated story of how he obtained the children for the sideshow. the booklet claimed that three adventurers came across the children as they were sitting as idols on an altar in an ancient aztec city.22 when the children were first exhibited in boston, massachusetts, in 1850 dressed in outfits with aztec designs and feathers, they were an immediate success not only among the public but also with the scientific community.23 19 national institute of neurological disorders and stroke, http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/ microcephaly/microcephaly.htm, accessed 11/23, 2012. 20 robert bogdan, “the exhibition of people we now call retarded,” in freak show (chicago, il: the university of chicago press, 1988), 119 – 146. 21 phineas t. barnum, an illustrated catalogue and guide book to barnum’s american museum (new york : wynkoop, hallenbeck & thomas, circa 1860). 22 barnum’s american museum, “illustrated memoir of an eventful expedition into central america” (new york: wynkoop, hallenbeck & thomas, printers, 1860). 23 bogdan, 129. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 21 one observer claimed that the public saw the children as “subjects deserving of careful scrutiny and thoughtful observation… they must be objects of vivid interest.”24 the fact that the children seemed to be severely cognitively impaired was not addressed in the booklet that accompanied the exhibit or by observers. their intelligence level, race, size, and other child-like aspects served only as a way to dehumanize maximo and bartola in their exhibition. an article from 1860 in the new york journal of commerce called them “the greatest curiosities of the human race ever seen in this country.” the author went on to say “they are human beings there can be no doubt; and they are not freaks of nature, but specimens of a dwindled, manikin race.”25 though this author did recognize their humanity, he continued to diminish them because of their race. rather than addressing the impairment the children were born with, the public saw the exhibit as showcasing a previously undiscovered race of people. following the success of maximo and bartola, the next set of so-called twins that barnum made famous was called the wild men of borneo. as with the aztec twins, the wild men were provided with an elaborate origins story. growing up on a farm in ohio, hiram and barney davis were neither wild nor from borneo.26 however, because the united states and the netherlands contested for colonial control of borneo in the mid1800s, the wild men’s exhibitors chose this for their home country to raise curiosity. to create the façade of wildness, hiram and barney were renamed waino and plutano and were exhibited before painted jungle scenes and instructed to speak gibberish and snarl while wearing chains.27 the men were around three feet and six inches tall, and they were called “dwarfs” and “imbeciles.” accounts from people who met them described hiram and barney as “mentally deficient” and “mentally defective.”28 when lyman warner appeared at the davis home and offered to exhibit the boys in a freak show, the family initially refused to let them go; however, when warner returned with a wash basin full of money, the boys’ mother decided that there would be more money and opportunities for hiram and barney in the freak show than at home. 29 around the same time as the wild men of borneo, barnum also exhibits the wild australian children. again, there was an elaborate story of the capture of the children from a near extinct and as-yet undiscovered race of people from an exotic land; however, tom and hettie were actually microcephalic siblings who were severely mentally retarded, and they were born in ohio as opposed to australia.30 a pamphlet that accompanied them 24 ibid., 130. 25 from the new york journal of commerce as quoted in life of the living aztec children. 26 “living aztec children,” 122. 27 “exhibition of wild men” in the new york daily times; aug 7, 1854; accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times. 28 ibid., 122. 29 “exhibition of wild men” in the new york daily times; aug 7, 1854; accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times. 30 bogdan, 120. 22 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research claimed that an adventurer and explorer named captain reid captured them in australia. the pamphlet did not address their cognitive abilities but instead said that the children were “neither idiots, lusus naturae [meaning monsters or freaks of nature], nor any other aberration of humanity. but belonged to a distinct race hitherto unknown to civilization.”31 the so-called children traveled with sideshows for at least thirty years and were therefore not considered children for most , if any, of their exhibited time. their mental abilities and the characteristics of their exhibition instead categorized them as children. perhaps the most well-documented of p.t. barnum’s popular exhibits was zip the pinhead, also sometimes called the “what is it?”. his real name was william henry johnson, and he was born around 1840 in new jersey.32 his condition, both physically and mentally, is still disputed, but it is known that johnson was small in stature, standing between four and five feet tall. bogdan argues that today johnson would surely be diagnosed as mentally retarded and microcephalic;33 others argue that the shape of his head and his behavior are contrary to this diagnosis. regardless, he was one of the most popular “freaks,” and he was exhibited during the peak of sideshow popularity from 1840 until his death in 1926.34 johnson’s sister wrote an article that said he was recruited to the sideshow at the age of four. johnson never spoke extensively about his past, and many times he was described as being incoherent when he did speak. however, one person who knew him in the circus life described him as “a pinhead, but fairly intelligent.”35 the publicized story about johnson, or zip, claimed that he was captured along the river gambia in africa and brought to the united states. johnson was an african-american with a dramatically pointed head, which when shaved was accentuated. he was often dressed in a monkey-suit to his neck and exhibited as a missing link between apes and humans.36 zip’s character went beyond the “wild” aspects of his past though, and he was presented as a clownish character who took part in many staged displays for publicity including boxing, playing the violin, and participating in a simulated marriage to a dwarf.37 at his death, his sister claimed that johnson could speak like an average person. she also claimed that his dying words were, “well, we fooled ‘em for a long time, didn’t we?”38 many people of all backgrounds attended 31 bogdan, 120. 32 “zip, the what is it?’ to quit the circus: he’s 83 now…” from the new york times, apr 11, 1926; pg. e19. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 33 bogdan, 134. 34 “many circus folk at zip’s funeral: aged freak buried simply,” in new york times; apr 29, 1926; pg. 48. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 35 “an old barnum barker” in new york times, nov 12, 1933; pg. x5. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 36 bogdan, 132. 37 “giant the best man at midget wedding” in new york times, apr 17, 1916; pg. 9. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 38 marc hartzman, american sideshow (new york: penguin, 2005), 50. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 23 his funeral from the sideshow and the public, and the story of his death was published in twenty newspapers.39 in addition to the the aztec children, wildmen of borneo, the wild children of australia, and zip, there were many other performers with microcephaly and some degree of mental retardation who were exhibited in sideshows up to the beginning of world war ii and the decline of the sideshow in general. schlitzie the pinhead, whose real name was simon metz, was another of barnum’s exhibits. his fame extended to film after his appearance in tod browning’s 1932 film freaks. once sideshows began their decline, however, simon metz was placed in custodial institutional care.40 at coney island in the early twentieth century, pip and flip were exhibited as twins from the yucatan and wild australian children; in reality they were women with microcephaly. their real names were elvira snow and jennie lee, and they were born in georgia.41 in 1910, two children called aurora and natali were also exhibited as ancient aztec children, though photographs suggest that they were likely people with microcephaly as well.42 by claiming that they were behaving as humane westerners caring for “freaks,” the sideshow managers were able to reconcile the stories of wild races in unknown areas of the world with the docile and kind people who were exhibited. in reviewing primary sources from the time period, the exhibition of people with cognitive impairments never seems to have been criticized by the medical community or physicians. instead, many scientists and doctors accepted and assisted such displays as educational experiences, and they attended the exhibits along with the general public to examine and comment on the exhibits. scientists studied the people in the exhibits and wrote articles about them, but none of the articles critique the study of people with disabilities.43 the impact of the sideshow is visible in one book by j. langdon down who described microcephaly as “the aztec type” in a medical text written in 1887.44 in professional literature by influential scientists from the united states and great britain, the “so-called aztecs” are referred to throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and as late as the 1930s, “aztec-like” was a term for microcephaly. 45 by the 1930s, mental retardation became recognized as a medical condition, and the display of people with microcephaly was reduced. rather than being amazed or intrigued by such “freaks,” people were offended by the exhibitions and pitied those individuals on display. 39 “zip, barnum’s famous ‘what is it’ freak, dies of bronchitis in bellevue; his age put at 84” in new york times ; apr 25, 1926; pg. 1. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). 40 bogdan, 146. 41 ibid., 142. 42 ibid.,133. 43 ibid., 121. 44 j. langdon down, mental affections of childhood and youth (london: j. & a. churchill, 1887), pages 18, 19, and 72. 45 charles bernstein, “microcephalic people sometimes called pinheads” in the journal of heredity, vol. 13, 1922, p 31. 24 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in 1985, complaints voiced by concerned citizens prompted the new york state fair’s sutton sideshow attraction to be moved away from the midway of the park, and the term freak was no longer an acceptable term for people with disabilities in the amusement industry.46 this solidified the belief that freakshows were crude, exploitative, and somewhat embarrassing to society; it has even been called the “pornography of disability.”47 bogdan argued that the freakshow of the past is in decline because of low attendance, criticism from disability rights activists, and changing opinions and wants from their audiences. when robert bogdan’s book was published in 1988, the author argued that the freakshow was a dying exhibition style that would not be around for much longer for financial reasons and propriety’s sake. the shift from “born different” to “self-made” freaks in sideshows and other displays is shown in the sideshows of coney island today, television shows, and movies. an article from the disability quarterly studies in 2005 details the differences between those born with a disability and those who are “made freaks.” author elizabeth stephens states that the contemporary freak body is in this way just like the normative model of the body found in 21st-century culture, a plastic and self-made construct, constantly transforming and re-inventing itself. the wonder and anxiety generated by the body of the self-made freak arises not from the randomness of its physical difference, as responses to the “born” freak did, but at its celebration of different capabilities and aesthetics48 though the freakshow of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century seems to be a thing of the past, a reinvention of the show and its meaning has prevented the collapse of sideshow and freaks completely. in modern society, sideshows or exhibitions that exploit people with disabilities are generally looked down upon. even though such blatant exploitation is not as prevalent in the united states as it was in past centuries, the impact that the past has had on the present situation is still evident. the disability civil rights movement, the americans with disabilities act, and museums the special issue of the public historian from spring 2005 was primarily concerned with disability and museums. 49 the articles range in subject matter from the historic home of franklin d. roosevelt to visually impaired visitor’s experiences at a museum to reviews of various historical websites and books. this journal’s firsthand accounts of people with disabilities and their experiences are striking. their stories show society’s lack of compassion and sensitivity toward people with disabilities and even a lack of awareness of their situation. 46 “sideshow freaks a vanishing act,” in bangor daily news, august 26, 1985, 16. 47 bogdan, 2. 48 elizabeth stephens, “twenty-first century freak show: recent transformations in the exhibition of non-normative bodies” in disability quarterly studies, summer 2005, volume 25, no. 3. 49 the public historian, vol. 27, no. 2 (spring 2005) special issue on disabilities. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 25 also missing from the literature was the inclusion of those who have learning, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. since the implementation of the americans with disabilities act, much of the focus has only been on wheelchair accessibility. accessibility for the sight and hearing impaired has also been embraced, but in many cases, those with learning disabilities are forgotten. compounding this issue of limited accessibility, many museums are small and short-staffed, and resources and training are not always readily available for all staff and volunteers. as arelene mayerson wrote in her 1992 article “the history of the ada: a movement perspective,” the americans with disabilities act did not begin with the passing of legislation in 1990 by congress; it began much earlier with the people and communities that fought against discrimination.50 in legal terms, the shift towards disability equality began in 1973 when the rehabilition act was passed, which banned discrimination based on disability for the receiving of federal funds.51 following this, the disability civil rights movement gained momentum, and in 1988, the americans with disabilities act was first brought forward to congress for consideration.52 in 1990, the act was passed which gave rights to people with disabilities that had previously not been guaranteed by federal law. the law protects against disability discrimination in employment, public services, public accommodation, and services operated by private entities, transportation, and telecommunications.53 museums and historic sites are also included under ada as public places. regardless of size or income, museums have obligations to provide and to maintain accessibility for visitors with disabilities. though the progress toward inclusion of people with disabilities at museums and historic sites has advanced exponentially since the time of sideshows and the exhibition of people with disabilities for entertainment, there is still a long way to go.54 there is room for researchers to investigate the creation of a model for museums and historic sites to use to better engage children with cognitive delay learning disabilities who are in special education classrooms. such researchers could benefit from reviewing successful sites in new york city; correctly established, these programs could be beneficial to students, teachers, and museum professionals. researchers in this area could go on to explore special education in secondary schools and how public history can relate to various communities of people with disabilities who have previously been underserved by the public history field. 50 arlene mayerson, “the history of the ada: a movement perspective” from the disability rights education and defense fund, 1992. available at: http://dredf.org/publications/ada_history.shtml, accessed, january 10, 2013. 51 section 504, rehabilition act, 1973. 52 s. 2345, americans with disabilities bill in the 100th congress, april 28, 1988 53 the americans with disabilities act, public law 101-336 (1990). 54 the association of science-technology centers provides an excellent resource for museum legal obligations for accessible practices. additionally, the museum access consortium in new york city, consisting of the transit museum, the tenement museum, and the jewish museum all serve as excellent examples of museums working to accommodate all people with disabilities at their museums and historic sites. 26 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research currently, a severe lack of opportunities for people with special needs or learning disabilities exists, and in many cases, the complete nonexistence of programming for this group of people is striking. the museum community is largely embracing universal design, and creating museum exhibits that work for the largest audience at all times would help serve this community immensely. however, also creating specific programming to target audiences such as students with developmental or learning disabilities will be very beneficial. measuring the success of these programs will be difficult because of special education curriculum requirements and the students’ special needs, but through surveys of students and teachers and observable data, researchers will be able to make an assessment of the successes and failures of the programming. the programs called for above will bring new audiences to museums, serve a new population in museums, involve a new community in the process, and provide more opportunities for students and museum staff. this could also possibly provide educational jobs and work service opportunities or volunteer experiences for students. specialized programming has the potential to reach more students and families, spark other interests in students, inspire children, and teach students something new and worthwhile, while also providing social, educational, physical, and motor skill education to students. compared to the way that people in the past were treated at museums or exhibitions, as exhibits themselves, these improvements to museum education are laudable. there is still a long way to go to make improvements universal and accepted, but the groundwork has been laid and conditions will continue to improve. disability, the sideshow, and modern museum practices middle tennessee state university 27 bibliography “an old barnum barker.” in new york times, nov 12, 1933; pg. x5. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). “barnum’s new museum project.: museum will contain..” in new york times (1857-1922); jul 18, 1865; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). “burning of barnum’s museum: list of losses and insurances” in new york times (1857-1922); mar 4, 1868; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009), pg. 8. “disastrous fire.: total destruction of barnum’s american museum.” in new york times. (18571922); jul 14, 1865; proquest historical newspapers: the new york times. “exhibition of wild men.” in the new york daily times; aug 7, 1854; accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times. “giant the best man at midget wedding.” in new york times, apr 17, 1916; pg. 9. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). “many circus folk at zip’s funeral: aged freak buried simply.” in new york times; apr 29, 1926; pg. 48. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). “sideshow freaks a vanishing act.” in bangor daily news. august 26, 1985. “zip, barnum’s famous ‘what is it’ freak, dies of bronchitis in bellevue; his age put at 84.” in new york times; apr 25, 1926; pg. 1. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). “‘zip, the what is it?’ to quit the circus: he’s 83 now…” in the new york times, apr 11, 1926; pg. e19. accessed through proquest historical newspapers: the new york times (1851-2009). adams, rachel. sideshow u.s.a: freaks and the american cultural imagination. chicago: university of chicago press, 2001. association of science-technology centers, “accessibility resources,” available at http://www.astc.org/ resource/access/obligations.htm, accessed, january 10, 2013. barnum, phineas t. an illustrated catalogue and guide book to barnum’s american museum. new york: wynkoop, hallenbeck & thomas, circa 1860. barnum’s american museum. illustrated memoir of an eventful expedition into central america. new york : wynkoop, hallenbeck & thomas, printers, 1860. bernstein, charles. “microcephalic people sometimes called pinheads.” in the journal of heredity, vol. 13, 1922. bogden, robert. freak show: presenting human oddities for amusement and profit. chicago, il: the university of chicago press, 1988. dennett, andrea stulman. weird and wonderful: the dime museum in america. new york: new york university press, 1997. down, j. langdon. mental affections of childhood and youth. london: j. & a. churchill, 1887. 28 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research garland-thomson, rosemarie. extraordinary bodies: figuring physical disability in american culture and literature. new york, ny: columbia university press, 1997. genoways, hugh h. and mary anne andrei, eds. museum origins: readings in early museum history and philosophy. walnut creek, ca: left coast press, 2008. godkin, edwin l. “a word about museums.” in the nation, ( july 27, 1865): 113-114. hartzman, marc. american sideshow. new york: penguin, 2005. mannix, daniel. we who are not like others. new york: pocket books, 1979. mayerson, arlene “the history of the ada: a movement perspective” from the disability rights education and defense fund, 1992. national institute of neurological disorders and stroke, http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/ microcephaly/microcephaly.htm, accessed 11/23, 2012. s. 2345, americans with disabilities bill in the 100th congress, april 28, 1988. section 504, rehabilitation act, 1973. stephens, elizabeth. “twenty-first century freak show:  recent transformations in the exhibition of non-normative bodies.” in disability quarterly studies. summer 2005, volume 25, no. 3. the americans with disabilities act, public law 101-336 (1990). the public historian, vol. 27, no. 2 (spring 2005) special issue on disabilities. the public historian. “special issue on disabilities.” vol. 27, no. 2 (spring 2005). u.s. department of justice, “maintaining accessibility in museums” at http://www.ada.gov/business/ museum_access.htm, accessed january 10, 2013. why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18 why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 1 why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18thcentury literacy, and preservation of the social order clint bryan abstract literacy for lower socioeconomic populations in great britain did not enjoy a high priority in privileged eighteenth-century society. although contemporary literacy theorists have only begun writing about a social turn in literacy in recent decades, tobias smollett’s nearly 250-year-old novel humphry clinker offers significant clues that literacy—especially for the lower classes— has always carried social implications. by situating an illiterate servant cum lay preacher at the center of a novel that bears his name but denies his agency, smollett extends his vocal critique of methodism that threatened to unravel the hierarchical social order of late eighteenth-century britain. smollett’s disdain for methodism and its class-leveling practices was well known during his day—even to john wesley, its founder. smollett finds in clinker the perfect foil on which to circumscribe his antipathy toward methodism and the social reform aims of its architect— including universal literacy for all britons. by labeling methodism as injurious and making sport of it as a daft lay preacher, smollett brackets the positive contributions of wesley’s followers in order to protect the social status quo. as i apply six components of social literacy theory from contemporary theorist david barton’s seminal article “the social impact of literacy” to this picaresque novel, clinker the character emerges as a true hero in smollett’s novel for the social revolution faith-based literacy efforts would exert on britain in the latter eighteenth century and beyond. winner of the 2013 william r. wolfe graduate writing award deans’ distinguished essay award recipient 2 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research literary foils often gain their force by posing a threat to a virtuous protagonist. eighteenth-century novelists certainly trace this trope, particularly through villainy. the pedophile sea captain is but one enemy young tommy anderson encounters in edward kimber’s the history of the life and adventures of mr. anderson. the deplorable landowner barlow, who purchases the boy for indentured servitude and strives to deprive him the right to literacy, is the sort of opponent dynamic plots are built upon. all antagonists need not be felonious—just persistent. the daughter roxana denies giving birth in daniel defoe’s book by the same title, and continues to pursue justice and acknowledgement by a mother bent on her own aggrandizement. in satirical fiction, however, conventional methods for sketching characters that embody the views the author wishes to lampoon distort the binary of hero and villain. humorist tobias smollett, writing his novel humphry clinker just months before his death, casts his antagonist in an unlikely role as the title character in a virtually plot-less travelogue throughout the british isles. karen duncan has noted that smollett stages humphry as a menial footman and a “loveable, bumbling fool” in order to accentuate and then dismiss “the previously perverse or threatening aspects of his methodism” portrayed in the novel (n.p.). clearly clinker is no match in wits to the well-bred, well-read, well-traveled matthew bramble, a doppelgänger for smollett himself. in this epistolary novel, humphry is one of a few central characters not granted a pen to express his thoughts; his voice is only related secondhand (putting him in league with the farcical lismahago). by situating an illiterate servant cum lay preacher at the center of a novel that bears his name but denies his agency, tobias smollett extends his vocal critique of methodism that threatened to unravel the hierarchical social order of late eighteenth-century britain in humphry clinker. in order to investigate the satirical layers in this comic novel and their attendant social implications, one must initially interrogate the central character’s odd name. stephen hart has amassed several sources of eighteenth-century slang terminology in an online database, including the lexicon balatronicum (1811) based on francis grose’s dictionary of the vulgar tongue. the character’s first name humphry most likely stems from a colloquialism: to dine with duke humphrey; to fast. in old st. paul[’]s church was an aisle called duke humphrey[’]s walk (from a tomb vulgarly called his, but in reality belonging to john of gaunt), and persons who walked there, while others were at dinner, were said to dine with duke humphrey. (hart n.p.) since fasting is a practice customarily associated with both the pious (intentionally) and the poor (unintentionally), the moniker fits. the surname clinker is more curious in origin. hart’s sources indicate the word meant at the time everything from “a crafty fellow” (from nathan bailey’s 1737 the new canting dictionary) to “irons worn by prisoners” to “a kind of small dutch bricks” (hart n.p.). how the word came satirically to include human excrement may be traced to the oxford english dictionary’s usage of clinker as “a mass of bricks fused by excessive heat and adhering together” (oed). by assigning him a name why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 3 equivalent to a bawdy joke, smollett clearly intended to lampoon this lowly servant as a laughingstock. despite how the young man appears at his first meeting with matthew bramble (buttocks exposed, gaunt from fasting, devout, and illiterate based on his station—thus, a microcosm of the lower social classes), humphry clinker adopts a different persona by the end of the work. admittedly, the whiteness of his bare buttocks would have signaled the eighteenth-century reader to the condition of clinker’s soul, since the equation of white skin with purity was commonplace. of course, his name is changed when his true identity as the unclaimed, illegitimate son of none other than matthew bramble himself is restored (smollett 172). the surname “lloyd” renders him welsh. smollett may have intended this reversal of humphry’s identity to reinforce the pre-modern values of an earlier era when social stratification was strictly enforced. even his love interest confines him to a certain lower station. the winn jenkins character (whose letters are crudely constructed of various malapropisms) is likely fashioned after swift’s poems composed in the voice of a serving maid (rogers 307). that the footman falls in love with winn jenkins (a woman now deemed by the brambles as lower than his true station), in his former identity as humphry clinker and marries her despite his elevated status once his birthright is revealed, is a further subversive act against the social order emphasized in the novel. smollett’s protagonists often sport names that seem to pull in opposite (i.e. aristocratic/plebeian) directions: roderick random, launcelot greaves, and peregrine pickle. smollett finds in humphry clinker the perfect foil on which to circumscribe his antipathy toward methodism and the social reform aims of its architect—including universal literacy for all britons. his heart was strangely cold smollett’s disdain for methodism and its class-leveling practices was well known during his day—even to john wesley, its founder. in his continuation of the complete history of england, smollett launches an invective about the religious movement: “weak minds were seduced by the delusions of a superstition stiled (sic) methodism…. many thousands in the lower ranks of life were inflected with this species of enthusiasm” (qtd. in anderson 204 and gassman 67). enthusiasm in the eighteenth century meant being overcome by emotion rather than ruled by rationality in a religious gathering, an objection to the methodists and other demonstrative worshippers others shared with smollett. duncan notes that humphry, as a character, is stricken with enthusiasm as well—a way to comment on the prevalence of unmitigated religious fervor among the methodists (n.p.). gassman agrees, noting that the “handling of methodism in humphry clinker is designed to illustrate these charges” of enthusiasm and hypocrisy (68). true, wesley’s “heart was strangely warm’d” at aldersgate, signaling his own conversion to christianity, although he condemned excessive enthusiasm expressed in methodist worship meetings (mcinelly 84). because of incidents like the one printed in smollett’s writing, wesley penned a response in his own journal, “‘poor dr. smollett! knows nothing” of the methodists’ efforts to educate 4 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the masses (anderson 205). smollett’s ignorance of the fuller picture of methodism is indicative of his failure properly to investigate the movement before forming his prejudices against it. smollett’s own heart stayed cold toward the religious fanatics (as he viewed them) for the duration of his life. gassman states that the aversion smollett and other vocal critics held for the methodists amounted to an “unqualified disapproval of the movement which the wesleys and whitefield had begun in the late 1730s” (67). smollett employs the novel form with a “treatment of religion in humprhy clinker [that] is basically satiric… an attack upon defects and abuses, follies and fallacies which the author believes to be dangerous” in his day (gassman 71). some critics claim that humphry clinker strikes a more conciliatory tone toward religion than smollett’s other works (frank 126, anderson 203). moreover, misty anderson’s article notes that smollett considers “methodism an inferior expression of taste, literacy, or feeling[,]” although he does not adopt the “paranoid hostility of fielding or foote” toward the sect (201, 204). anderson cites several critics who trace smollett’s “career-long assault on methodism,” although she calls it a “more complex affair” than a simple denunciation (204). this characterization of smollett’s longstanding condemnation of what he perceived as religious hypocrisy seems short-sighted. for example, bramble’s ranting at humphry upon finding him preaching to the women in his family gives smollett a platform for airing his own “sentiments and prejudices” against methodism (gassman 68). in jery melford’s letter from 10 june, the curmudgeonly bramble asserts, “‘what you imagine to be the new light of grace… i take to be a deceitful vapour, glimmering through a crack in your upper story — in a word, mr. clinker, i will have no light in my family but what pays the king’s taxes” (smollett 155). this episode indicates how vehemently smollett denounces methodism, because he considers it an offense against both order and reason, two of the principles of human life most cherished by him and many of his contemporaries. to smollett methodism was a further pernicious force in the threatened breakdown of a rational, ordered society. (gassman 69) by labeling methodism as injurious and making sport of it as a daft lay preacher, smollett brackets the positive contributions of wesley’s followers in order to protect the social status quo. early methodists were social reformers whose tireless efforts with the poor, the indigent, women, and uneducated lay preachers often concentrated on increasing literacy rates for these marginalized groups (burton 67). from the founding of the holy club at oxford, john wesley, his brother charles, and their friends devoted themselves to work among the poor, especially with teaching them to read. later, wesley and his followers established numerous schools, especially in wales, and sunday schools, that exerted a “most potent influence on the spread of elementary knowledge though its means were necessarily limited, and its methods imperfect” (adams 40). the record of history manifests “the tradition of early british methodism as a rich site for examining historical connections why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 5 between literacy, rhetoric, and class equality” (burton 68). harvey j. graff cites the research of roger s. schofield chronicling that at the time of the publication of the novel (17541784), illiteracy was around fifty-nine percent for the occupational group “laborers and servants,” of whom humphry is representative (legacies 234). rab houston asserts that male servants in scotland were seventy percent illiterate while women servants were ninety percent illiterate (192-93). graff notes that by the end of the eighteenth century, large swaths of scotland (especially the highlands) “remained more often illiterate than literate” (legacies 246-47). houston posits that “persistently high” female illiteracy could be linked to “the continuation of patriarchal dominance in scottish society” (houston 200). filling a vacuum left by the sorry state of public education in england, charity schools helped to “socialize the poor” and to produce model denizens of a proper social order (graff, legacies, 231). kristin mapel bloomberg grounds an analysis of nineteenth-century educational reforms in an eighteenth-century awareness of “the need for children’s general education … [as] an english social concern” (48). while charity schools and sunday schools proliferated, many dissenting religious reformers (methodists included, although they remained within the ranks of the church of england) cared more about morality instruction than functional literacy per se (burton 71, schofield 300). often the heart received more attention than the head in these schools. the impetus behind foregrounding morality in these religious schools is apparent. learning to read the bible for oneself ensured the “development of a god-fearing, moral, and subservient working class[,]” as a foundation for social welfare (graff, legacies, 239). when reviewing a book by neuberg on literacy in the eighteenth century, graff notes that charity schools employed “reading instruction which focused on the bible and catechism through memory and rote learning [that] does not necessarily suggest that a ‘fluent’ reader comprehended much of what he or she enunciated” (graff, labyrinths, 155). the coursework covered in charity schools and sunday schools was not limited to children; these organizations: …offered instruction in reading and writing to working class people and their children. wesley believed that literacy was important to spiritual development so that his followers could read not only the bible but also other spiritual texts published by the methodist connexion (sic). (burton 73) literacy education in parochial settings focused almost exclusively on reading rather than writing (thomas 111). this is one reason that a religious education may have measured incomplete from a functional literacy perspective: houston defines the primary “criterion of literacy” in the eighteenth century as the capacity to sign one’s name on a document (184). if the methodists and other social reformers neglected writing instruction to privilege reading the bible and religious texts, a complete sense of literacy may have failed to be fully realized. still, these religious groups offered a valuable skill that would eventually upset the social class stratification upon which british society was founded: the capacity to read for oneself. 6 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the social impact of literacy literacy for lower socioeconomic populations in great britain did not enjoy a high priority in privileged eighteenth-century society. although contemporary literacy theorists have only begun writing about a “social view of literacy” in recent decades (barton 185), smollett’s nearly 250-year-old novel offers significant clues that literacy—especially for the lower classes—has always carried social implications. in the character of humphry clinker, smollett creates an unwitting vehicle for his social critique. co-opting this character in a rhetorical move reminiscent of smollett himself, i wish to apply to humphry clinker’s six components of social literacy theory from contemporary theorist david barton’s seminal article “the social impact of literacy.” read thusly through a lens of social literacy theory, humphry clinker the character emerges as a true hero in smollett’s novel for the social revolution faith-based literacy efforts would exert on britain in the latter eighteenth century and beyond. barton broadens the social parameters of literacy in liberating ways that resemble humphry’s upward mobility from his position of servitude: “literacy is a social activity and can be described in terms of people’s literacy practices which they draw upon in literacy events” (187). when clinker is first introduced in the novel, his naked hindquarters are exposed, establishing him as a pitiable figure (smollett 93). when he is subsequently seen as “exalted upon a stool, with his hat in one hand, and a paper in the other” preaching to his fellow footmen, bramble mocks him as a huckster or snake oil salesman, telling him to fetch the hackney coach—in essence, to know his place and to retain it (smollett 113-14). a footnote in shaun regan’s penguin books edition of the novel indicates that when clinker vows to cure his “fellows in servitude and sin… [of ] profane swearing… that avoids neither profit nor pleasure[,]” he is echoing popular sermons by thomas bradbury and others (415-16). bramble castigates clinker for his naïveté: “‘but, clinker (said he) if you should have eloquence enough to persuade the vulgar to resign those tropes and figures of rhetoric, there will be little or nothing left to distinguish their conversation from that of their betters’” (smollett 114). barton recognizes that the written word is involved in everyday life. by shaming his footman in front of his peers, bramble causes clinker to thrust a paper into his pocket—likely hiding a tract that had reached his hands from those apprenticing him to the methodist laity. maybe humphry is trying to use the tract as preaching notes—even if he can barely read the words themselves. seeing clinker holding a document (even if he is unable to comprehend it) jars bramble because …along with women and apprentices, servants stood at the boundary of the literacy/non-literacy divide, and as such were a particular source of anxiety to the eighteenth-century ruling class, which was acutely aware of the ideology-forming powers of the printed word. (frank 47) when barton refers to literacy practices, he means “common patterns in using reading and writing in any situation[,] and people bring their cultural knowledge to an activity” (188). clinker is enacting a spiritual revolution of sorts on a micro-level (that eventually will have social implications) in this scene (recorded in jery’s letter dated 2 june) by preaching a why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 7 message of liberation to those who like him are in servitude. paula mcdowell notes that the eighteenth century served as a “transitional period” in terms of literacy before a significant shift in “elite attitudes toward mass education” in the century to follow (185). using novels like humphry clinker to serve as a “powerful analytic lens on historic transitions” is warranted (mcdowell 186). although humphry clinker is rendered a buffoon by smollett—one deemed least likely to occupy a place as a member of the clergy, even in a performance such as an impromptu sermon on the dangers of swearing—he serves as a fitting prototype for the methodist field preacher: for wesley, a rhetor was a good man or woman, regardless of class or education, speaking from scripture and experience, clearly, in plain style and with love, to an audience that includes all people. with this definition, wesley effectively shifts the cultural structure of rhetoric from hierarchy to community, a lesson that extended beyond the limits of religion. (burton 87) by casting clinker as an absurd preacher seated “[a]t the foot of the stair-case” preaching to a “crowd of lacqueys and chairmen,” smollett has inadvertently emphasized how literacy transcends the limitations of socially-prescribed, class-based roles (113). barton expands the narrow definition of functional literacy into areas that humphry clinker experiences in the novel: “people have different literacies which they make use of, associated with different domains of life” (188). while he may not possess the capacity to read and write fluently, clinker knows horsemanship in the novel—a nod duncan notes to methodist circuit riders (n.p.). beyond his penchant for hospitality, clinker possesses a natural protective sensibility for the man he serves. for example, the servant risks his own safety to save bramble from drowning in the turbulent waves at scarborough, even though the older man was never in danger. bramble can accede to “clinker’s intention [as] laudable, beyond all doubt; but nevertheless i am a sufferer by his simplicity” (smollett 206). the metaphor to evangelistic zeal is clear: in order to be “saved,” the subject must acknowledge he is drowning in his sin. in essence, the methodists concentrate on “saving” those who do not recognize a need to be saved. instead, bramble’s faint appreciation for clinker’s misguided efforts serves as an affirmation of the “practical charity of the methodists” (gassman 72). by denying agency to clinker to use his varied knowledge for purposeful means, judith frank posits that humphry clinker despises servants even more than most fiction of its time: “[f]unctioning as mere signs, servants are the very antithesis of labor in this novel” (119). while i recognize what frank asserts, i disagree with her conclusion. humphry clinker serves as more than a sign of unheralded social status in this work. clinker becomes empowered in the novel long before his rightful social class is exposed, given the revelation of his biological father, matthew bramble. clinker accomplishes several heroic feats— most notably saving bramble from drowning—while he is relegated to servant status. on two occasions he holds the attention of other footmen and even members of bramble’s 8 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research household as he preaches to them, all while occupying a servile role. in his humble station, clinker demonstrates a key tenet of methodism: wesley’s students were laymen without access to formal higher education, individuals whom he trained to speak plainly in the language of common people. wesley’s preachers were a part of a system of community literacy that extended to the poorest members of the methodist connexion. (burton 81) in the academy today, modern theories of literacy emphasize skills beyond merely reading and writing; humphry clinker evidences a diverse familiarity with domains of learning that help him to serve his master well, even though he is not functionally literate. the degree to which clinker seamlessly assimilates into the bramble clan confirms barton’s claim that “[p]eople’s literacy practices are situated in broader social relations. people have networks of support and roles within these networks” (190). initially tabitha bramble views humphry derisively, but later she becomes one of his ardent pseudoparishioners. the typical reader in 1771 would likely have been able to spot tabitha bramble and humphry clinker “as the characters in the novel most apt to succumb to the histrionics of the methodists” (gassman 70). tabitha is shown to have “groaned in spirit” and “threw up the whites of her eyes, as if in an act of ejaculation” as “a footman was then holding forth to the congregation within” (smollett 154, 153). smollett seems to revel in portraying the figure of a desiccated “old maid” displaying strong emotions for further comedic effect. this scene need not be read only in a jocular fashion. clinker has won tabitha over by appealing to her exaggerated emotionality; through impassioned preaching he has undone years’ worth of class-based snobbery. to appreciate how stark this scene played in the eighteenth century, keith thomas observes that “the uneven social distribution of literacy skills [had] greatly widened the gulf between the classes” (116). humphry equalizes the divergent classes through an inclusive gospel message that renders every person—noble or servant alike—on the same status. in so doing, he powerfully disrupts “a pervasive hierarchical structure of illiteracy” (houston 189). anderson charges that it is precisely because humphry cannot read nor write that explains his appeal to the women in the novel: “he is also cleared from suspicion about his ulterior motives because he is not a writer in the novel. eponymous but voiceless, he is artlessly present as a function of his actions and the impressions he makes on others” (214). clinker cannot represent himself; he must be represented through the eyes of his fellow characters. clinker is more similar to the female characters than his male counterparts in that he is denied a fluent voice. the women’s letters in the novel lack the mechanical polish and articulation of the ones composed by men. this association confirms a resonant fact from that era: “in scotland as in england the most striking feature is the markedly lower literacy attainment of women compared to men” (houston 189). over the modern period (roughly the sixteenth to the nineteenth century), british men were twenty-eight percent illiterate while women were eighty percent illiterate (houston 189). although matt why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 9 bramble temporarily relegates humphry back to the servile position for which he was hired by breaking up the worship service, “clinker’s methodism threatens to undermine hierarchical social relations; thus, an outburst of patriarchal authority must curb this threat” (gottleib 93). the surprising fate of clinker at the end of the novel, when he is revealed to be the bastard son of bramble himself and no longer merely his menial servant reveals that the classes are not as rigid and constrictive as would first appear. biology replaces class. humphry clinker performs his literacy orally, coming to life in the novel via the speeches and observations others attribute to him. barton argues that “[p]eople participate in literacy events where reading and writing are entwined with spoken language and with other means of communication” (191). the role of orality in eighteenth-century literacy has been a matter of considerable scholarly inquiry to date. keith thomas posits that early modern england was neither an oral society nor a “fully literate one” (98). that noted, thomas contends that “print and writing did not entirely displace the spoken word…. in early modern england oral communication was still the chief means by which technical skills were transmitted, political information circulated, and personal relationships conducted” (113). although humphry holds a piece of paper during his impromptu preaching venue to the other servants—maybe a broadleaf, pamphlet, or tract produced by the methodists for the proselytizing of the unconverted—it is his extemporaneous oratory that effected a change in his hearers. unlike “lazier or less gifted” anglican preachers who often read pre-printed “sermons of famous preachers” verbatim, the methodists were known as spirited orators whose fervent preaching was marked by vocal flourishes (burton 74). wesley himself often preached at 5:00 a.m. to teeming mobs of hundreds of laborers before their workday began. a literacy that valued skillful oration had dynamic power to disrupt the social order as methodists communicated whenever and wherever a preaching venue would open up—even outside the steepled churches of britain. eighteenth-century lower classes were often denied access to literacy in their formative years by those, like matt bramble, who sought to reinforce stereotypical boundaries for them. barton impugns this restriction of social literacy and agency as fundamentally inhumane: “people have awareness, attitudes and values with respect to literacy and these attitudes and values guide their actions” (192). the pre-modern social order questioned the “relative importance attached to literacy [for the lower classes] as compared with other activities, such as practical and physical activities” (barton 192). in deference to his master’s dictum, humphry leaves the makeshift pulpit to get the carriage ready. by his boisterous assertion of power, matt bramble echoes compositionist deborah brandt’s notion of “literacy sponsors…[as] any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy” through “powerful incentives” (556). seeing such free exercise of power not granted to clinker as a servant, bramble could not bring himself to allow the young man to continue the masquerade as a lay preacher. smollett undoubtedly knew the educational track that john wesley granted to his initiates. if humphry were to surrender to a vocational call to methodist ministry, he would be educated to read and write in the process. wesley was 10 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research systematic in preparing neophyte ministers, as he “laid out a course of study and sent his preachers books to read” that they were expected to spend up to eight hours per day studying (burton 76). moreover, clinker would have also been encouraged to maintain a journal of his spiritual experiences that he would submit to his ecclesiastical superiors. wesley himself often corrected mechanical errors to these journal entries before offering them for publication (burton 82). wesley believed in empowering any lower-class individual who felt a call to ministry despite his/her minimal education; he advocated for full sanction of that person’s métier without restriction. during the early modern period “illiteracy … proved compatible with political and religious activism and nonconformity” (thomas 104). after matt bramble scolds humphry, however, the servant “submits his religious identity to a premodern class hierarchy, which paradoxically allows him to continue a critique of social inequality in methodist terms” (anderson 214). although he maintains a “serf-like relation to matt” for the remainder of the novel, his recognition as a long-lost son (renamed matthew lloyd) circumnavigates class issues by recognizing that the young man belongs naturally to another (higher) class. while a class stratification will remain intact for many decades in great britain, the reversal of humphry clinker’s fate at the end of the novel prefigures how society would come to recognize a dismantling of the social class structure in england in years to come (anderson 219). the humphry clinker who initially meets the bramble family in the most inauspicious of circumstances is not the same person rendered at the conclusion of the novel. barton recognizes this metamorphic quality of social literacy: “people face changing demands and are learning about literacy throughout their lives” (193). this feature of literacy is the one most complicated by smollett’s novel; by being inserted into bramble’s family, clinker would seem to automatically escape the need for education (unless one adopts a fairly broad definition of education.) barton mentions the transformative power of “adapting social practices in a changing environment… [of ] rapid social change where new technologies and political changes are changing the demands on people” (193). many power brokers in proper eighteenth-century british society feared the influence education could have on the masses by “weaken[ing] society by alienating people from manual labor, threaten[ing] the natural social order, [and] promot[ing] social mobility” (graff, legacies 174). the nobility, as well as upper-class, landed gentry families like the brambles, depended on the preservation of a society whereby they received preferential treatment based on their sense of entitlement. teaching those who served the elite unnecessary skills like reading and writing stood to discompose such an elaborate system of privilege. graff observes that “[e]ducation for the masses was based in a useful literacy, but above all, instruction in the duties of their social position, their estate, [that were] most important” (graff, legacies 178). thomas claims that literacy was …not necessarily subversive of existing social forms[,] and in early modern england it is very doubtful whether it did much at first to undermine the prevailing social order. certainly the clergy did not think why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 11 so; for most of them saw literacy as a means of reinforcing the status quo, by instilling godliness, civility, and law-abiding behaviour. (118) granted, increased literacy rates do not exert upon their host society an immediate impact on par with revolution. in fact, heightened literacy may serve counterproductive aims. houston acknowledges this paradox: [t]he social mobility afforded by education to the lucky few was usually only to the level of schoolmaster or minister—positions of heavily circumscribed social, economic, and political power compared to that enjoyed by the land owners. literacy may actually have strengthened rather than diminished socioeconomic inequality during the preindustrial period. (200) over time, however, access to reading and writing enables marginalized groups to exhibit their own right to better themselves. smollett did not position himself exclusively against education over the course of his writing career. in writing roderick random, for example, the author enacts a “valorization of literacy,” one that jennifer thorn questions due to the “absence of demonstrable proof that literacy did increase the odds of wealth” on behalf of the recipient of the instruction (693). random is a scotsman. according to smollett’s preface, one reason for this character choice is that education in scotland was much superior to that available in england, so it was realistic that random would know latin. despite a tenuous connection to economic viability, literacy empowers the learner to function in wider circles within his or her society—arenas that heretofore may have been off limits. conclusion given the seemingly arbitrary sequencing of the bramble family travels, this picaresque novel by tobias smollett obviously intends to satirize methodism and to reinforce rigid rules about social mobility by the illiterate lower classes, but this plan is actually supplanted when the history of literacy education since its publication is considered. smollett may have thought he dealt a decisive blow to the “new light” (a colloquial sneer for methodism) in his comic novel. history proves otherwise. vicki tolar burton uses superlative terms when she describes the scope of methodism’s empowering literacy campaign: john wesley expanded the boundaries of eighteenth-century rhetoric in both class and gender…. giving all people liberty to speak, including those usually excluded, as well as bringing the masses to literacy are achievements that have been both praised and condemned, often around issues of gender and class. (burton 84). privilege in eighteenth-century england was proffered upon those whose birth entitled them to such esteem. for people like smollett, seditious religious movements that promised to elevate the status of the lower classes threatened the social order that had prevailed for centuries. smollett’s solution for his pitiable, (literally) unlettered character is to reveal that he has been living below his privilege all of his life. although humphry immediately moves up in social class by being acknowledged as bramble’s son, the fact remains at the novel’s 12 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research end he is still illiterate. david barton’s influential essay “the social impact of literacy” notes that “functional literacy” (knowing how to read and write at a basic level) has been historically “tied to a narrow view of literacy associated with work” (194). in other words, literate lower classes would not know their place in society. heretofore, humphry had no legitimate (in the eyes of society) reason to be granted literacy. in fact, to be able to read and write articulately would have only furthered his inane (in bramble’s view) goal of becoming a methodist field preacher. at the end of the novel he is established as a rightful heir of bramble’s, but is no way actualized to act accordingly to his newfound status because smollett ultimately denies this character the capacity to read and write for himself. despite the obvious economic benefit, humphry is hardly better off than when he was first in bramble’s employ. as in the novel humphry clinker, literacy continues to this day to be a means by which elite members of a society commodify those classes deemed beneath them. barton acknowledges the sad irony literacy often accentuates in a culture: “ultimately literacy reflects inequalities in society: inequalities of power, inequalities in the distribution of wealth, and inequalities in access to education” (196). it is my contention that smollett unknowingly belies his objective in writing humphry clinker. he may have intended to demonstrate the farce of ignorant, illiterate upstarts following dubious religious movements, but what he accomplishes in this satire is a precursor to what would follow in great britain in coming decades: an upheaval of prohibitive social mores built upon a class-based system that could not survive the paradigmatic shifts that lay ahead. why humphry can’t read or write: tobias smollett, 18th-century literacy, and preservation of the social order middle tennessee state university 13 works cited adams, francis. history of the elementary school contest in england. london: chapman and hall, 1882. googlebooks. web. 6 dec. 2012. anderson, misty. “a usable past: reconciliation in humphry clinker and the spiritual quixote.” imagining methodism in eighteenth-century britain: belief, enthusiasm, and the borders of the self. baltimore: johns hopkins up, 2012. 200-31. jstor. web. 6 dec. 2012. barton, david. “the social impact of literacy.” functional literacy: theoretical issues and educational implications. studies in written language and literacy. vol. 1. ed. ludo verhoeven. philadelphia: john benjamins, 1994. 185-97. print. brandt, deborah. “sponsors of literacy.” literacy: a critical sourcebook. eds. ellen cushman, eugene kintgen, barry kroll, mike rose. boston/new york: bedford/st. martin’s (2001): 555-71. print. burton, vicki tolar. “john wesley and the liberty to speak: the rhetorical and literacy practices of early methodism.” college composition and communication 53.1 (2001): 65-91. web. 7 dec. 2012. “clinker, n.2”. oed online. september 2012. oxford university press. 9 december 2012 duncan, karen. “excesses of drinking, sex, violence, and religion: which of these things actually is like the others? disrupting the boundaries between pirates and methodists.” academic forum 1.18 (2000): n.p. henderson state university. n.d. web. 8 dec. 2012. frank, judith. common ground: eighteenth-century english satiric fiction and the poet. stanford, ca: stanford up, 1997. print. gassman, byron. “religious attitudes in the world of humphry clinker.” byu studies 6.2 (1965): 65-72. googlescholar. web. 6 dec. 2012. gottlieb, evan. “‘fools of prejudice: sympathy and national identity in the scottish enlightenment and humphry clinker.” eighteenth century fiction 18.1 (2005): 81-106. ebscohost. web. 7 dec. 2012. graff, harvey. “literacy in history: review essay.” the labyrinths of literacy: reflections on literacy past and present. london: falmer, 1987. 153-61. print. graff, harvey. “toward enlightenment/toward modernity: 1660-1780.” the legacies of literacy: continuities and contradictions in western culture and society. bloomington: indiana up, 1987. 173-257. print. hart, stephen. “clinker.” 18th century and regency thieves’ cant database. pascal bonenfant. 2010-2012. web. 9 dec. 2012. ------------------. “duke humphrey.” 18th century and regency thieves’ cant database. pascal bonenfant. 2010-2012. web. 9 dec. 2012. houston, rab. “the literacy myth? illiteracy in scotland, 1630-1760.” literacy and historical development: a reader. ed. harvey graff. carbondale: southern illinois up, 2007. 183-206. print. mapel bloomberg, kristin. “nineteenth-century methodists and coeducation: the case of hamline university.” methodist history 47.1 (2008): 48-62. ebscohost. web. 7 dec. 2012. 14 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research mcdowell, paula. “why fanny can’t read: joseph andrews and the (ir)relevance of literacy.” a companion to the eighteenth-century english novel and culture. paula backsheider and catherine ingrassia, eds. malden, ma: blackwell pub., 2005. 167-90. print. mcinelly, brett. “raising the roof: hymn singing, the anti-methodist response, and early methodist religiosity.” eighteenth-century life 36.2 (2012): 80-110. project muse. web. 6 dec. 2012. rogers, pat. “comic maid-servants in swift and smollett: the proverbial idiom of humphry clinker.” papers on language & literature 39.3 (2003): 307-15. academic search complete. web. 28 nov. 2012. schofield, roger. “dimensions of illiteracy in england, 1750-1850.” literacy and historical development: a reader. ed. harvey graff. carbondale: southern illinois up, 2007. 299-314. print. smollett, tobias. humphry clinker (1771). ed. shaun regan. new york: penguin, 2008. print. thomas, keith. “the meaning of literacy in early modern england.” the written word: literacy in transition. ed. gerd bauman. oxford: clarendon, 1986. 97-131. print. thorn, jennifer. “roderick random, literacy, and the appropriation of plebian culture.” eighteenthcentury fiction 24.4 (2012): 687-710. project muse. web. 19 nov. 2012. subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 111 subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era sarah e. wolfe abstract through examining boniface’s correspondence with female friends of his circle, a vita of saint radegund, an anonymous medieval story of a pregnant abbess, the tale of chaucer’s prioress, and marlowe’s play the jew of malta, i seek to uncover nun’s “real selves” in contrast to their often-uncomplimentary portrayals in medieval and early modern literature. the vivid and diverse literature nuns composed or the works that were written about them reveals how they saw themselves or were perceived by others. because these women’s creative and intellectual abilities add richness and multilayered perspectives to the realm of medieval literature, their importance and visibility are vital to study, reflect, and discuss to a comprehensive audience of both laypersons and specialists. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 112 spring 2023 introduction what does a modern western audience think of when there is a reference to “nuns?” do people think of the salacious and cruel women in matthew lewis’s 1796 novel the monk, or do they imagine most nuns to be like the figure of mother teresa? typing “nun” in google image will get hundreds of returns ranging from audrey hepburn in her habit to inappropriate links about how nuns are secretly masochists and have everything but the lord on their mind. for example, there were numerous medieval tales of nuns who had affairs with local men or gave birth to children. in the early modern era, sixteenth-century author thomas robinson accused the english brigittine community of lisbon as weak, depraved, and carnally inclined (6). perceptions of nuns as encapsulating an either/or binary causes individuals to believe that nuns are only one-dimensional and constrained by their life choices, which is a narrative that has been portrayed since the medieval era. this simplistic mindset does a great disservice to their rich and complex lives as religious women. i will focus on the themes of friendship, encouragement, obedience, and agency, as well as the bleaker aspects of corruption and irresponsible behavior which encapsulates the range of actions and attitudes that were demonstrated by the nuns discussed in this work. this paper will explore a variety of religious women in literature from the historical radegund, a sixth-century queen who became a saint, to christopher marlowe’s fictional abigail, a jewish woman who chose the life of a nun. their lives were fruitful and multifaceted and further suggest they practiced self-agency and were not constrained by their roles as both women and nuns. instead of identifying medieval nuns as one-dimensional, i argue that they are well-rounded and multidimensional individuals. i am applying the term “well-rounded” to mean that the nuns whom i discuss are well-learned, had a liberal arts education in the trivium and quadrivium, and used this education to either show off their accomplishments or to use their knowledge to argue their point in debates and arguments. some talented nuns were also artists, authors, and translators, who used their skills for the glory of god and for their communities. for the term “multi-dimensional” i contend that beyond devoting their lives to religion, these nuns have their own personal flaws and positive attributes. they should not be viewed in black or white, but as possessing various “shades” of emotions and beliefs. some nuns, such as radegund, came from a royal background and used their power for their religious ideals while others, such as christina of markyate, had to combat both her parents and the local ecclesiastical authorities to follow her desire to dedicate her life to christ. these different examples subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 113 show that both nuns and their lives were unique and did not follow one exact pattern of either how to be a nun or how to transition from one stage (secular) to the next (religious). the sources used in this paper draw attention to the rich array of women’s voices that can be heard across time, such as correspondence, saints’ lives, and drama. religious women’s voices not only heard in these sources, but are also a valuable tool to demonstrate that religious women’s lives were well-rounded and multidimensional. in her 1997 book to the glory of her sex: women’s roles in the composition of medieval texts, joan ferrante focuses on the positive aspects of women’s roles during the medieval era, such as what they could do, rather than what they could not. she peels away the narrative that all medieval women were weak, passive, or viewed with suspicion by their male associates. ferrante argues that, “despite the period’s intense misogyny…. women could be respected colleagues, friends, relatives, whose affection, support, even advice was sought and cherished” (4). ferrante’s optimistic and progressive outlook demonstrates that medieval women should not be viewed in wholly black or white perceptions, especially in regard to their relationships with men. ferrante is a part of an ongoing and exciting discipline that continues today to discover and reveal new ways of looking at how medieval women, including nuns, lived, and what they accomplished in their lives. friendship in order to explore how nuns were multidimensional, i begin with the concept of friendship. i contend that friendship between monks and nuns challenges the narrow belief that monastics only cultivated friendship with each other, or that their relationship concentrated only on spiritual or scandalous matters. the early medieval texts of baudonivia’s vita of saint radegund and boniface’s letters to various religious women, reveals an abundance of references about these religious women cultivating friendships not just with each other, but with male figures also. enduring and passionate remarks of care and devotion are especially noticeable in the correspondence between boniface and such figures as leoba, eangyth, or eadburga. these different correspondents do not just ask for the consolation of each other’s prayers or for composing and illuminating books, but they earnestly desire their support, encouragement, and advice about life-changing experiences. eangyth, for example, writes to boniface about her difficult life as an abbess for a double monastery, which is a monastic house comprised of men and women who were ruled by an abbess. the constant stress and strain of having to provide materially for her religious community combined with her frustration with the constant scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2023 outflowing of money of her community’s: “obligations to the king and queen, to the bishop, the prefect, the barons and counts” which has caused her to be, “overworked and dejected” (6). her overwhelming burdens and strife that comes with dealing with a monastery full of men and women has caused her to long to go on a pilgrimage with her daughter, as she tells boniface that she has “long wished to go to rome, once mistress of the world, as many of our friends, both relatives and strangers, have done” (7).1 this is no pleasure jaunt, she insists because she wants to seek forgiveness of her sins, “i [am] more advanced in years and guilty of more offenses in my life” (7). however, even though she knows that boniface and others of her acquaintance recognize her spiritual longing, eangyth tells him that she is conscious that other individuals urge her to stay within the precincts of her own double house. even if eangyth uses scriptures to make her point about the righteousness of her aspirations, she still yearns for support and guidance from boniface. she wants boniface to be her intercessor, as she refers to him as “our aaron,” and asks his advice on what choice she should make: “whether to live on in our native land or go forth upon our pilgrimage” (7). eangyth’s writing to boniface emphasizes that she trusts his judgement. she also believes that he will give an answer that will aid her in deciding what choice she should make. her letter to boniface calls attention to how he is her friend and how she relies not just on his prayers, but on his judgement and wisdom. since eangyth feels as if she has no one to turn to except for boniface as she states in an earlier passage that she has “neither son nor brother father nor uncle,” she then declares that boniface is “the friend whom we have wished, prayed, and hoped for” (6-7). eangyth’s warm words highlights her happiness in finding a sympathetic friend, as she claims that boniface is her “brother in the spirit, most loyal, beloved” (7). these warm and affectionate terms that describe boniface show that they do not just have a caring and meaningful relationship, but that boniface is eangyth and her daughter’s support system. in a letter pleading for intercessory prayers on behalf of her family, leoba reminds boniface that he is “bound to [her] by ties of kinship” and hopes he does not forget his “ancient friendship for my father” (9). leoba’s request demonstrates that a strong connection to far-flung relatives is crucial for her emotional wellbeing. their correspondence not only shows boniface and leoba’s bourgeoning 1. women who were abbesses during the early medieval era were often widows or divorced from their husbands. many convents and monasteries were filled with noblewomen who chose to devote their lives to god, such as eangyth and her daughter, bugga. in this letter to boniface, eangyth and her daughter desire to go on a pilgrimage together. subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 115 relationship, but also leoba’s creative talents: “i have composed the following verses… to exercise my little talents” (9). leoba’s artistic abilities in her letter to boniface points out that letters between monks and nuns also contained poetry or literary works that the recipients shared, critiqued, and praised. leoba then hopes that their relationship will continue and transcend their earthly lives: “may the bond of our true affection be knit ever more closely for all time” (9). boniface’s and each of the nuns’ that are in correspondence with him accentuate the pattern of mutual trust and concern for each other. boniface’s friendship with women, such as leoba, brought comfort and respite to all, even if they were separated by geographical distances. the frankish baudonivia’s vita of radegund discusses not just her wideranging miracles or how her motivations for her abbey were both politically and religiously inclined, but baudonivia also demonstrates the intimate relationship between radegund and the nuns in poitiers. baudonivia highlights the closely connected and affectionate relationship between radegund and the community of nuns by relating how she performed the role of their loving but strict parent. this spiritual-parental bond causes radegund to act as the leader of various religious practices, as baudonivia relates: “she…at once first eagerly applied herself to and then afterwards showed the community how to do it, as much by her word as by her example” (5). while living, radegund sets a precedent of exercising her religious faith so that her community can follow her good example. after her death, baudonivia breaks out into lamentation about the loss of radegund and how much her nuns miss her presence and the influence she had on all of their lives: “we, her humble sisters, miss the teaching, the appearance, the countenance, the personality, the knowledge, the holiness, the kindness and the sweetness of her whom god set specially apart from the rest of humankind” (12). although these words to a modern audience may seem hyperbolic and the nuns’ grief extreme, radegund fulfilled her role as a religious leader so well that her nuns could hardly imagine life without her. they miss their spiritual mother so much that baudonivia wishes radegund had demanded of the lord: “the right to send on ahead of you the sheep which you had collected together! you, following the good shepherd, would have handed your flock over to the lord” (12). because of the gaping hole that radegund had left in her community in the wake of her death, baudonivia and the rest of the nuns assert that they should have followed her in death so they would not be separated from radegund’s powerful and compassionate figure. baudonivia’s vita of saint radegund reveals that nuns created networks of supportive and encouraging relationships. boniface’s letters to such varied figures as scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2023 leoba, eadburga, or eangyth show that such close-knit relationships among women, were also made outside the convent as well. these two sources demonstrate that men and women viewed their interactions with each other as collaborative, warm, and mutually beneficial. the letters of boniface and the vita of radegund point out the positive and comforting aspects of frequent advice-giving and encouragement in the lives of these nuns. even though there were times of dissatisfaction and infighting in nuns’ communities, these recollections by baudonivia and the wide-ranging correspondence between boniface and his female correspondents show that nuns did have positive interactions with each other; their advice, comfort, and gifts were highly valued by the recipients and made their lives even more enjoyable. to encourage and support turning now to twelfth-century italy and prague, italian claire of assisi wrote to the bohemian princess agnes of prague because she had received news that agnes gave up her secular lifestyle as a royal woman to become a franciscan nun. even though claire of assisi and bohemian princess agnes of prague had never met each other, they sent letters to one another to support and uplift one another in their shared pursuit of living for christ. although agnes’s original letters do not survive, we can still surmise how much claire’s letters meant to her. their friendship transcended geography and politics. claire writes to her with admiration, “spurning all these things with your whole heart and mind, you have chosen instead holiest poverty and physical want, accepting a nobler source, the lord jesus christ” (3). instead of agnes becoming empress of the holy roman empire, she decides to give away her dowry and become a nun. claire’s letters to agnes were aimed at urging her to remain true to her vocation and to support agnes as a new nun. although claire praised her decision, however, agnes’s plans to follow her franciscan calling became threatened by the pope’s interest to absorb her monastery and hospital into a benedictine order. like agnes, claire had undergone the same issues with the pope and offered her advice as she contends: “be mindful…. of your founding purpose always seeing your beginning” (1.11), and she asserts, like a holy chant, “what you hold, may you continue to hold, what you do, may you keep doing and not stop” (l.11). if claire could overcome the pope’s suggestions on how she should run her monastery, then so could agnes. agnes’s agency demonstrates her evasion of gregory ix’s endowments, which were contrary to the franciscan ideal of giving away personal wealth to emulate christ’s poverty. agnes only accepted the bare minimum of what gregory ix offered her. this tactic was shrewd since agnes could not afford to outwardly thwart him both subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 117 politically and financially. if agnes had visibly challenged gregory ix’s plans for her monastery/ hospital, he could have excommunicated her or withdrawn all support from her monastery/ hospital. in each of the four letters that claire wrote to agnes, each displays sympathy, cheerfulness, and support for agnes and her community. claire’s letters to agnes undoubtedly eased agnes’s concerns about her choice as a follower of st. francis. claire helps agnes balance her obligations to her foundation and papal intervention as she frequently exhorts agnes to be serene in god’s care, act in a shrewd manner, and have a positive outlook: “may you go forward tranquilly…trusting in no one and agreeing with no one because he might want to dissuade you from pursuing your founding purpose….and embrace the poor christ” (l. 13-14,18). their epistolary friendship deepened because both were franciscan religious women who had the same goals and dreams to grow in their faith and be more like the “poor christ” (l. 18). this is made apparent in claire’s third letter to agnes: “i am filled with such great joy about your well-being…and your favorable successes” as well as adding that agnes is, “embracing with humility, the virtue of faith, and the arms of poverty” (l.3-7). this praise of agnes demonstrates that she is following the precepts that st. francis and claire, his co-associate, had created to fight back against the leniency and corruption of their contemporary church. agnes’s growth in the franciscan faith, delights and awes claire, who continues to both uplift and guide agnes in their shared manner of spiritual living. lastly, the english christina of markyate cultivated a wide-spread and diverse network of religious figures. instead of writing to others for support and encouragement, christina’s friendships were from her own community. her network of religious individuals not only helped her escape from her family, but also protected her from their anger as well. individuals such as sueno the canon, roger the hermit, and ælfwynn, a female recluse, supported her choice to live her life for god. several of these figures lied to beorhtred, christina’s spurned husband, who went looking for her on behalf of christina’s family. as he tried to bribe a follower of roger to find out where she was, the man answered indignantly, “it is with greatest difficulty that a woman is allowed here even in broad daylight,” while the recluse ælfwynn insisted, “stop imagining that she is here with us” (35). these blatant lies were essential in protecting christina from harm from her family’s wrath since she earnestly longed to devote herself to god and not marry an earthly spouse. even though christina practiced agency in escaping her family, which i will discuss in a later section, these individuals proved valuable to her as they offered guidance in how to live her life as scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 118 spring 2023 well as kept her safe from her family. from a helpful member of roger’s community to the recluse ælfwynn, each of these individuals extended support and encouragement in christina’s religious endeavors, and they demonstrated that religious friendship and networks were closely interwoven. in these medieval texts, it is noticeable that every one of these individuals offered reassurance, guidance, and the joy of their mutual interaction to uplift each other in difficult or trying circumstances. from baudonivia’s memories of radegund, who cared deeply about her community of nuns, to the wide-ranging correspondence of boniface, these various texts highlight the lively and intertwined relationships of nuns with not just each other, but with men as well. claire’s letters to agnes reveal that women’s friendship can be supportive and create positive experiences with each other even if the correspondents had never met. in christina of markyate’s vita, vital religious networks were viewed as crucial to give support and assistance to christina as she escaped from her family. the wide-ranging network of local recluses that populate her vita also show that these relationships between christina and individuals such as roger the hermit or ælfwynn highlight a common bond of shared devotion and similar cultural values. these various examples of historical nuns, such as leoba or saint radegund, with their positive and rich relationships, reveal that their interactions with both men and women were not just essential in the spread of religious beliefs, but also for their emotional wellbeing. the intertwined bonds of kinship and friendship demonstrate that these relationships were cultivated to endure throughout both individuals’ lifetimes. these tightknit and beneficial interactions demonstrate that medieval nuns could and did have a satisfying relationship with not just their own communities, but with male acquaintances as well. the cultivated friendships between both nuns and monks demonstrated that they cared deeply for each other through their advice, spiritual care, and exchanges of poetry and books. agency versus obedience katherine o’brien o’keeffe argues in her work stealing obedience: narratives of agency and identity in later anglo-saxon england that: “attention to narratives of monastic obedience in both the polish of their surfaces and the fractures those surfaces conceal shows us the intimate interconnections between monastic identity and a construction of agency markedly different from our own” (6-7). she puts forth the idea that the concept of obedience is a balancing act of free will and submission. she further argues that a conversion: “illustrates the contemporary understanding of the operation of individual will within an individual’s orientation to the divine will” (80). o’brien o’keeffe then asks what constitutes both obedience and agency subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 119 during the anglo-saxon time period, which connects to how the christina of markyate viewed her competing claims of her obedience to god and to her obedience as a daughter to her family. since the act of obedience is one of the most important vows a nun takes, it is understandable that christina views her will as being subject to god, yet her parents, auti and beatrix, believe that christina should have been submissive to their wishes for her to marry. they argue that she should be married instead of living her life as a nun, because christina’s vita points out that: “she was so shrewd in understanding, so prudent in affairs…, for if she remained chaste for the love of christ, they feared that they would lose her and all that they could hope to gain through her” (21). however, christina yearned to be a nun and prayed: “o lord god…. deign to grant me, i beseech thee, purity and inviolable virginity” (6). christina has made a private vow to god to dedicate her virginity to his service. christina’s commitment to god reveals that she wants to live her life devoted to god and not conform to her parent’s wishes of secular marriage and influence. however, in the description that her anonymous hagiographer gives in her vita, christina of markyate had a painful and difficult journey in becoming a “bride of christ.” agency and obedience are connected to the idea that nuns are multifaceted individuals. the concepts of agency and obedience are complicated, and not mutually exclusive in christina’s vita. the text contains confrontations of many types of obedience: obedience to god, obedience to family, and obedience to religious leaders. furthermore, the idea of agency is interwoven throughout this work as christina uses persuasive speech to subvert her parent’s will, hides to escape from the threat of rape and violence, and even uses a disguise to escape her home to live as a recluse. as she plays out the passio of her namesake, a fourth-century martyr who was beaten by her father and imprisoned, christina is also ill-treated, mocked, and psychologically terrorized by her parents who want her to give up her vow of chastity and marry their choice of a husband, beorhtred. when they try to lock her in her room with beorhtred, she reverses her parent’s “script” of rape and confinement; she tells the story of valerian and cecilia, a married couple who practiced chastity, to influence her betrothed. she persuades him to think about a marriage that is not based on desire, but chastity: “so let us, insofar as we can follow their example so that we may become their companions in their eternal glory” (11-12). christina uses her agency of reciting saints’ lives to attempt to persuade beorhtred to influence his viewpoint about marriage, and to dissuade him from rape by telling a story. her tale had its effect as he “eventually left the maiden” (12). her parent’s household soon mocked him because they viewed her subversion of their work as, “deceitful tricks and naive scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 120 spring 2023 words” (12). christina’s “tricks” saves herself from a potentially frightening situation, and her quick-thinking helps her evade what her parents had envisioned for her. she used her agency to continue to keep herself pure for god. throughout most of her vita, however, she would be criticized and ridiculed by her family and acquaintances for her choice in remaining chaste and pure. throughout christina’s conflict with ecclesiastics such as ranulf flambard, fredebert, or robert bloet who attempted to force her to accept her marriage to beorhtred as valid, their reluctance to believe her truthfulness highlights an issue of what i call the “pseudo-religious” woman. as fredebert states to christina: “perhaps you are rejecting marriage with beorhtred in order to enter into a more wealthy one” (18); this assertion demonstrates that some women claimed to want to be a nun to avoid marrying the man their family had chosen for them. i argue that these women who claimed to want to be nuns in order to circumvent their parent’s wishes and marry someone else, caused a disturbance between the scorned betrothed, the ecclesiastical authorities, and the woman herself. christina swears that she is sincere in her desire to live a holy and chaste life: “i must fulfill my vow, which through the inspiration of his grace i made to the only son of the eternal king, and with the same grace i mean to fulfill it” (19). this problem illustrates that some women could make their own decisions about love, political connections, and affluence. even though christina resolutely practiced agency to follow her dream of devoting her life to god, this “double-minded” choice on the part of “pseudo-religious” women, portrays them as multifaceted and fully capable of determining on how they wished to live their lives. unlike those women, who were, as christina charged: “anxious about worldly things and how to please my husband” (33), she instead yearned to live for christ no matter the cost. her determination on fulfilling her religious desires is evident in a specific passage in her vita as she displays subterfuge toward her family. after making plans with a supporter’s servant, she then deceived her sister matilda by giving her the keys to the house and a garment to take back with her: “christina set off as if she were going towards the monastery, but then turned her steps towards the meadow” (34). after she mislead her sister and caused her to return toward their house, christina continued in her plan to escape her family and accomplish her dream to live her life as a recluse. throughout christina’s vita, it is clear that god’s will was stronger and of more significance than any plans her family might have had for her. god’s plan for her is made evident in a vision that christina had, as christ urges her to: “fear not. for i have not come to increase your fears but to bring you reassurance” (42). this heartening statement demonstrates that she is following the “right path” of devoting subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 121 herself to god. as christina prepared to escape her home, she then urges herself to not be afraid: “put on manly courage and mount the horse like a man” (34). instead of embracing fear, christina chooses to be daring in order to leave her family and fulfill her vow to god. by deceiving her family and utilizing various networks to fulfill her desire of being a female recluse, christina both obeyed the higher authority of god and used her agency to escape the life that her family members wanted her to achieve. this highlights that even deceit and dishonest behavior can be used to further a nun’s life toward god. although the concepts of guile and deception are not viewed as acceptable behavior for a religiously inclined person to pursue, for christina, these actions show that they can be used for a higher purpose. as o’brien o’keefe argues: “obedience is both the stuff of monastic identity” and “an identity in which self-will is left behind and….is conceived to lie in the cheerful, immediate, and complete accession to the will of another” (93). for example, boniface is a bishop and a dear friend to most of the women in his correspondence, thus it is important for them to abide by his advice. for abbess bugga, who wants to go on a pilgrimage to rome, boniface first begins with a noncommittal statement: “i dare neither forbid your pilgrimage on my own responsibility nor rashly persuade you do it” (8). boniface does not want to forbid her to go, but he also has no desire to persuade her to go on a dangerous journey to jeopardize her life and to potentially break her vows of chastity. he further adds if she cannot find rest and peace among her inmates at her monastery, then she: “should obtain freedom of contemplation by means of a pilgrimage,” only on the conditions that she is strong enough to go and able to make the arduous journey (8). even though we do not have bugga’s reply to boniface’s recommendation, it is certain that she probably took his words seriously. his sound advice in this double role of friend and bishop likely helped her make a prudent decision about the next step in her religious life. the relationship of bugga and boniface rests in the concept that she, as an abbess, must allow her own will to bend to boniface’s because he is a bishop and has a higher ecclesiastical authority over her. if boniface had answered bugga with an immediate denial of her desire to go on a pilgrimage, she would have had to accede to his wishes. the concepts of obedience and agency frequently clashed in monastic institutions, but as o’brien o’keefe points out: “obedience is never perfected, never finally achieved, for its end is only continued obedience” (93). this assertion highlights that the individuals living in monastic establishments constantly had to negotiate their own desires and wishes with those of a higher authority. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 122 spring 2023 this conflict between an individual’s will being subsumed into other authoritative ecclesiastical figures is continued in the vita of queen radegund. it is a reasonable assumption that she would have had difficulty in submitting her will to the abbess’s authority since she had been a powerful female ruler. however, her biographer baudonivia presents a different image. baudonivia states that once radegund entered the monastery at poitiers, she: “handed over to [the abbess] herself and her possessions” (3). although baudonivia lauds radegund for being so humble that she did not want to be abbess herself, this move may have been unusual, since many queens became heads of their monasteries in deference to their rank and power. baudonivia further adds that radegund, “kept none of her own rights to herself ” (3). however, this obedience to the abbess further strengthened radegund’s decision of placing herself entirely in god’s care: “she handed herself over to her bridegroom with such compete devotion that she embraced god with a pure heart and felt that christ was dwelling within her” (3). baudonivia’s declaration connects radegund’s humble acceptance of the abbess ruling over her whole self to radegund’s unconditional willingness of handing herself over to god’s care and mercy. this type of obedience to a religious leader leads to a fuller and richer experience of trust and obedience with god. this conscious choice of setting aside an individual’s own will in order to accept and follow a higher authority demonstrates that the concepts of obedience and agency were not just a major part of a nun’s life— this could also lead toward an intimate relationship with god. from christina of markyate, who used her agency to escape from her family’s plans for her, to queen radegund’s actions of power and agency, which were cast aside to embrace both her abbess’s authority and god’s, the struggle between an individual’s free will and the concept of wholehearted obedience in a monastic setting is diverse and unique to each individual. the figures’ stories who have been discussed in this section, namely radegund and christina of markyate, show that even though there is a struggle between following an individualized concept of self-will and agency, being humble and deferring to a higher authority can be satisfying. because acts of obedience and agency are conscious choices on the part of the individual nun, deciding to follow god has more significance and consequence then what a nun’s family or friends desire. by examining these historical nuns, agency and obedience are layered and conflicting, but these concepts can also lead to having a deeper relationship with god. uncovering corruption, recognizing humanity moving away from historical nuns and their diverse ways of devoting their subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 123 lives to god, the fictional religious women such as the abbess in a fifteenth-century miracle story, geoffrey chaucer’s prioress, and abigail in marlowe’s drama the jew of malta, exhibit a form of cynicism in each of their respective works. cynicism and lukewarm religious faith among monastics are a common stereotypical belief during the medieval to early modern period, which has influenced how individuals view nuns even today. these texts usually have a nuance of cynicism and a vocalization of the problems with the church and clergy that were rampant during the late fourteenth century throughout the early modern period in england. these deviations from the monastic norm reveal the issues and anxieties of audiences for each of these works. in the alphabet of tales by etienne besançon, which was translated in the fifteenth century into english, the abbess is not portrayed in a wicked manner, nor does she behave in a stereotypical fashion. nevertheless, she lapsed into sin as she: “let her carver, that was her own kinsman, have his way with her / so that she conceived and was with child” (1). when the abbess hears that the bishop is coming because of the suspicions that her nuns have told him that she is pregnant, she is filled with despair: “and this abbess was great with child, made great sorrow and was did not know what she might do.” (1). she is undoubtedly distraught that the bishop will recognize that she is with child, while her melancholy and embarrassment cause her to go into her own “private chapel” that is situated in her own chamber (1). when the bishop comes to visit her community and the abbess goes to sit beside of him, he reproves her and commands that she “leaves the chapter (chapterhouse)” and further orders that two clerks “examine her, and to search whether she was with child or not (2). even more humiliatingly, the bishop does not believe the clerks who have examined her, but he insists that he will “search her himself (2). much to his embarrassment, he also does not find any sign that the abbess is with child. however, the abbess explains to the ashamed bishop that she had a dreamvision of the virgin mary who rescued her from her plight. the virgin mary, who does not rebuke her for her lapse into sin, but instead reassures her: “i have heard thy prayer and i have gotten of my son forgiveness of thy sin and deliverance of thy confusion” (2). the virgin’s solution is to deliver the child: “to a hermit” and the virgin mary “charged him to bring it up until it was seven years old; and he did as she commanded him; and at once our lady vanished away” (2). the abbess awakens from her dreamvision, much lighter in both body and spirit, as she amazedly: “grasped herself and felt herself delivered of her child and whole and sound” (2). the abbess has been granted a new and chaste body through the grace and compassion of the virgin mary. to further underscore her humanity, the narrator of the alphabet of tales points out scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 124 spring 2023 that although the abbess became pregnant, she continued in her abbatial duties and responsibilities until it became obvious that she was pregnant as she: “waxed great and drew near her time.” (1). her actions still indicate that she is a good person because she continues to be responsible toward the spiritual welfare of her nuns. overall, this story about the pregnant abbess demonstrates the reality of what occasionally occurred in monasteries such as sexual scandals or corruption. although this unnamed abbess had a child, her portrayal is not stereotypical, as she is not like the immoral and disillusioned religious women of giovanni boccaccio’s decameron. this is evident in filostrato’s tale where one of the nun’s scorns the idea that they should keep their virginity for god’s sake: “we are constantly making him promises that we never keep! he can always find other girls to preserve their virginity to him” (196). the abbess of besançon’s the alphabet of tales may have failed to be chaste, but her transgression points out her humanity. even the most well-intentioned nuns may stray which shows their multifaceted behavior. in sisters in arms: catholic nuns for two millennia, jo ann mcnamara asserts that: “criticism often went hand in hand with correction” (358). the pregnant abbess may have been created to point out the issues of laxness and permissible behavior that intermittently happened in various monasteries. even though this translation could have been a reminder for nuns reading this story to change their behavior before they were corrected by a higher authority, there is always grace to be found. on the other hand, geoffrey chaucer’s prioress is urbane and portrayed ambiguously by him. even though religious women were meant to stay cloistered, as graciela daichman states in her work wayward nuns in medieval literature, “in the year 791 a council had forbidden religious women to participate in pilgrimages” (137). however, the prioress is on a pilgrimage to canterbury with a train of nuns and priests. madame eglentyne’s entourage she has with her also signifies her high status as she is the prioress of her community. on her pilgrimage, she has her secretary, which is the “second nun,” and three priests. this train of people demonstrates her secular display and presentation. religious women should not have a procession of people, especially on a pilgrimage, because it suggests too much importance on a secular lifestyle. madame eglentyne should be concentrating on living humbly, as christ did, and scorning worldly pomp, instead of embracing opulence and magnificence. daichman further adds madame eglentyne’s presence would: “cause a medieval audience to smile in tolerant amusement at a frequent real-life situation” (137-138). although madame eglentyne is breaking her monastic vow by leaving her monastery to participate on a pilgrimage, her reasons for doing so may demonstrate subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 125 a concern for her spiritual wellbeing. chaucer comments in his general prologue: “the holy blessed martyr for to seek, / that they hoped he would help them for what they sought” (l. 17-18), which suggests that madame eglentyne wanted to go to canterbury to supplicate thomas à becket for spiritual guidance or to give thanks for being healed from an illness. chaucer leaves the reason for madame eglentyne’s pilgrimage up to his readers, thus further suggesting his ambiguity about her as a character. on the other hand, madame eglentyne’s temperament is characterized as: “charitable and so piteous” (l. 143) and her figure is parallel to a romance heroine as her eyes are, “grey as glass” with a “mouth very small and therefore softe and reed” (l. 152-153). her romantic ideals clash with her religious profession. her beads: “gilded all with green” (l.159) and her golden brooch, “on which there was first written a capital a, / and after [that] amor vincit omnia” (l. 161-162) show off what wealth she has, as well as point out that her motto can either be applied to secular or spiritual love, underscoring her ambiguity. her motto could be about holy love which is connected to the virgin mary’s beauty and how it relates to the prioress’s own loveliness and chastity. the opacity of her motto adds another layer of uncertainty about her religious values. even though madame eglentyne is meant to be inside her monastery and was not supposed to shower love and affection on her dogs: “that she fed / with roasted meat, or milk, and wastel-bread” (l. 146-147), her devotion to her dogs is understandable. her absence from her monastery and her owning possessions and pets are a challenge to the monastic rules of having everything in common with the rest of the nuns and its erasure of individuality. while mary laven’s book virgins of venice: broken vows and cloistered lives in the renaissance convent concentrates on venetian nuns, the focus on institutional issues was undoubtedly viewed similarly in england, as: “personal possession was an institutional reality and an accepted fact of convent life” (5). instead of behaving as an unworldly nun, chaucer portrays the prioress acting in a secular manner. not only is she outside of her religious house, but she is also devoted to her animals, which was viewed as standard behavior of nuns during this period. horacio sierra, in his book sanctified subversives, contests the concept of nuns as stereotypical figures. he states in his first chapter: “by eschewing bawdy, lewd, and propagandistic literature about lusty nuns that serve as whores to priests who act as pimps, this book [sanctified subversives] employs mature works to tease out how canonical writers employed the role of the nun to showcase the powerful potential these women possessed in acting as sanctified subversives” (4). the figure scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 126 spring 2023 of madame eglentyne can balance chaucer’s ambiguity of her as well as point out her individualistic pursuit of living. while reading both “the general prologue” and “the prioress’s prologue,” she is portrayed as a believable though flawed character. her flaws show how human she is, instead of a caricature. in the “prologue” of her tale about a child martyred by jews, she gives praise and attention to the virgin mary, who was widely venerated throughout europe as an intercessor and the queen of heaven. the prioress’s focus on the virgin in her prayer links her to mary’s incomparable femininity, goodness, and might. the intertwined notions of mary’s inviolable virginity with the prioress’s own chastity are encapsulated with the phrase: “white lily flower / [. . .] and is a maiden always” (l. 1651-1652). since the virgin mary is regarded as a perpetual virgin, the prioress can link mary’s chastity with her own, since she has been consecrated as a nun. her concentration on the virgin mary in both her “prologue” and “tale” could signify devotion to her, such as the ardent phrases: “she herself is honor and the root / of bounty (l.465-466), “o bush unburnt” (l.468), or “this well of mercy, christ’s mother sweet” (l. 656-657). these statements would be a positive attribute to a figure who is often viewed by critics with derision. i argue that her affection for her dogs, her love of fine clothing, and her determination to go on a pilgrimage demonstrate her humanity and her unwillingness to proscribe to the church’s mandates about giving up personal property for the common welfare of the religious community. turning from chaucer’s medieval prioress to the early modern era, we find further instances of nuns in works of fiction that subvert traditional views of how nuns are perceived. the jew of malta, a revenge tragedy composed by the controversial christopher marlowe, focuses on the crafty and murderous jewish merchant, barabas, and his plans of revenge against the governor of malta. since this play was written after the reformation, marlowe depicts in a stereotypical manner how monks and nuns’ way of life is depicted. barabas’s daughter abigail would do anything to help her father succeed in his plot, even pretending to convert to christianity and become a nun. abigail’s feigned conversion to the nunnery is part of a plot to reclaim barabas’s gold. her decision to aid her father in his dishonest behavior, shows that she is not sincere, but only acting on her father’s orders. in reply to abigail’s unease with pretending to be a christian, he reassures her: “a counterfeit profession is better / than unseen hypocrisy” (i. ii. 302-303). his statement depicts how marlowe’s audience viewed nuns and monks and their lifestyles as false and corrupt. abigail performs the part of a devout and earnest convert so well, that the abbess permits her to go into subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 127 the nunnery: “fearing the afflictions which my father feels / proceed from sin or want of faith in us, / i’d pass away my life in penitence, / and be a novice in your nunnery” (i. ii. 333-336). the abbess’s reply to abigail’s feigned religious conversation is depicted as one of simple acceptance: “well, daughter, we admit you for a nun” (i. ii. 341). even don mathias is deceived by her “conversion” to christianity as he remarks in wonder that is abigail is now a “strangely metamorphos’d nun.” (i. ii. 394). nevertheless, abigail is easily allowed entrance into the nunnery that was formerly her home, which shows that marlowe viewed the admittance into a religious house as permissible and lax. although abigail is claiming to be a nun because she wants to assist her father in his pursuit of revenge, her words are believable enough, as she states in one passage: “first let me as a novice learn to frame / my solitary life to your strait laws” (i. ii. 342343). her contradictory and misleading stance demonstrates that some women who entered a monastery viewed this lifestyle with less enthusiasm than their sisters who were genuine about their choice. later on in the play, abigail undergoes a radical transformation from a woman who pretends to be a nun to one that has lived: “chaste, and devout, much sorrowing for my sins” (iii. vi. 14-15). marlowe gives several references that, on the other hand, the friars jacomo and barnardine are not as holy and chaste as they appear. in retaliation of abigail’s sincere choice to become a nun, barabas poisons the whole nunnery, including abigail, who dies “a christian” (iii. vi. 40). however, friar barnardine adds on to her statement with the remark: “ay, and a virgin too; that grieves me most” (iii. vi.4142). barnardine’s remark reveals that he and friar jacomo view the nuns as potential partners of promiscuity. there are also a few phrases throughout this scene which relates that the abbess must also confess her sins and friar barnardine quips that it will be a “sad confession” (iii. vi. 4-5), while friar jacomo adds that he must hear “fair maria” confess her sins as well (iii. vi. 6-7). does this exchange imply that these women had or were going to have relationships with the two friars? marlowe’s suggestive language highlights the frequent observations about licentious behaviors in which both monks and nuns participated. comments made by barabas who claims that the nuns and monks are: “not idle, but still doing, / ‘tis likely they in time may reap some fruit” (ii. iii. 87-88) or ithamore who asks abigail: “have not the nuns fine sport with the friars now and then?” (iii. iii. 36-37) focus on sexual immorality between religious men and women. the remarks made by the friars are especially relevant since marlowe wrote his play after the decades of the dissolution of the monasteries, when the monastic way of life was viewed with suspicion and hostility. abigail’s untrustworthy performance about converting to christianity scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 128 spring 2023 and becoming a nun soon changes after her lover don matthias is killed in a duel. distraught by his death, she becomes sincere in her desire to dedicate her life to god. thus, she transforms not only herself, but the trajectory of her life within the play. abigail concludes that her father’s act of revenge and jewish faith no longer have any meaning for her, and she decides to commit herself fully to the life of a nun: “but i perceive there is no love on earth, / pity in jews, nor piety in turks” (iii. iii.33-34). this realization causes her to implore friar jacomo to: “get me admitted for a nun” (iii. iii. 61). yet, friar jacomo reminds her: “it is not yet long since / that i did labour thy admission, / and then thou didst not like that holy life” (iii. iii. 62-63). her reply is authentic as she explains: “i was chain’d to follies of the world; / but now experience, purchased with grief, / has made me see the difference of things” (iii. iii. 66-68). abigail believes that the nunnery will ease her heartache and provide her comfort as she pleads with friar jacomo: “let me be one, / although unworthy, / of that sisterhood!” (iii. iii. 7576). abigail undergoes a major shift in behavior from her duplicitous attitude to her earnest appeal to become a genuine nun. abigail’s trajectory from a “pseudo religious” woman, only intent on abetting her father in his plans for revenge, to a nun who is concerned for the salvation of her soul, reveals that even though a nun may not be an enthusiastic member of the collective religious community at first, a significant situation may change her mind. a shifting of priorities or tumultuous events may cause a nun to change from cynicism to devout behavior. although some readers may view the figure of abigail entering a nunnery for the second time as counterfeit, since her lover was killed in a duel, this more genuine choice reflects her altered viewpoint of the religious life as a place of safety and healing from life’s harsh vicissitudes. marlowe’s abigail balances the contradictory conceptions of a nun as either discontented about religious life or content in following monastic rules. abigail’s shifting attitude about religious life and being a nun is a vivid example of being human with its countless attitudes and emotions. thus, the examples given of the anonymous abbess, chaucer’s prioress, and christopher marlowe’s abigail in the jew of malta, all show that the breaking of their monastic vows reveals their multidimensionality and their humanity as fallible human beings— not caricatures of frivolity, licentiousness, and greed. conclusion the examination of wide-ranging and unique figures such as the historical queen radegund to the fictional character of christopher marlowe’s abigail argues against the belief that nuns are constrained by the binaries of extreme or stereotypical behavior. as shown in this paper, medieval nuns demonstrated a wide and varied subversive habits: the study of nuns from the sixth century to the early modern era middle tennessee state university 129 range of behaviors and viewpoints while they lived their lives in the pursuit of their religious ideals. the religious life was, for many nuns, not just a genuine vocation, but a place of joy, and a space to pursue their creative and intellectual interests. however, other depictions of nuns demonstrate that the religious life was not always consistent with the ideal monastic image of the monastery being an enclosed paradise. i conclude that medieval and early modern nuns were not as stereotypical or caricatures of sensuality and greed as writers have sometimes portrayed them. they were not passive or one-dimensional, but independent, creative, and resolute in living their life for god. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 130 spring 2023 works cited baudonivia. “the life of saint radegunde.” translated by joan m. petersen, cistercian publications, 1996. besançon, etienne de. “abbatissa semper subiectas sibi in dissiplina debet regere, et ad beatam mariam virginem deuocionem habere,” edited by mary macleod banks, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/alphtales, trübner & company, 1904. boniface. “the letters of saint boniface.” translated by ephraim emerton, norton, 1976. boccaccio, giovanni. the decameron. translated by g.h. mcwilliam, penguin, 1995, 192 199. claire of assisi. letter to agnes. translated by joan muller, liturgical press, 2003. chaucer, geoffrey. “the prologue and the prioress’s tale.” the riverside chaucer, edited by larry d. benson, houghton mifflin, 1987. christina of markyate. the life of christina of markyate. translated by c.h. talbot, oxford up, 2008. ferrante, joan. to the glory of her sex: women’s roles in the composition of medieval texts. indiana up, 1997. laven, mary. virgins of venice: broken vows and cloistered lives in the renaissance convent. viking, 2002, 5. marlowe, christopher. the jew of malta, edited by j.b. steane, new mermaids, 2009. mcnamara, kay ann jo. sisters in arms: catholic nuns through two millennia. harvard up, 1996. o’keeffe, katherine o’brien. stealing obedience: narratives of agency and identity in later anglo-saxon identity. toronto up, 2012. robinson, thomas. the anatomy of the english nunnery at lisbon in portugall dissected and laid open by one that was sometime a yonger brother of the conuent: who (if the grace of god had not preuented him) might haue growne as old in a wicked life as the oldest among them. published by authoritie. london: printed by george purslowe, for robert mylbourne, and philemon stephens: and are to be sold at the great south doore of pauls, 1622. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/a10852.0001.001. sierra, horacio. sanctified subversives: nuns in early modern english and spanish literature. cambridge scholars publishing, 2016. saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 79 saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage cori mathis the lake poets circle was prolific; they wrote letters to each other constantly, leaving a clear picture of the beginning and eventual decline of the marriage between samuel taylor coleridge and sarah fricker coleridge. coleridge also was fond of chronicling his personal life in his work. coleridge’s poetry and prose clearly show that, though he may have come to regret it, he originally married sarah fricker for love and was very happy in the beginning of their relationship. the problem with their marriage was that they were just fundamentally incompatible, something that was not sarah fricker’s fault—she was a product of her society and simply unprepared to be a wife to someone like coleridge. unfortunately, scholars have taken coleridge’s letters as pure truth and seem to have forgotten that every marriage has two partners, both with their own perspectives. this reflects a deliberate ignorance of coleridge’s tendency to see situations quite differently from how they actually were. because of this tradition, sarah fricker coleridge is often portrayed as difficult at best and a harridan at worst. it does not help that she attempted to help her husband ’s reputation by the majority of their letters that she possessed—one cannot see her side as clearly. in this essay, i hope to prove that she was simply an unhappy wife, married to a poetic genius who had decided she was the impediment to his happiness while she only wanted to keep their family together and safe. abstract 80 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in a letter to thomas wedgwood written at keswick on october 20, 1802, samuel taylor coleridge complains bitterly about his unfeeling, disagreeable wife: “ill tempered speeches sent after me when i went out of the house, ill-tempered speeches on my return, my friends received with freezing looks, the least opposition or contradiction occasioning screams of passion, & the sentiments, which i held most base, ostentatiously avowed” (griggs 876). with descriptions like this, it is no wonder that scholars have often painted sarah fricker coleridge as difficult at best and a frigid harridan at worst.1 this is terribly unfortunate in two senses: first, it reflects deliberate ignorance of extant primary sources, namely those letters written by mrs. coleridge and others in the lake poets’ circle, and second, it tends to create a two-dimensional portrait of a woman unprepared to be a genius’s wife rather than reflect the intelligent, though fairly traditional, young woman she was. while sarah fricker coleridge may not have been the best wife for coleridge, she certainly tried to be a good wife to him. she obviously loved him—and in the beginning, at least, he clearly loved her. because coleridge was so honest about his feelings in both his poetry and prose, the evolution of his relationship with sarah can be definitively traced as his portrayal of her shifts from beloved partner to impediment to his happiness. scholars have long noted the importance of considering coleridge’s everyday concerns in connection with his work. in his introduction to minnow among tritons, the collection of sarah fricker coleridge’s letters to thomas poole, stephen potter explains the unique impact coleridge’s life had on his poetry: the quotidian is deeply felt and freely expressed, [so that] we seem to be reading about such crises as the death of a son, or the borrowing of a book, such states as marriage unhappiness, or unwillingness to answer a letter, as if they were happening for the first time. intimate details . . . are significant because they really are intimate [;] they really do touch coleridge’s life closely. (vii-xiii) while this is certainly true, the events coleridge writes about are colored by his own interpretations of them, and for a man known to take perceived slights very personally—the break with wordsworth comes to mind here—not everything he says can be trusted implicitly. it is necessary, therefore, to read all available primary sources to get a more complete view of how events truly unfolded. in doing so, a portrait of the coleridges’ marriage emerges that runs counter to the accepted narrative. in 1794, young coleridge had recently met and befriended robert southey, whom he met in oxford while he was still enrolled at cambridge and southey was a student at balliol. in their philosophical conversations, they often discussed gathering twelve men of like mind and establishing a utopian settlement in america that valued literary efforts 1. this is the original spelling of her name; coleridge insisted that she spell it without an h because he preferred it that way—he made the same change in sara hutchinson’s name—and scholars have continued this trend. kathleen jones suggests that “[t]his renaming may well have been a symptom of a hidden desire to remake the women in his life into something closer to his inmost fantasies” (47). i will refer to sarah by the name she went by until she met and married coleridge primarily to distinguish her from sara hutchinson. i also think it is important to return at least that much agency to her. saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 81 and reflective thought, a plan they termed “pantisocracy,”2 southey and coleridge soon realized that if their plan was to work, the men would need wives. in august of that same year, southey became engaged to edith fricker, a young woman who lived in bristol. edith had four sisters; one of them, mary, was already married to robert lovell, a quaker poet who shared the friends’ enthusiasm for the pantisocracy project, but pretty, lively sarah, the eldest, was as yet unmarried, and it was upon her that coleridge fixed his attentions. quite characteristically, coleridge was exuberant in his courtship, and though sarah was not initially receptive, the poet’s charm won her over, as did his stories of a childhood with a cold, unfeeling family. he impulsively proposed barely two weeks after they met (hill 3-4; potter viii-vx; lefebure 41-43; vickers 71; wilson 62; jones 13-16). sarah was elated over their engagement, but coleridge soon regretted it—the proposal was made “in an impetuous moment of enthusiasm” (hill 4), after all. he left bristolfor cambridge and later london, at which point he decided that he did not love sarah and looked for ways to get out of the marriage. after sarah expressed her concern over coleridge’s lack of communication with her, southey wrote to coleridge to admonish him to correspond more often with his fiancée; this letter was met with coleridge’s new certainty that he was again in love with mary evans, a woman he had attempted to court before going to bristol. evans was already engaged, however, and he moved on to miss brunton,3 an actress ( jones 16-20; potter x; griggs 109; lefebure 44-51; vickers 71-72). coleridge wrote to southey that the relationship was intended to put the duty of which he had been reminded forefront in his mind: i endeavored to be perpetually with miss brunton—i even hoped that her exquisite beauty and uncommon accomplishments might have cured one passion by another. the latter i could easily have dissipated in her absence—and so have restored my affections to her, whom i do not love—but whom by every tie of reason and honor i ought to love. i am resolved—but wretched!—but time shall do much. (griggs 113) later letters, however, showed that he had renewed his attachment to mary evans. this alarmed southey enough to write his friend and press the issue of his previous arrangement with sarah; coleridge gave in, responding, “i will do my duty” (griggs 145). scholars have sometimes quickly dismissed this move of southey’s as a mere stepping stone in the path of coleridge’s unhappiness, but it is important to point out that southey was not simply acting as sarah’s intermediary. upon his engagement to edith, he essential2. coleridge took the word from greek, using the roots pant-isocratia, which means “the government of all.” the men would work together to make decisions, using the dictates of rational benevolence to come to mutual decisions to govern the group so that no one had more power than another. they would give up their possessions and work for and with each other; in theory, no one would have to labor more than a few hours each day, leaving plenty of time for intellectual pursuits. even while they worked, however, poetry and philosophy would be on their minds; for example, the solitude of farming chores would be the perfect time to compose verses. 3. scholars seem to be divided on whether the miss brunton in question was elizabeth or ann; both were on the stage when coleridge was in london. 82 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ly became head of the frickers’ household; their father was dead, and george, the youngest sibling and only boy, was still quite young. it fell to southey to defend the sisters and help protect their reputations, something that was often vulnerable since their time and education in bath had left an impression that the girls were not always as well-behaved as society might hope. southey sought to remind coleridge of the promise he made to sarah because if he broke their engagement, it would appear to be her fault—that is, that he had discovered something about her to make him reconsider. at this time, that was often code for learning that one’s intended wife was unchaste ( jones 4, 15-18; potter xxvi; lefebure 61). though he was not particularly well-versed in the unspoken rules of female society and was perhaps unaware of the implications of sarah’s being tossed aside by her fiancé, southey knew that a break with coleridge would damage sarah’s reputation and could render her unmarriageable. this could not happen for practical reasons—he would not relish supporting even more of edith’s family—and personal ones; he and sarah had become good friends, and he was loath to see her hurt since she genuinely cared for coleridge. in fact, as sarah’s biographer, molly lefebure, has emphasized, sarah had other suitors; it could be inferred that if coleridge did cry off, she likely would have been able to make a quick marriage and save her good name. she clearly wanted to marry for love. still, this concern of southey’s for sarah’s happiness and reputation is a bit ironic since both edith and sarah ended up “ruined” in the eyes of society after they accompanied southey and coleridge on a trip to the wye valley and tintern abbey in april 1795. the weather interfered with their plans and the sisters were forced to stay in an inn overnight with their fiancés without the benefit of a chaperone. any objections mrs. fricker and her family might have had to her daughters marrying poor poets—one of whom was known to have a laudanum habit—disappeared in their concern for sarah and edith’s reputations and they were married to coleridge and southey, respectively, within the year ( jones 18-24; vickers 72; lefebure 55-65). because coleridge proposed to sarah so soon after they met, many critics interpret his impulsive offer as an outgrowth of his excitement over pantisocracy. kathleen jones disagrees, noting that coleridge’s views on love would not have allowed him to contemplate marriagewithout emotional involvement—he regarded sex without love as extremely sordid, writing later to southey that the idea of having sexual intercourse with sarah without love, even within marriage, would have reduced her to the level of a common prostitute . . . his first letter to southey after his return to london was certainly written in the belief that his feelings were real. (16-7) though coleridge later claimed that his proposal was prompted by lust, his earlier words show that at the time, at least, he believed he loved sarah and truly wanted to marry her. it is possible, of course, that coleridge was, as jones asserts, “in love with love” and very attracted to sarah (17). his notebooks support this idea, but they also tell the story of a man who fell quickly in love, which led him to question the honesty of his feelings. after returning to his fiancée, he gave every appearance of being devoted to her; thomas de quincey saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 83 later wrote that a mutual friend’s interactions with the poet at this time convinced him that coleridge obviously loved sarah deeply (lefebure 52).4 “lines written at shurton bars,” originally titled “epistle” and then “ode to sara: lines written at shurton bars, near bridgwater, september 1795, in answer to a letter from bristol,” exemplifies coleridge’s early feelings for sarah. written as a response to a letter he received from his fiancée a week before their wedding that detailed her sorrow in the face of family stress and opposition toward and gossip about her relationship with him, coleridge’s verses explode with enthusiasm to finally marry sarah. here we see the passion in their relationship; there is a deep intensity in these lines. as always, his mind can conjure up any number of things to worry about, but to combat that, her “soul has wing’d it’s [sic] way” (rt 23) to him.5 coleridge does not just remember her in fondness and love; he says that her soul “hovers round my head” (rt 24). he misses her and the comfort they afford each other, but he also looks forward to the time that they can consummate their relationship—with their wedding fast approaching, that was likely at the front of his mind: how oft, my love! with shapings sweet i paint the moment, we shall meet! with eager speed i dart— i seize you in the vacant air, and fancy, with a husband’s care i press you to my heart! (rt 85-90) their sexual attraction aside, coleridge awaits the time that he can again be with his sarah; the poem resonates with that longing. the power of their love is such that their souls meet in the air to explore the beauty that surrounds him, beauty that would be more intense if she were there. coleridge also featured sarah in a poem that explored his feelings about his own mind. “the eolian harp,” written between august of 1795 and the beginning of 1796—four early manuscript versions exist—offers a portrait of the young lovers as they snuggle at sunset and listen to the notes of an aeolian harp in the window, a peaceful beginning that quickly becomes an exploration of the differences of the poet’s mind from his beloved’s—and by extension, from the rest of the conventional english society to which she belonged. coleridge begins with sarah, reclining peacefully next to him in front of their cottage, and lets his mind wander, infusing their natural surroundings with the emotions that he is feeling. he even goes so far as to put the elements of nature in a similar position to his; as he romances his willing fiancée, the wind does the same to a nearby lute, which offers up a beautiful melody in return: 4. students of the period will note that this is out of character for de quincey, who is well known for his low estimation of sarah coleridge’s intelligence, particularly when compared to dorothy wordsworth. the fact that he chose to record it suggests that it is very likely true. 5. mays compiled both a reading (rt) and a variorum text (vt); both have been helpful in my study here. the reading text gives the version scholars deem closest to coleridge’s intention, while the variorum text shows all possible versions. 84 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research and that simplest lute, placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! how by the desultory breeze caressed, like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, it pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs tempt to repeat the wrong! . . . . (rt 12-17) everything in nature is harmonious, and their love places coleridge and sarah within that context—this is no mere country scene, it is paradisiacal. the couple is alone amid the beauty given to them by god; this is beauty reflected in the love between a man and wife, a love in which they will soon partake. still, the couple is not the same person; coleridge is much more philosophical and excitable than the rational, even-tempered sarah. whereas she simply enjoys a peaceful time with her fiancé, he cannot stop the wanderings of his mind—“many idle flitting phantasies, / traverse [his] indolent and passive brain” (rt 40-41). the content of these wanderings highlights another of their major differences. sarah also represents traditional religion, specifically anglicanism, in the poem; in contrast to coleridge’s pantheistic mental meanderings, coleridge says that she “biddest me walk humbly with my god” (rt 52), a nearly direct quotation from the old testament prophet micah that characterizes her as a conventional woman of her time,6 ever ready to bring her samuel back down to earth and remind him of his more important duties, both to her and to his god. nothing in the poem suggests that he is frustrated or angered by this; he seems to appreciate the grounding effect she has on him. coleridge and sarah were married on october 4, 1795, and a letter written to thomas poole not long after reflects coleridge’s ecstasy over the estate: “on sunday morning i was married . . .united to the woman, [sic] whom i love best of all created beings.—we are settled—nay—quite domesticated at clevedon—our comfortable cot!—!— mrs coleridge—mrs coleridge!!—i like to write the name—” (griggs 160). these are not the words of a man forced into marriage; coleridge sounds like a newlywed, albeit one given to effusions over everything that excited him in any way. the couple took a honeymoon in their cottage at clevedon; coleridge famously only furnished the house with a bed, an aeolian harp, and some old prints. two days later, he wrote to joseph cottle, his publisher, to ask for further supplies, and the couple continued on in the same blissful, though poverty-stricken, manner. by april of 1796, sarah was certain she was pregnant— the debilitating morning sickness helped her understand that while it annoyed coleridge— and coleridge’s cravat began to feel a little tighter. hartley was born in september of that same year, followed by berkeley in may of 1798, and sarah’s focus shifted from making coleridge happy to taking care of her growing family. for coleridge’s part, the addition of hartley, though joyous, felt like an encumbrance, and his letters feature less celebration and more complaining. this is also the period where coleridge was diagnosed with a “nervous 6. micah 6:8: “he hath shewed thee, o man, what is good; and what doth the lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy god?” (king james version) saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 85 disorder” and prescribed larger doses of laudanum; his increasing dissatisfaction came from a number of areas, but the opium certainly did not help (lefebure 69-97; vickers 73; jones 47-54; potter xv-xvi). though they were happy in the early years of their marriage, coleridge and sarah’s relationship was not without its difficulties—primarily, the questions of how coleridge would earn a regular salary and if he would enter a more conventional profession to support his wife and their two young children bothered sarah. the watchman, coleridge’s attempt to put out a periodical, had failed not long after it began, leaving their finances in ruins. luckily, coleridge had an annuity from the wedgwood brothers as well as support from thomas poole, a patron and friend who lived at nether stowey; he was also paid here and there from various published writings. still, sarah recognized that this hand-to-mouth existence, though romantic on one’s honeymoon, was no way to support a family, and the household’s lack of steady income was a sore point between the couple. coleridge was also responsible for sarah’s mother and brother at this time, which added further stress (vickers 73-74; christie 59; lefebure 90; jones 50-52). another stumbling block arrived in the form of the wordsworths; their philosophical and outdoorsy ways that coleridge so delighted in only served to highlight sarah’s fairly traditional outlook and upbringing, and she was found wanting in comparison. the fall of 1797 and spring of 1798, so famous for its end result, lyrical ballads, was an important time in coleridge’s relationship with william and dorothy7; it also coincided with the infancy of his children, which limited sarah’s ability to ramble about the lake district with the trio. in coleridge’s eyes, sarah—though intelligent—paled next to dorothy, who possessed real genius. as for dorothy, she had no real use for sarah, with her bath manners, lack of concern about philosophical matters, and modern ways of raising children; the fact that she preferred to care for her child as much as possible, a lifestyle which included breastfeeding on demand, was foreign to dorothy, and smacked of the lower classes. sarah was a bit jealous of the amount of time her husband spent with the wordsworths, but there was a much larger concern: william and dorothy were enabling coleridge’s addiction. they did not attempt to dissuade coleridge from taking the drug as often as he did; instead, they were impressed by its poetic and philosophic results. nor “did they protest when [his mental] excursions were made down the laudanum-impregnated streams of fancy” (lefebure 95). sarah and poole worried especially about the wordsworths’ general dismissal of the severity of coleridge’s laudanum addiction. it should not be inferred that the siblings approved of it—it is much more likely that they simply had very little experience with an addict and the many ways one could hide the extent of their dependence (vickers 73-74; lefebure 91-97; jones 59-66; hill 6-7). in the spring of 1798, it became clear that the wordsworths would be moving on from alfoxden; their lease would not be renewed because of “the reputation of the group as anarchists” ( jones 70). for his part, coleridge decided to go to germany to learn the language 7. dorothy was william’s sister, companion, and an accomplished writer. her journals not only detail wordsworth’s movements and habits, but they also give deep insight into many romantic figures. 86 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research and put himself in the center of the intellectual revolution happening in the universities. he left in september of that year without his family; the boys were thought to be too young to travel abroad. he promised to be an assiduous correspondent during his absence, however, and kept this promise, writing long, passionate letters to sarah that assured her of his continued love for her as well as his pain at being parted from her and their children: “‘every night when i go to bed & every night when i rise’ i will think of you with a yearning love, & of my blessed babies! . . . i think of you with affection & a desire to be home /& in the full & holiest sense of the word, & . . . will be, i trust, your husband faithful unto death” (griggs 415-18). though he might have been feeling the stress of being a husband and father, coleridge seemed to enjoy the position, at least at this time ( jones 70-74; lefebure 97-98). during the eleven months he was away from nether stowey, sarah and the children grew ill as a result of a faulty smallpox vaccine. baby berkeley’s immune system did not recover, and he died from consumption, which he caught from the nanny. his decline was fairly quick, but it was painful. sarah was devastated, and her grief was reflected physically: her thick brown hair, long considered her great beauty, began to fall out and was never the same—she had to cut it off and wear a wig for the rest of her life. coleridge was also feeling quite depressed at this time, not because he knew of berkeley’s passing, but because sarah had ceased writing to him and he felt ignored. poole felt that coleridge should be kept apprised of only happy news so that his studies would proceed accordingly, and, at this time, sarah naturally could think of nothing amusing to say. eventually sarah pressed upon poole the importance of telling coleridge about his son’s death; poole’s letter was not entirely clear, so sarah had to write coleridge herself, pouring out her suffering on the page and likely expecting a similar response. she did not get it; instead, coleridge spoke of his son’s death in philosophical, detached terms. he also decided to extend his stay in germany for five more months, a choice that reflects his lifelong tendency to “[run] away from situations or [hide] his true feelings, in direct proportion to the urgency of the duty or the depth of the feeling. those he most loved were likely to be the worst treated” ( jones 81). this habit was in full force when sarah wrote him in may of 1799 to request he come home to her and coleridge decided instead to take a walking tour of the harz mountains and climb the brocken (hill 11; lefebure 104-20; jones 75-81; vickers 76). for someone who so loved to examine the quotidian in his poetry, coleridge was not prepared to experience it—the monotony of domesticity bored him. when he returned from germany in july, coleridge had a difficult time adjusting to life back with the wife and child he had so longed to see; he spent a great deal of the next year traveling, during which time he visited the wordsworths and met sara hutchinson, the sister of wordsworth’s future wife, mary. it is at this point in the marriage that letters from and about the couple begin to strongly reflect the idea of coleridge as an unhappy, neglectful husband and sarah as a confused—and frankly, angry—young wife. interestingly, the first person to hear of the beginnings of coleridge’s descent into dejection was his brother-in-law. a letter dated october 21, 1801 lays the groundwork for the opinions he has recently formed about saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 87 his wife—opinions that he would later claim had existed since their marriage. coleridge writes, “alas! we are not suited to each other ... i will go believing that it will end happily—if not, if our mutual unsuitableness continues, and (as it assuredly will do, if it continue[s]) increases & strengthens, why then, it is better for her & my children,8 that i should live apart, than that she should be a widow & they orphans” (griggs 767). in the beginning, coleridge does take some blame—they are mutually unsuitable—but hopes that things will improve between them. however, it is not long before he abandons this idea and paints sarah as the impediment to his happiness—a happiness that includes another woman (hill 12; vickers 76; potter xx; jones 85-87). in november of 1799, coleridge began an extended stay with the wordsworths, leaving his family at home in nether stowey. it is during this trip that he met sara hutchinson and fell in love; in his notebooks, he described it as an “incurable” wound from love’s arrow (qtd. in jones 87). in december, he accepted a job with the morning post and went to live in london; sarah and hartley joined him soon after. sarah was pregnant again within a month. however, it appears the only harmony they found was sexual, and they fought constantly. coleridge’s dependence on opium also increased; his sicknesses were not something easily diagnosed, as he grew ill when he was anxious, and he did not lack for that unpleasant emotion during this time. thus began a vicious cycle—he and sarah would quarrel, he would take laudanum to console himself, the drug would dull his senses enough to frustrate his wife, they would have another fight, and he would again self-medicate. clearly, the failure of the coleridges’ marriage had a number of causes (hill 12-14; lefebure 124-51; jones 89-90). sarah left for bristol in march of 1800 and later settled at greta hall, keswick, in july. april saw coleridge’s trip to grasmere, his wife forgotten for a time and a lock of sara hutchinson’s hair in his pocket. coleridge seemed to understand that there was no real future for the two of them, but, as stephen potter explains, it should not be considered “an instance of coleridge finding ‘ought not’ as provocative of action” (potter xxiii). coleridge loved sara hutchinson a great deal—at least, he loved the person he believed her to be. sara was his muse and long-suffering supporter, a refuge from his wife who seemed to him only to want to discuss what he needed to do for his family, and his convictions would not let him leave sarah for her, no matter how unhappy his marriage was. on the evening of april 4, 1802, his grief over the situation, exacerbated by the large amounts of laudanum he was ingesting daily, led him to pour out his emotions in a verse letter to sara, titled “a letter to ——” to protect her identity—and likely, her reputation, which would be ruined if a passionate love letter from a married man was found to be addressed to her ( jones 90; potter xxiii-xiv; lefebure 146). the letter went unpublished, though he did show it to the wordsworths, and it is “accusatory and self-flagellating, poring over the details of his star-crossed love for sara hutchinson and explicitly attributing his failure in part to the misery of cohabitating with an unsympathetic woman” (christie 150). “a grief without a pang, void, dark, & drear, / 8. by this point, the coleridges had another son, derwent, born in september of 1800. 88 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research a stifling, drowsy, unimpassion’d grief / that finds no natural outlet, no relief / in word, or sigh, or tear—” (lines 17-20): coleridge’s love for sara is deep, true, and impossible. as he attempts to explain his love—and apologize for various things—coleridge rewrites his entire marriage, turning sarah into a cold, unfeeling woman who might be the mother of his children but also exists to snuff out his happiness. he complains: . . . my coarse domestic life has known no habits of heart-nursing sympathy, no griefs, but such as dull and deaden me, no mutual mild enjoyments of it’s [sic] own, no hopes of it’s [sic] own vintage, none, o! none— . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . my little children are a joy, a love, a good gift from above! but what is bliss, that still calls up a woe, and makes it doubly keen compelling me to feel, as well as know, what a most blessed lot mine might have been (vt 258-77). even his children, though a blessing, are burdens—another obstacle that keeps him from his beloved. “a letter to ——” was later heavily edited into the dejection ode of october 1802; without knowledge of its beginnings, the poem reads as if the dejection coleridge feels comes solely from his disconnection to nature. j. c. c. mays notes that the verse letter was not found until 1937 (677), but there was another extant coleridgean outpouring that made his feelings about his wife perfectly clear. on november 22, 1802, coleridge wrote the now infamous passive-aggressive letter to sarah wherein he explains that, if he speaks harshly to her or distresses her with his words, it is her fault and she should be careful not to upset him: “be assured, my dear love! that i shall never write otherwise than most kindly to you, except after great aggressions on your part” (griggs 887). he follows this up by claiming that “in sex, acquirements, and in the quantity and quality of natural endowments whether of feeling, or of intellect, you are the inferior” (griggs 888). combined with his continued praise of sara hutchinson, his callous attitude must have made it clear that the loving man sarah had married was gone. a more pessimistic view of coleridge’s words and his general temperament would give rise to the opinion that he was unfulfilled by one wife and, in fact, would have preferred to have many women around to serve his various needs: sarah to mother his children and satisfy him sexually, sara to challenge his mind, and dorothy to flatter him as she did william. scholars like kathleen jones and molly lefebure have made such claims, explaining that sarah was simply not equipped to play this role; she was not one to indulge a man’s shortcomings. whether or not that is accurate, one thing is certain—coleridge was constantly looking for someone to love him fully and self-sacrificingly, almost to the point of ignoring their own needs, and he never really found that person ( jones 11; lefebure 76-78). saving sarah fricker: accurately representing the realities of the coleridges’ marriage middle tennessee state university 89 on october 23, 1806, samuel taylor coleridge went north to negotiate a permanent separation from his wife. naturally, sarah resisted; society could be cruel to abandoned wives, and she worried about what would become of her and her children. still, she eventually acquiesced—albeit reluctantly—sometime before christmas that same year (christie 166). they stayed in touch through letters, writing primarily of their children, and a friendship of sorts came about. coleridge found a sanctuary with the gillmans, and sarah devoted herself to mothering hartley, derwent, and sara fille. still, her letters to thomas poole, as chatty and friendly as they are, reflect a constant awareness of her failed marriage. though sarah was ultimately a happy and fulfilled woman, she clearly would have preferred that her relationship with coleridge had not taken the turn that it did. sarah made an effort to stay informed about his life—she paid particular attention to his health—and communicated his status to his old friends. when she mentions coleridge in her letters, her tone holds no rancor; if there were no evidence to the contrary, some of her missives might read as if they had reconciled. unfortunately, sarah also burned a great many letters that she wrote her husband, as well as anything she thought that might have embarrassed the family. because of this, we essentially only get his side of the story of their marriage—most of the letters she burned came from the period they lived together. however, there are some surviving pieces of her later writing, and her relationship with her husband provided a great deal of gossip fodder for the wordsworth-coleridge circle, many of whom were assiduous letter writers and journal keepers. though some progress has been made on this front, it is imperative that the reality of samuel taylor coleridge’s marriage to sarah fricker be better represented in scholarship, not simply to provide a more accurate portrait, but to help rescue the reputation of a misunderstood woman. 90 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research works cited christie, william. samuel taylor coleridge: a literary life. london: palgrave macmillan, 2007. print. griggs, earl leslie, ed. collected letters of samuel taylor coleridge. 1956. oxford: oxford up, 1966. print. hill, john spencer. a coleridge companion: an introduction to the major poems and the biographia literaria. london: palgrave macmillan p, 1983. web. 30 apr. 2014. jones, kathleen. a passionate sisterhood: the sisters, wives and daughters of the lake poets. new york: st. martin’s p, 2000. print. lefebure, molly. the bondage of love: a life of mrs samuel taylor coleridge. new york: w. w. norton & co., 1987. print. mays, j.c.c., ed. the collected works of samuel taylor coleridge— poetical works: reading text. vol. 1. princeton: princeton up, 2001. print. ---. the collected works of samuel taylor coleridge—poetical works: variorum text. vol. 2. princeton: princeton up, 2001. print. “micah 6:8.” biblegateway. harpercollins christian p, n.d. web. 1 may 2014. potter, stephen, ed. minnow among tritons: mrs. s. t. coleridge’s letters to thomas poole 1799-1834. 1934. bloomsbury: nonesuch p; new york: ams p, 1973. print. vickers, neil. “coleridge’s marriage and family.” the oxford handbook of samuel taylor coleridge. ed. frederick burwick. oxford: oxford up, 2009. 69-88. print. wilson, eric g. coleridge’s melancholia: an anatomy of limbo. gainesville: up of florida, 2004. print. psychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 91 psychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores rachel peay cornet jwa k. kim this research highlights the importance of promoting appropriate family literacy practices to avoid barriers between the home and school lives of students. the development of an elementary experiences scale (ees) was necessary to predict the parent’s perception of their own school experiences in comparison to their students’ literacy achievement scores. parents of elementary students were asked to complete a survey about their personal school experiences and the responses were compared to their student’s dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills (dibels) scores. results found that the parent survey predicted student reading achievement variance for correct letter sounds and whole words read in nonsense word fluency. the survey did not predict any of the reading fluency outcomes for the mid-year assessment; however, the survey did predict composite scores of the first grade students. these findings suggest some validation of the scale’s use in predicting the effect of parents’ elementary experiences on that of their students’ early reading progression. this research also helps to support the need for family literacy practices in the schools. abstract 92 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research overview as meditation xvii by john donne reads, “no man is an island.” the same can be said of the educators that have established themselves as the leaders in their classrooms around our world. what the great instructors already know is that they cannot remain oblivious to the world around them. they must reach beyond the walls of their classrooms to incorporate the community and traditions of their students into their curricula to have the most fulfilled and effective results from their teaching efforts. building a home to school connection is essential for any educational establishment. the purpose of this study was to investigate the rationalization of the school to community connection, concentrating on the field of early literacy. there is discussion of the previous research conducted in this topic area and both a validation of the practices mentioned as well as a highlighting of the effective means for creating a community atmosphere in the schools. the primary purpose of this study was to conduct a psychometric evaluation for a newly developed elementary experiences scale (ees) which was administered to parents in order to further investigate effective methods of bridging the gap students may encounter from their home to school environments. according to low (2011), “if children do not enjoy reading in school and do not read outside of the classroom, there will be an impact on their potential achievement both in literacy and across the curriculum” (p. 8). this is why family literacy opportunities can prove to be so valuable for students. family literacy itself can take many different forms and variations, but typically has to do with some type of literacy activity being completed in the home environment, such as reading a book together (leseman & jong, 1998). early childhood family literacy practices, or lack thereof, have been found to be directly related to later reading success or struggle for students once they enter formal schooling ( jordan, snow, & porche, 2000; senechal & lefevre, 2002; sonnenschein & munsterman, 2002; hart & risley, 2003). parents need to be empowered in their abilities to sustain student progress at home and trained in ways to help foster the most vital early literacy skills (bird, 2005; lynch, 2009; skouteris, watson, & lum, 2012; swick, 2009). bennett, weigel, and martin (2002) found that there was a significant relation to the family as educator theoretical model and student language and literacy academic outcomes during their research. additionally, students who enter the school system from families of low socioeconomic status or from a nonnative language-speaking family have shown exponential gains and benefits from family literacy programming in particular (zhang, pelletier, & doyle, 2010; zaman, 2006). the evidence in early childhood literacy practices suggests schools and families must form a partnership in the beginning of a child’s educational career for the best interest of everyone involved. but how does one begin this process? meeting in the middle one could assume that as long as there have been families, there have been family literacy practices being passed down from generation to generation as part of the deeply rooted traditions of society. unfortunately, the home to school disconnect has grown expsychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 93 ponentially over the last few generations as each of the two camps have been almost pitted against one another. it seems that, “current conventional wisdom tells us that ‘many parents just don’t care anymore’…[causing t]eachers [to] decry this condition by announcing, ‘if parents did a better job parenting, we teachers wouldn’t have such a difficult time teaching’” (shockley, michalove, & allen, 1995, p. 4). needless to say, repairing the rapport between educators and families can be a slow and arduous process. however, like anything else, it has to begin somewhere. just as teachers should not perform their daily tasks as “an island,” the student also should not be made to feel like they are utterly isolated and alone at school. incorporating traditions from the home environment into the classroom provides access to the background knowledge that can ignite a child’s learning process. velez-ibanez and greenberg (1992) refer to this tapping into students’ prior knowledge or family traditions as the “funds of knowledge” (p. 313). if educators correctly do their research on the backgrounds of their students, they will be able to access these so called funds of knowledge for their own classrooms’ benefit and also to the success and delight of their students. getting the family involved is the key. again, numerous research articles provide evidence that students whose families participate in reading practices at home have a better rate of success in literacy related practices than students whose families do not take an active role in their child’s education (christian et al., 1998; epstein, 2001; smith, 2010). family literacy nights one method for getting parents involved in their child’s education is through the implementation of family literacy nights at the schools. during these events, parents are invited to collaborate with educational specialist about the best literacy methods for them to practice at home with their students (sink et al., 2005). many times the parents are willing and able to help their child become more successful in school. however, they do not feel confident in their own knowledge to help out at home. these nights can help break down the barrier of school and home relationships. also, these family nights can provide a better foundation for consistent reading intervention and practices conducted both within the school and at the student’s home environment. when families are provided with an easy-to-follow model and time to practice the model’s specifications with educator support, they are more likely to continue such methods at home with their students (green & anyon, 2010). providing a cohesive reading foundation for the students to practice reading at both home and school can only result in more success for the young readers. student success is the true goal of any family and school program, such as the family literacy night initiative. rosemary (2010) supports this thought by stating that the major objectives for schools hosting family literacy nights should be to “entice parents into the school so they can become comfortable with an educational system that may be unfamiliar to them [and] give parents time to help their children read and be successful in school” (p. 10). study groups what better way to build once again upon the idealization that no man is an island than by the family literacy initiative known as study groups? the arduous process of de94 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research coding a text that is foreign in both language and background knowledge to the reader is one that often results in frustration and failure of proper completion by the student. as mentioned with literacy nights, parents can truly benefit from having one on one time with educators to learn strategies to help their student succeed. parents need to be informed of what to specifically do at home to help. study groups can be comprised of parents and teachers, older and younger generations, or even parents and students (allen, 2007). having this bonding time, no matter the pairing, has been shown to be an effective means of communicating and showing support for one another, all the while developing necessary literacy practices. when teachers have time to work individually with the families some of the stereotypes and barriers to communication that may have been present before the meetings seem to dissipate, thus opening the floor for both parents and educators working together in the best interest of the students. bridging barriers to the connection the ideals of family literacy programming may sound enticing, but unfortunately many times they are easier said than done. harris and goodall (2008) bring up the point that, “schools rather than parents are often ‘hard to reach,’” indicating that school officials need to be more open minded to what information they can gain from the families instead of the other way around (p. 227). gaining a shared acceptance of one another in literacy practices is often times difficult, especially where language barriers may be present (compton-lilly, rogers, and lewis, 2012; farver et al., 2012; wong, 2012). typical problems in family literacy programming can range from the small to the extreme, such as transportation problems for the families or even participants feeling that they are being judged as an outsider to the school personnel (grace & trudgett, 2012). according to timmons (2008), there is even hardship on the research end of family literacy studies due to funding, recruitment, and authentic participation. attrition of participants was found to be an issue noted in the family literacy studies as well, which affects both research opportunities and the efficiency of the program. the bottom line is that families are not going to attend where they do not feel welcome. additionally, the programs offered should be worth their time. families with young children seem to have so many responsibilities that could be deemed valuable to their everyday lives. it is no surprise that some family obligations may be considered more valuable to a family’s current life goals than literacy practices being implemented correctly in the home. literacy programs in the community have to compete with many extraneous factors, but it is vital for planners of family literacy events to note these issues and be conscientious to the diverse needs of those they are serving. being positive, considerate, and as flexible as possible when designing the program is a good beginning to implementation of a successful series. one should keep in mind that occasionally the events that unfold around family literacy programming are beyond anyone’s control and these opportunities can provide both negative and positive experiences for all involved. remember, negative experiences can be molded into positive ones if participants work together and build upon growing beyond previous mishaps or work to rectify any miscommunication. in literacy psychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 95 practices and beyond, clear communication between all parties is key, but this practice may require time and patience to develop. context of this study bridging the gap between home and school in order to maintain that neither the pupil, the teacher, nor the parent feels like they are treading the sometimes desolate territory of teaching and learning alone is the true goal of incorporating family literacy into a school’s curricula. an educator equipped with the funds of knowledge from a student’s family heritage and home life can truly be the foundation for formatting authentic literacy lessons (moll et al., 1992). these parallel practices help to build a stronger school community. in an ideal situation, students are free to share openly about their family traditions or customs at school and later share with their families what they have been immersed in during school hours. when family literacy is implemented properly in this circular path, the school truly feels like a home away from home for the students, and the gateway for future success is open for all to travel. as the literature review indicated, getting parents into the schools is the first step. however, there are few research studies that have been conducted to indicate exactly what can happen if an adult caretaker has a negative attitude towards their own early educational journeys and what effect that may have on their own child’s learning progression. medinnus (1962) developed such a scale for determining “parent attitude toward education,” but the results left much to be validated in the single-study experiment (p. 102). in contrast, our study proposed a similar parent attitude towards education scale, with an added component of correlating the parents’ scores to their students’ early literacy skills. it was hypothesized that the positive or negative educational experiences that the adults had when they were in school could have an influence on their children’s attitudes towards school, and therefore their students’ academic progress in school. an investigation was necessary to see if any particular school factors had more influence than others on the parents’ elementary experiences. research was also needed to determine if the data found could be of use in future family literacy programming in order to aid in breaking down any home to school resistance or animosity present in adults with young literacy learners. methods participants even though student scores were used, the participants for this study only included the parents of first graders who agreed to take the online survey. students’ scores used were based on their parents’ willingness and agreement to participate in the survey, and were drawn from two schools in the middle tennessee area. the schools were located at various geographical locations throughout this large, mostly suburban school system. it should be noted that both schools used for the purposes of this study were considered to be community schools, each on the outskirts of the district. for conformity purposes in participants and in type of student scores available from the schools to use, only parents of first grade students were given the opportunity to participate. this created a grand total of 13 96 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research classrooms involved in the study, with an average of about 20 families per classroom. even though this accounts for approximately 260 families initially being offered the opportunity to partake in the research, 42 students’ families signed the permission form to participate in the study and 41 completed scales were received for data analysis by the researcher. since all of the surveys were completed online by one guardian in the first graders’ families, the adult participants’ ages varied greatly. the first grade students’ ages were more consistent, ranging from about 6 to 7 years old, on average. both genders of adult and student participants were asked to be part of this study and no participant’s data were excluded unless the researcher could not collect a complete data set. for example, if a student had recently moved to the school district and correlating test scores could not be obtained for valid comparisons of scores, they were excluded from the study. while about an even number of male and female students were represented in the literacy scores, a disproportionate number of parents taking the survey were females. only 10 of the 41 parents participating in the study’s questionnaire identified themselves as male. student names were coded to match their guardian’s assigned participant number for confidentiality purposes and students were not personally contacted during the research experiment. socioeconomic factors and ethnicity of the families were not considered for the purposes of this research. the socioeconomic status of the students was not taken into consideration since this information was not attached to the students’ literacy scores and therefore was not feasible to be gathered for this experiment. this particular project did not investigate the home language of the families involved either, considering the student populations at both the schools used for the experiment had low english language learner (ell) populations and that extraneous information could skew the limited data available for the parameters of this study. materials as mentioned above, an online scale was administered to the parents. this process took place through a link delivered in an email exclusively to those adults who indicated they were interested in participating in the study. agreeing to participate in the study simply involved taking a survey and allowing their own child’s pre-existing mid-year dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills (dibels) tests scores to be compared to their survey results. the scale used in this study was newly developed due to the lack of tangible resources that could be administered to convey accurate information about adult guardians’ own elementary school experiences. during the development of the elementary experience scale (ees) by the researcher, six overarching categories emerged from the research in the field of education that indicated some possible effect on a person’s elementary school experience. those themes are as follows: parental support available, social and emotional well-being, teachers and staff at the school, curriculum and assignments given, student organizational skills, and overall attitude towards elementary school. almost ten questions for each of the six categories were formed, making of a total of 59 questions to be answered on a five-point likert-type scale. for example, one of the items from the parental support category of the scale stated: “my parents were proud of my progress in elementary school.” psychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 97 possible responses to the scale’s statements ranged from strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree. it should be noted that questions varied in wording type from positive to negative statements in an effort to help avoid invalid responses from an adult participant by keeping them alert and sensitive to the scale throughout the length of the questionnaire. also, even though the questions were initially developed in categories, once the scale was administered the questions were each distributed at random. students’ pre-existing scores from their mid-year dibels tests were obtained from the two schools’ response to intervention (rti) coaches with parent permission. the dibels tests were administered to all of the first grade students throughout the school district during january of 2013 by the same team of rti coaches who traveled to the elementary schools together during the benchmarking process. this helped ensure conformity and accuracy of the tests’ administration. according to the specified protocol for dibels first grade mid-year benchmark tests administration, two main test categories and five subcategories were developmentally appropriate to be given and were used for evaluation scores in this study: nonsense word fluency (nwf) was a main category with correct letter sounds (cls) and whole words read (wwr) as the two subcategories; oral reading fluency (orf) was the second test domain, with words read (wr), accuracy, and retell as the three test subcategories under orf. all tests were administered orally for each individual first grader. during the testing a brief explanation of the directions was given to the students for each subtest, complete with some practice examples and normed feedback by the test administrator. lastly, the tests were timed for one minute in length and results were recorded into an individual testing booklet for each student. the collected data was later entered into an online database for easy retrieval and comparison between classrooms, schools, and districts (good & kaminski, 2010). dibels scores were selected by the researcher for the student literacy scores in this study for several reasons. first, the dibels tests were administered throughout the district by the same team of educators in order to provide consistency in implementation. also, the results were previously compiled for quick and feasible access before the school year’s conclusion. additionally, dibels was a widely used and recognizable standardized assessment format in elementary education for literacy, therefore the research-validated scores that dibels provided aligned seamlessly to the study’s purposes (rouse & fantuzzo, 2006). procedures and data collection upon approval from the necessary agents to conduct the research, parental consent forms were sent home with every first grade student from the two schools to divulge the study’s purposes and required elements. classroom teachers communicated to the parents to look for the study information being sent home and also collected the signed consent forms the following school week. no incentives were offered for study participation. after the consent forms were gathered, the educators then sent the researcher the email addresses of the parents who volunteered to participate in the study. the link to the ees 98 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was sent via email directly to the interested parent participants. data from the scale were collected over two weeks after gathering and securely storing the parents’ consent forms. scale results were entered into a data spreadsheet along with the acquired student dibels scores for statistical analysis purposes. as previously noted, a student’s scores and matching guardian’s scale results were assigned an identical numerical code to prevent confidential information from being distributed inappropriately and to correlate both student and parent data with one another. all data were entered into the statistical package for the ibm spss version 20 for analysis. results means and standard deviations for each ees item are listed in table 1. means ranged from 2.02 to 4.56. standard deviations ranged from 0.60 to 1.45 but remained in a stable range overall. exploratory factor analysis (efa) was used on the data set to detect survey items with low factor loading scores. factor loading scores had a wider range of limits with one negative value for item 35 at -.34, and the highest value being for item 15 with a factor loading of .89. any survey question with a factor loading score greater than 0.60 was selected for reanalysis for validity purposes of questions used. since all of the question items with factor loading scores greater than 0.60 pertained to general or overall elementary school experiences, this became the sole named factor in the analysis results. a second analysis was completed with the remaining 35 question items after the items with low factor loadings, and therefore lower impact, had been eliminated. the second factor analysis on the consolidated survey question list resulted in a clear one factor solution with 50.49% of the variance explained by a single factor, confirming the single named contribution factor in the ees as being the impact of general or overall elementary school experiences. in order to confirm the single factor solution, cronbach’s alpha was computed. the computed cronbach’s alpha on the remaining survey items revealed a strong reliability index of 0.97. a regression analysis was done to predict various dibels scores with the combined total ees scores. parents’ ees scores were used as a predictor of their own students’ dibels scores and the results were significant for a couple of dibels sub-factors. parents’ ees significantly predicted cls, f(1, 40) = 4.26, p < .05, r² = .10, and wwr, f(1, 40) = 4.28, p < .05, r² = .10. however, parents’ ees scores did not predict student fluency goals such as wc, f(1, 40) = 2.90, p = .10, r² = .07, accuracy, f(1, 40) = 2.43, p = .13, r² = .06, or retell, f(1, 40) = 2.09, p = .16, r² = .05. lastly, parents’ ees was a significant predictor for the composite dibels score, f(1, 40) = 4.05, p = .05, r² = .09. discussion several meaningful findings resulted from this family literacy-related research. first, the ees was psychometrically validated. during the validity process of the ees, certain questions developed for the scale were found to have lower impact on the children’s reading scores than others, and therefore could be eliminated during further analysis of the data. the survey questions regarding the overall impact of elementary school had significant facpsychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 99 tor loadings for almost every question asked. it was most likely for this reason that upon analysis of the results that a clear, single factor solution emerged to account for the variation of parent survey responses when compared to student literacy scores. it is both a significant and a meaningful endeavor to explore the predictability of children’s reading ability utilizing parents’ elementary school experience. since family literacy requires a cooperative effort by family members, discerning the relationship between parents’ school experience and children’s reading skills shed light onto family literacy research. if practitioners in the field of education know specific areas to target in regards to welcoming families into the schools and helping to alleviate parents’ past problems encountered during their own school experiences, this information could prove to be immensely groundbreaking. if parents can overcome their negative childhood educational experiences they might be more open to working with the schools to learn strategies to help their students succeed. teachers can gain many useful communication tips from parents to reach the students as well, but only if parents feel comfortable divulging that information. families that follow cyclical patterns and therefore suffer generations of reading struggles can benefit indefinably from one educational stakeholder standing up and saying, “the cycle stops here. i care about you and your child. i need you as a partner to help his success. let’s work together.” pertaining to the literacy scores, two subtests showed significant correlations and two subtests did not materialize significant data. the two subtests that were significant fell under the nwf category of the dibels test and included the cls and the number of wwr. this leaves the subtests under the category of oral reading fluency (words correct, accuracy of reading, and retell) turning up insignificant in the variance of the findings. one could hypothesize that these findings were most likely result of the fact that the dibels fluency section is only given as a baseline for mid-year testing in first grade, and this was the first time this test section had been administered to the students (good & kaminski, 2002). the nwf categories have been administered to the students since their kindergarten year, and therefore the pupils have had many opportunities to work past test anxieties with this type of testing format. test misunderstanding and or anxiety, especially with the youngest learners, has been known to distort data and could be a possible factor in this research (cassady & johnson, 2001). furthermore, the retell test section of dibels does not even list a benchmark goal in mid-year administration for first graders. since the three insignificant fluency score components were included in the composite score, the overall score of the students showed a small significance in the variance of the findings. during future experiments with the ees using dibels scores researchers may consider eliminating the fluency scores from the analysis completely or using the year-end benchmark scores. adjusting the fluency score factors in the future would help investigate if a more significantly correlated composite score could be achieved from the data. the major limitation of this study included the low sample size and, therefore, the lack of statistical analysis that could have yielded significant results from the data. this was the first time the newly-developed ees was administered, so the small sample size 100 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research affected the power of the statistical tests. effects are more difficult to detect in statistical analyses without error during small-scale investigations. additionally, survey participants were gathered from the same local school district and not administered on a large enough scale to help rule out any results found from this research being generalized to a single area’s population. the primary researcher plans to collect data indicating parents’ socioeconomic status for comparison in future studies with the ees since that information was unobtainable during this study. implications for future studies using the ees are great. using the validity factors of the questions conducted in this study, researchers could reduplicate the experiment eliminating the questions that were found to have low factor loading scores during efa. administering the survey to a greater number of parent participants would allow for a more in-depth statistical analysis, such as employing the item response theory (irt) methodologies. irt could be performed in order to further validate and refine the individual effectiveness of the questions used in the ees survey. the schools used in this study did not contain large ell populations of students. for this reason, the primary language spoken by the families was not investigated during the experiment but certainly could be taken into consideration in future studies using the ees. family literacy practices are contingent on schools and families being able to effectively communicate to one another. consequently, language barriers are a crucial potential factor to both the literacy acquisition process for students and a parent’s overall school experience. families that read together learn and grow together. schools that offer family literacy opportunities also benefit from the cohesiveness developed during school and community uniting events. an issue arises when some adults do not feel welcome or comfortable in the school settings simply based on their own experiences when they were students themselves. the ees results highlight this fact. the adults’ level of anxiety, mistrust, or general aversion to the world of academics can transfer to their students’ early learning progress if action is not taken to alleviate fears and break down the barriers of a preconceived negative notion about schools and their intentions for students. parents want to help their students achieve; they just need to know how. moreover, they need to feel comfortable approaching educational professionals for guidance. educators and parents alike can gain from each other’s expertise. families are the schools’ greatest resource and a better bridge to helping welcome them into the school community. family literacy initiatives are the key to paving the way for better practices between home and school. table 1 means and standard deviations for ees items item m (sd) item m (sd) item m (sd) 1 4.20 (0.90) 21 4.46 (0.60) 41 2.61 (0.89) 2 3.80 (1.17) 22 3.85 (1.04) 42 2.02 (0.94) 3 4.07 (0.85) 23 3.38 (0.92) 43 4.00 (1.02) 4 3.51 (1.14) 24 4.02 (0.85) 44 4.41 (0.74) 5 4.00 (0.84) 25 3.95 (1.30) 45 4.24 (0.86) 6 4.56 (0.78) 26 4.27 (0.74) 46 4.02 (1.04) 7 3.95 (1.18) 27 3.85 (1.20) 47 3.46 (1.21) 8 4.44 (0.67) 28 4.02 (0.91) 48 4.37 (0.92) 9 4.12 (0.90) 29 3.90 (0.74) 49 3.24 (1.45) 10 3.90 (0.83) 30 3.46 (1.14) 50 2.93 (1.15) 11 3.76 (0.99) 31 4.00 (0.97) 51 3.73 (1.03) 12 4.22 (0.85) 32 3.93 (1.06) 52 3.93 (0.98) 13 3.20 (1.29) 33 2.95 (1.38) 53 3.66 (0.82) 14 3.44 (1.23) 34 4.00 (0.87) 54 4.00 (0.77) 15 3.66 (1.02) 35 3.73 (0.95) 55 3.59 (0.97) 16 4.34 (0.82) 36 3.67 (1.26) 56 3.73 (0.87) 17 4.00 (1.00) 37 3.98 (0.79) 57 4.46 (0.78) 18 3.95 (0.89) 38 4.17 (0.92) 58 3.17 (1.38) 19 3.85 (0.91) 39 3.61 (1.05) 59 4.24 (0.80) 20 4.32 (0.69) 40 3.90 (0.83 note. n = 41. psychometric analysis of the elementary experience scale and its predictability of elementary literacy scores middle tennessee state university 101 102 spring 2015 references allen, j. b. 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(2011). putting the fun into phonics—a guide. literacy today, 8. lynch, j. (2009). print literacy engagement of parents from low-income backgrounds: implications for adult and family literacy programs. journal of adolescent & adult literacy 52(6), 509-521. medinnus, g. r. (1962). the development of a parent attitude toward education scale. journal of educational research, 56(2), 100-103. moll, l. c., amanti, c., neff, d., & gonzalez, n. (1992). funds of knowledge for teaching: using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. theory into practice, 31(2), 132-141. rouse, h. l., & fantuzzo, j. w. (2006). validity of the dynamic indicators for basic early literacy skills as an indicator of early literacy for urban kindergarten children. school psychology review, 35(3), 341-355. senechal, m., & lefevre, j. (2002). parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: a five-year longitudinal study. child development, 73(2), 445-460. sink, d., parkhill, m., marshall, r., & norwood, s. (2005). learning together: a family-centered literacy program. community college journal of research and practice, 29(8), 583-590. shockley, b., michalove, b., & allen, j. (1995). engaging families: connecting home and school literacy communities. portsmouth, nh: heinemann. skouteris, h, watson, b., & lum, j. (2012). preschool children’s transision to formal schooling: the importance of collaboration between teachers, parents and children. austrailian journal of early childhood, 37(4), 78-85. sonnenschein, s., & munsterman, k. (2002). the influence of home-based reading interactions on 5-year-olds’ reading motivations and early literacy development. early childhood research quarterly, 17, 318-337. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 104 spring 2015 smith, j. (2010). changing lives one family at a time: the even start family literacy model. delta kappa gamma, 76(4), 26-29. doi:10.1007/s10643-009-0305-4 swick, k. j. (2009). promoting school and life success through early childhood family literacy. early childhood education journal, 36, 403-406. timmons, v. (2008). challenges in researching family literacy programs. canadian psychology, 49(2), 96-102. doi:10.1037/0708-5591.49.2.96 velez-ibanez, c. g., & greenberg, j. b. (1992). formation and transformation of funds of knowledge among u.s.-mexican households. anthropology & education quarterly, 23(4), 313-335. wong, p. l. (2012). parents’ perspectives of the home-school interrelationship: a study of two hong kong-australian families. australasian journal of early childhood, 37(4), 59-67. zaman, a. (2006). parental roles in the acquisition of primary level skills: an exploratory view on the low-income hispanic-american families with 3and 4-year-old children. education, 127(1), 73-82. zhang, j, pelletier, j., & doyle, a. (2010). promising effects of an intervention: young children’s literacy gains and changes in their home literacy activities from a bilingual family literacy program in canada. frontiers of education in china, 5(3), 409-429. doi:10.1007/s11516-010-0108-9 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 144 spring 2023 closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. carol a. stuart abstract an oft-forgotten footnote to world war i, the novel and virulent strain of influenza that swept through the u.s. and around the globe swiftly in fall 1918 has received more recent attention due to late twentiethand early twentyfirst-century emerging diseases and the centennial anniversary. while the covid-19 pandemic just over one hundred years later will likely now spark even more historical interest, this historiographical paper addresses how recent scholars treated what social measures u.s. cities and communities took to help slow the spread of the great influenza and how historians interpreted acceptance and effectiveness of public health mandates. scholars have shown how officials missed warning signs or failed to act with enough urgency to stop or even to slow the virus early, yet still probably saved lives by taking eventual precautions. some newer studies also have started to fill the gap in how marginalized communities like african americans and indigenous peoples were affected, as well as spotlighted smaller towns and various regions. with parallels to covid-19, historians will have plenty of opportunity to compare contemporary actions (and inactions) to the 1918 public health responses, along with acceptance, resistance, and effectiveness. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 145 introduction a novel and virulent strain of influenza swept through the u.s. and around the globe swiftly in fall 1918 amidst a world war, killing what is now estimated to be at least fifty million worldwide and over a half-million americans during a pandemic that ranked as the united states’ worst medical disaster until covid-19 over a century later.1 this was apparently a second wave of a milder epidemic that spring that mostly hit europe, and two lesser waves followed. this historiographical paper addresses how recent scholars have treated the social measures u.s. cities and communities took to help slow the spread of the great influenza, such as closings of schools, businesses, entertainment, and other large gatherings including sports and faith meetings, as well as mask-wearing, any other social distancing, and to some degree isolation and quarantines. this project also will look at interpretations of whether these public health preventative mandates were accepted and were effective. while the origin of the disease is still unknown, it is now determined to be an avian h1n1 “swine flu” virus, appeared first in the u.s. near camp fuston in kansas in spring 1918, and traveled with troops to europe—where it likely mutated—and back to the east coast by ships before spreading across the country through army encampments and railways. although the germ theory had mostly taken hold, there were no knowledge of viruses, no antivirals, no antibiotics for the deadly secondary infections, no flu vaccines, and, as remains true today, no cure. perhaps primarily due to world war i, the pandemic remained buried in america’s collective memory and by u.s. historians until alfred w. crosby’s epidemic and peace was published in 1976 (the year of a swine flu scare) and reprinted during the early aids epidemic in 1989 as america’s forgotten pandemic: the influenza of 1918 and again with a new preface in 2003 during sars.2 since then, both broad histories and community-focused studies have begun to proliferate due mostly to emerging diseases of the twenty-first century and the centennial anniversary of the influenza pandemic—with renewed interest anticipated now due to the covid-19 crisis of 2020-22. in recent works, historians have shown how officials missed warning signs or failed to act with enough urgency to stop or even slow the virus early—too little, too late—yet still probably saved lives 1. john m. barry, the great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history (new york: viking, 2004), 396-7. estimates by epidemiologists now suggest 675,000 deaths of a u.s. population of about 105 million. 2. alfred w. crosby, american’s forgotten pandemic: the influenza of 1918, 2nd ed. (cambridge university press, 2003), xi-xii; barry, 446. barry notes that scientists still are not sure if humans gave swine the h1n1 type infection or if swine gave humans the virus and that most segments of the virus have avian origins. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 146 spring 2023 by taking eventual precautions. some newer scholarly studies, further discussed in the second section below, also have started to fill the gap in how minority communities like african americans and indigenous peoples were affected through the lens of racial disparities and discrimination. broad-based histories as the first of major histories considered here, crosby’s trailblazing work traces the fall outbreak from the boston naval pier in late august and the nearby camp devens army cantonment, then through its swift wartime spread elsewhere and the ensuing research efforts. this pandemic perplexed physician scientists who tried to treat an influenza that differed significantly from the endemic version as it attacked virile sailors, soldiers, and civilians in their prime, particularly with pneumonia and other lung complications (likely an immune over-response). crosby points out that “the machinery of the army continued to function” in the meantime and that army leaders in late september ignored belated recommendations of suspending new troop arrivals and departures from devens as well as reducing overcrowding and expanding space per person.3 although citing a boston naval hospital physician who in early september predicted the disease would spread rapidly across the country, crosby lets leaders off the hook by saying the “epidemic was moving too fast for authorities to react sensibly.” contradicting himself, he subsequently points out that sailors and shipyard workers marched on boston streets september 3 for a win-the-war-for freedom parade that “certainly spread flu”; a public dedication event (including dancing) with civilians and sailors took place at the navy radio school at harvard two days after cases appeared there; and influenza showed up at devens september 8, just four days following the arrival of 1,400 new massachusetts recruits. as the city and state waited weeks to “take measures to defend their citizens against the pandemic,”4 crobsy and others show that a failure to halt troop movements and patriotic events contributed to the spread, including a september 12 nationwide draft registration and liberty loan drive parades in philadelphia and beyond. crosby notes that the u.s. army did finally cancel an october draft call and quarantine camps.5 crosby spends two chapters comparing responses in philadelphia and 3. crosby, 10. 4. ibid., 40, 45. 5. ibid., 49. crosby notes chicago’s health department expected its liberty loan parade to spread the flu but advised marchers to remove clothing at home afterward, dry their body, and take a laxative! even president wilson spoke at the new york opera house september 27 to launch the liberty loan drive, even though cases were double the previous day, and led a parade of 25, 000 on october 12, 53-7. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 147 san francisco, with philadelphia the hardest-hit u.s. city despite its health bureau actually issuing a warning in july about the flu in europe. with a naval yard and two army camps infected in neighboring states, philadelphia began a “campaign against coughing, sneezing, and spitting” september 18 but allowed the 23-block parade september 28 with 200,000 attending—an event crosby says caused the pandemic to explode days later with 635 new civilian cases reported october 1 alone. as shipyard workers called out sick, crosby notes that on october 3 the city closed churches, theaters, and other amusement businesses and the state shuttered saloons and all public entertainment (however, pennsylvania left church and school closings up to local authorities). although the nation’s surgeon general urged all state health directors to follow suit if needed, and many locals did, crosby maintains such closing orders “did little to limit the spread of flu”—in part because of crowded restaurants, elevators, and street cars. he asserts death rates were often higher in communities with stricter orders and that officials only closed entertainment places to “do something.”6 crosby does not discuss acceptance of mandates other than quoting the philadelphia inquirer as bans were lifted october 27-30 that they should not have happened and were tyrannical. and, despite describing bodies piling up during the devastating death toll, a coffin shortage, and funeral price-gouging, crosby points out that closings cost entertainment businesses $2,350,000, and he does not estimate how many lives may have been spared—even while saying grief has never been successfully quantified.7 in san francisco, where the pandemic hit later, crosby shows how leaders used time wisely by asking area naval facilities to quarantine. however, a liberty loan drive parade, community sing, and other rallies (one with mary pickford) took place, with crosby again contradicting himself by claiming “as in philadelphia and elsewhere, it is doubtful that such patriotic shenanigans accelerated the spread of the flu to any great extent.” he contends packed factories, stores, and street cars would have spread the disease just as much.8 crosby says by october 18 san franciscans were “scared enough to accept drastic measures,” and the city joined several other california localities as it closed schools, amusement places, and public gatherings— and then churches. furthermore, crosby says a mandate to wear gauze masks was credited for the city’s sharp decline in influenza—even as he argues that enforcement is “impossible” and that communities with and without such compulsory orders 6. ibid., 71-4. 7. ibid., 85-7 8. ibid., 94. one doctor treated 525 patients in a day in october 1918, riding on a running board as a friend drove. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 148 spring 2023 “almost always” had the same health records.9 residents voted and even celebrated the armistice with masks. as historians show in other places, however, public health policies became less popular as time wore on—masks were called inconvenient, humiliating, and infringing on personal liberty by some—and in late november, officials removed the mask mandate that they said had reduced influenza cases by half as well as limited other infectious diseases. when another spike happened, residents initially refused a voluntary request to re-mask, then despite an anti-mask league formed after masks were made mandatory in mid-january, cases began to drop anew—yet crosby comments that san francisco still suffered 3,500 deaths even with stringent measures.10 crosby also spends time discussing native populations in alaska and american samoa, where territorial governors had more leeway and the latter had an effective quarantine. john m. barry’s 2004 semi-scholarly work, the great influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history, is the most “popular” work on the pandemic after being reprinted during the 2018 centennial with a new afterword. especially focusing on scientists searching for a cause and vaccine, he digs into evidence the new influenza began in kansas in early 1918 and mentions schools re-opening “with healthy children” by mid-march in haskell county as well as the outbreak in nearby camp funston.11 barry charges the new york city health department’s leader for taking “no action whatsoever to prevent the spread of infection” after a norwegian freighter arrived with influenza aboard in mid-august, yet says boston navy physicians did all they could to isolate and contain the late august pier outbreak “but the disease was too explosive.”12 however, he also shows that ships and sailors from boston helped spread the disease to philadelphia, new orleans, and the great lakes training station near chicago, and that philadelphia’s navy yard quarantine came a day too late after sailors were then sent on to puget sound.13 concentrating on philadelphia like crosby, barry claims health director wilmer krusen “had done absolutely nothing,” with the city initially only launching a campaign to cover coughs and sneezes, advising to avoid crowds, forbidding organizations or parties entertaining military—and not canceling the parade (although streetcar passengers were limited).14 barry notes that only 9. ibid., 101-2. masks were even popular at sea on at least two troopships, 138. 10. ibid., 105, 108, 112, 114. whistles, sirens, and bells “signaled the great unveiling” at noon november 21. 11. barry, 94-5. 12. ibid., 181, 184. 13. ibid., 192, 200. 14. ibid., 202, 204-5, 208-9. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 149 after all hospital beds were filled seventy-two hours later, did krusen close churches, schools, theaters, public funerals, and gatherings, including any liberty loan events— but left saloons open (a constituency of the mayor’s machine, although closed by state health order the next day). hundreds were dying a day, city and health workers wore masks, and people spitting on the street were arrested.15 in particular, barry addresses the fear and isolation of people avoiding each other and conversation on the street, even turning away to avoid someone’s breath, and says people fled because of “ghostly surgical masks” when a doctor, nurse, or policeman showed up during a manpower shortage. he also claims masks did not work against the virus because thirty-three philadelphia police officers died by mid-october16 and later says millions wearing masks did not make a difference, but writes in his new afterword that masks on someone sick were proven effective in 1918!17 the initial interest in this historiography subject stemmed from a 2020 sports article during covid-19 about the influenza pandemic a century ago and an accompanying 1918 photograph from a georgia tech college football where fans pictured in the crowd (including uniformed soldiers) mostly wore cloth masks properly. since wwi likely already affected professional and college sports, not much can be found in recent literature about athletics that fall, particularly football, so this subject could be researched further. barry, though, is one of the few historians to mention sports, noting that major league baseball had already shortened its season because players had to find “essential” jobs or be sent to war due to a may 23 draft order and that the 1919 stanley cup hockey finals were cancelled due to influenza.18 blaming the war effort for public health failure to act as “relentless” as during polio outbreaks previously, including in new york city, barry additionally emphasizes camp transfers were not halted until thousands of soldiers were dead or dying. although arguing influenza was too contagious to be contained like sars, he contends “ruthless intervention and quarantines” in 1918 may have delayed flu’s arrival or slowed its spread in a community and “would have saved many, many thousands of lives.”19 it is interesting that at least twice barry points out president wilson made no public statement on influenza. the author also looks at some smaller communities, including the mixed success of some colorado mountain towns: lake city allowed no one to enter and stayed flu-free; ouray’s “shotgun” quarantine kept miners out 15. ibid., 220-1. 16. ibid., 225-6, 326. 17. ibid., 359, 457. 18. ibid., 301, 457. 19. ibid., 314. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 150 spring 2023 and silverton closed businesses, but both were still hit; and railroad town gunnison thwarted influenza by banning gatherings, blockading roads, and threatening rail passengers with arrest and quarantine. barry notes that prescott, arizona, even made shaking hands illegal, and two colorado towns required customers to wait outside stores to order and receive packages. however, his reasoning is incongruent when he terms it “ironically” that phoenix suffered less than other places due to initiatives from its influenza citizens committee, which included a mask mandate and 1,200 cubic feet of air space per customer. he does portray panic and fear there with killings of dogs by people and police after a rumor of canines carrying influenza.20 published in 2012, nancy k. bristow’s american pandemic: the lost worlds of the 1918 influenza epidemic brings a more up-to-date scholarly approach to the pandemic and argues that the crisis reinforced the social and cultural status quo despite reshaping individuals’ lives. as government gained more power during the emergency and during wwi, americans grew “restless” over being controlled as the disease was not contained and time dragged on, bristow contends, somewhat similar to the trend witnessed during the contemporary covid-19 containment efforts. in chapter 3, she examines epidemic measures such as mandated mask-wearing, school closings, and prohibited common drinking cups through the lens of progressive era reforms.21 bristow illustrates initial cooperation by clergy, teachers, students, and movie theater owners as public places were closed october 29 in roanoke, virginia, but how the local newspaper questioned a month in why a reopening of movie houses and theaters should be gradual—and then how a resurgence forced a return to restrictions in december. while pool hall owners contested the legality of orders, schools closed for another three weeks, and the city put limitations on christmas gatherings. she likens the progression of citizens’ initial acceptance and later weariness to the rise and collapse of progressivism itself.22 bristow criticizes surgeon general rupert blue for not calling for “a broader quarantine of all incoming ships” in mid-august, but she strangely states that “one could not always avoid crowds, of course” when discussing blue’s guidance to the public including improving personal hygienic habits.23 bristow notes that enforcement issues affected some significant measures and that public health leaders often did not agree on approaches, such as debating masks—for instance, a chicago health official 20. ibid., 345, 347-8, 350. 21. nancy k. bristow, american pandemic: the lost worlds of the 1918 influenza epidemic (oxford: oxford university press, 20120, 12. 22. bristow, 82-6. 23. ibid., 93. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 151 called them “useless” as worn by most people. likewise, she points out why closings of schools and churches were controversial and how non-essential closures would not eliminate congestion for urban workplaces, transportation, and sidewalks without shutting down all businesses.24 although the surgeon general deferred decisionmaking to local authorities, bristow does highlight blue’s adamant recommendation to close schools, as well as ban other public gatherings, to slow the spread and allow communities to prepare. instead of using fear to motivate the public, bristow recounts how public health officials utilized patriotism, the war, and a sense of duty as strategies to encourage cooperation with anti-spread efforts and often received support from the local press such as in wallace, idaho (for example, an article entitled “make your own mask; it is a simple task” ran below a “stop spread of influenza” editorial). in determining that “reactions were as diverse as the country itself,” bristow uncovers measures in numerous cities and towns across the u.s. and how they were received, from support for 27 specific directives in quitman, georgia, to lawsuits filed over school and theater closings in globe, arizona.25 focused community studies in the past decade or so, historians have built upon scholarship by crosby, barry, and bristow particularly by focusing on the 1918 influenza outbreak in a single community, while emerging diseases and the pandemic’s hundred-year anniversary have increased interest in the topic. james higgins’s 2010 journal article, “‘with every accompaniment of ravage and agony’: pittsburgh and the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919,” says the western pennsylvania industrial town had the worst urban outbreak of influenza in the u.s. but that its longer, persistent outbreak has not received the attention of other cities, including philadelphia across the state. along with an ineffective relief response and air-quality issues that already caused the nation’s worst pneumonia rate, higgins blames city officials in part for high morbidity and mortality rates due to their refusal to enforce and strengthen state quarantines and in undermining and ending them early.26 he describes how pennsylvania banned 24. ibid., 94-6. 25. ibid., 106. 26. james higgins, “‘with every accompaniment of ravage and agony’: pittsburgh and the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919,” pennsylvania magazine of history & biography 134, no. 3 (july 2010): 263, 266-8, https://doi.org/10.5215/ pennmaghistbio.134.3.263. in addition to coke production and coal burning causing preexisting conditions, overcrowding led to workers living in sheds on hillsides and in ravines, boxcars converted into barracks, reopened condemned buildings, subterranean apartments, and 50,000 day and night shift workers sharing bunks in boarding houses. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 152 spring 2023 assemblies of crowds in early october and closed entertainment venues including saloons, theaters, soda fountains, and ice cream parlors. noting that pittsburgh’s public health director was not a physician and got his job through patronage, higgins highlights how the city did not close its schools until october 24 (although county and parochial systems did) or places of worship like philadelphia and planned to monitor the illness in the city through schoolchildren; catholic and jewish congregations did shutter early voluntarily.27 he notes that a september 29 war bond drive attended by 40,000 did not result in explosive spread as philadelphia’s although numbers rose sharply in area military camps, and the city illegally excepted loan-drive workers from the state gatherings ban and allowed an october 19 event to hear war bond results.28 finally, higgins argues pittsburgh’s public health response was weakened by liquor lobbies challenging the ban and city hall turning “a blind eye” to open bars before the city public health director asked the state to intervene; meanwhile, primarily protestant ministers protested a mid-october worship ban. crediting the public health director for tying his efforts to patriotism and chastising the entertainment industry “for putting lives at risk . . . for profits,” higgins shows that after the mayor negated the state ban early and revelers celebrated a rumored and the real armistice, pittsburgh’s influenza cases increased, the city had 728 orphans, desperate calls for nurses continued through november, and infection rates stayed high into early 1919.29 also published in 2010, shortly after swine and avian flu and sars epidemics had taken place, james derek shidler’s “a tale of two cities: the 1918 influenza” compares and contrasts how newspapers 10 miles apart in two rural illinois towns covered the pandemic. he finds that the mattoon journal-gazette, a republicanleaning paper in a blue-collar industrial and railroad town, “never tried to hide or dilute the seriousness” of the deadly influenza and reported the closings of schools, churches, movie theaters, and red cross meetings by october as well as illinois officials shutting down political gatherings. the mattoon paper also was “overwhelmed” with obits for civilians and troops, listed business closings in one editorial, and noted stores would have late christmas eve hours to lessen shopping congestion. while shidler does not analyze acceptance or effects of the preventative public health measures, he quotes a local doctor on december 18 that mattoon was averaging 20 cases reported a day and predicted successive waves, which shidler says never “devastated” the city.30 shidler 27. higgins, “‘with every accompaniment of ravage and agony,’” 271-2. higgins does not address why most protestant churches remained open for worship. 28. ibid., 270-1, 276. 29. ibid., 278-9, 281-2. 30. james derek shidler, “a tale of two cities: the 1918 influenza,” journal closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 153 determines that the charleston courier, a democratic paper in a white-collar, teacherproducing town that outbid mattoon for the east illinois normal school, seemed to “ignore” influenza and even appeared “annoyed by all the hype.”31 the charleston coverage mostly focused on larger cities including chicago, so no local orders were discussed, and the college-town paper approached the disease from a more scientific standpoint, such as referencing an anti-spitting campaign in cleveland. patricia j. fanning’s 2010 book, influenza and inequality: one town’s tragic response to the great epidemic of 1918, also focuses on the epidemic in a smaller industrial town— norwood, massachusetts—as opposed to usual studies on the “urban and national experience.” citing charles rosenberg’s the cholera years, fanning examines how social and public health responses to epidemics usually end up increasing control, surveillance, and enforcement over victims, especially the poor and immigrants, amidst moral judgments and subsequent resistance to regulations.32 she claims the state’s first warning september 5 after the boston outbreak came too late; highlights a norwood hospital fundraiser fair and masonic event in late september; notes the first cases stemmed from a railway car maintenance shop; and mentions the shuttering of schools and other voluntary closings after 700 influenza cases including a baby among the deaths.33 stating the epidemic was treated as a “political emergency,” fanning concludes that immigrants in norwood could not afford to stay home due to quarantines or illness, had their homes searched, and often delayed treatment because of forced evacuations—showing that both protectionists and well-intentioned, paternalistic progressives contributed to impoverished immigrants’ woes.34 in addition to bans on worship, wakes, funerals, and entertainment like billiards and soda fountains, fanning details that packages in a neighborhood were left on porches, mail was baked in the oven, and a newsboy remembers his manager disinfecting money first before accepting it; however, a girls church choir sang and civic organizations took of the illinois state historical society 103, no. 2 (2010): 167-8, www.jstor.org/ stable/25701282. the mattoon newspaper also ran numerous ads for remedies, including vicks vaporub, unlike the charleston paper. 31. shidler, 171, 176. shidler points out the mattoon also has reported on “mass hysteria,” including rumors about the “mad gasser.” he also confusingly describes democratic as liberal and republican as conservative, perhaps belying some of the changing political viewpoints in the early modern era. 32. patricia j. fanning, influenza and inequality: one town’s tragic response to the great epidemic of 1918 (amherst, ma: university of massachusetts press, 2010), 5-7. 33. fanning, 21, 25, 56, 58. 34. ibid., 100. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 154 spring 2023 part in the funeral of an elite woman’s club member.35 fanning finds that 75% of adult residents who died during norwood’s deadly fall wave were foreign-born, while she also updates with literature showing that the very poor had triple the mortality rates of those well-off and that a gis study in hartford, connecticut, linked disproportionate deaths to ethnicity. a couple of articles in 2013 regional historical journals, meanwhile, explore the epidemic in two texas towns: ana luisa martinez-catsam’s “desolate streets: the spanish influenza in san antonio” and peggy a. redshaw’s “sherman, texas, and the 1918 pandemic flu.” noting much of the pandemic historical scholarship concentrates on the northeastern u.s., martinez-catsam illustrates how the army used a quarantine october 1 to keep area soldiers from visiting san antonio except on official business and cancelled football, track, and other recreation. even without cases in the city, she points out that san antonio officials prohibited a circus performance and ordered businesses to sweep outside daily, but did not close schools, churches, or movie houses until mid-october when military and civilian influenza cases skyrocketed after the army relaxed camp restrictions. martinez-catsam notes jury trials and funerals also were banned while sales were discouraged and street cars had windows opened and were disinfected.36 although cases declined steadily until bans and the army quarantine were lifted just in time to celebrate the armistice, closings were instituted again in early december briefly and the city used similar measures in a milder 1920 outbreak, the author says.37 redshaw discusses influenza hitting dallas in late september 1918 before the visit of the liberty loan train, with initial warnings for infected people to quarantine and stay out of public buildings falling “on deaf ears in sherman.” she notes that the start of school, fall classes at austin college, a two-week religious revival, musical programs, and a september 29 liberty loan campaign patriotic service all took place in the last half of the month in the city, and that 3,000-4,000 people then turned out to see the train and its war exhibits october 3—which redshaw calls an “even greater opportunity” to spread the virus. showing evidence influenza likely arrived earlier than the first death october 4, redshaw contends the public events helped spread the flu quickly, leading to a thousand cases in sherman; the closing of churches, 35. ibid., 79, 85. interviewing residents to recover recollections including those handed down through families, fanning did not name people who wished to keep their identities private. 36. ana luisa martinez-catsam, “desolate streets: the spanish influenza in san antonio,” southwestern historical quarterly 116, no. 3 (january 2013): 295, 297, https:// doi.org/10.1353/2wh.2013.0010. 37. martinez-catsam, 303. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 155 schools, theaters, pool halls, and movie houses; and quarantines on students at two colleges.38 she maintains the disease did not discriminate and lists various victims from obituaries, such as the sheriff, a physician treating influenza, a theater owner, a restaurant manager, a barber, a pharmacist, a shoe salesman, a firetruck driver, and several railroad employees and families. redshaw discovers a newspaper plea by the sherman war council saying “precautionary measures” are working and calling on the 25% of people not following health rules to cooperate,39 and then prohibitions were lifted in late october as cases declined. referencing the swine flu epidemic of 2009, redshaw recognizes that the “same limited protocols used in 1918—isolation, quarantine, hand washing, and masks”—are still recommended in present times and that vicks vaporub remains among patent medicines in use today!40 in 2014, benjamin r. brady and howard m. bahr extend scholarship further by exploring neglected accounts of the vulnerable indigenous community, drawing on navajo literature, national archives, and southwestern university library sources for their article “the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920 among the navajos.” they discuss why native americans had mortality rates four times the overall population during the pandemic, which reflected the higher risk of remote indigenous people worldwide, and have compiled a historiographical chart on social factors related to mortality.41 in considering social distancing, the authors argue that distance worked against tribe members living in isolation in their dispersed settlement patterns, because although influenza reached them in “trackless” areas, many died due to lack of care. families often became ill at the same time, some sick navajos fled into the wilds to avoid contagion and spirits, and health care was even more inadequate due to war service by medical personnel, brady and bahr write. additionally, a ceremonial “sing” with a medicine man and family members also helped spread the flu, while dying people were moved out into the elements to prevent haunting the shelter. the scholars do outline how the father superior at saint michael’s imposed a successful quarantine on the school after influenza swept through fort defiance, but also assert that the indian 38. peggy a. redshaw, “sherman, texas, and the 1918 pandemic flu,” east texas historical journal 51, no. 1 9spring 2013): 69-70, http://search.ebscohost. com.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&an=84984932&site=edslive&scope=site. 39. redshaw, 71-3. 40. ibid., 80. a side note: redshaw makes good use of funeral home ledger books for source materials. 41. benjamin r. brady and howard m. bahr, “the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920 among the navajos,” american indian quarterly 38, no. 4 (fall 2014): 262-3, https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.38.4.0459. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 156 spring 2023 service bureaucracy and informal navajo communication system contributed to the spread by not recognizing, informing, or providing resources in time.42 ultimately, the large tribe of navajos, among the poorest of the poor in 1918, suffered “unusually high losses.”43 throughout history during epidemics, marginalized communities usually receive less care and furthermore often suffer the brunt of fear-mongering as “the other” is blamed for the spread of disease. two other papers looking at how marginalized communities were affected are among the new wave of scholarship emerging in the past few years around the pandemic’s centennial: mikaëla m. adams’ “‘a very serious and perplexing epidemic of grippe’: the influenza of 1918 at the haskell institute” published in 2020 and elizabeth schlabach’s “the influenza epidemic and jim crow public health policies and practices in chicago, 1917–1921” printed in 2019. adams’ article on the federal indian assimilationist boarding school in lawrence, kansas, focuses on an influenza outbreak in the spring of 1918 that may have been the same virulent strain found at nearby camp funston in the first wave. adams, whose aim is to delve beyond the oft-studied colonial period of disease in native american history, illuminates how haskell superintendent harvey b. peairs often prioritized the institute and its fiscal survival over his students at the nation’s largest non-reservation boarding school.44 overenrolling students contributed to overcrowding in dorms and helped spread influenza, while peairs also “discouraged parental visits and refused students home leave.”45 thus, adams shows, like fanning in norwood, how this marginalized community was controlled. haskell’s first diagnosis of grippe (another common name for the flu) occurred 11 days after the march 4 army camp outbreak, and a total of 17 students died at the school in the spring and fall from influenza. adams points out that peairs, investigated a decade prior for large numbers of tuberculosis cases, asked for outside help early on but a u.s. public health service surgeon attributed the spring epidemic to climatic causes. meanwhile, students participated in a liberty loan parade and a sousa concert in lawrence in early april, yet adams stresses that the school had higher morbidity and mortality rates in the spring than army camps. in the fall outbreak, peairs never sent students home despite a warning against overcrowding but halted classroom learning until october 28 and continued a partial quarantine; 42. brady and bahr, 470-3. 43. ibid., 482. 44. mikaëla m. adams, “‘a very serious and perplexing epidemic of grippe’: the influenzaof 1918 at the haskell institute.” american indian quarterly 44, no. 1 (2020): 1–2, https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.44.1.0001. 45. adams, 3. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 157 however, adams notes he cruelly allowed no leaves or visits through the holidays (many students requesting leave in april never returned for fear of influenza).46 working on a book about the 1918-20 influenza pandemic in indian country, she also writes in her footnotes that she believes barry wrongly assumed “haskell” in a surgeon general’s report is haskell county, kansas, instead of haskell institute and is incorrect about the origin of the virus. in examining the epidemic in chicago, schlabach eyes another marginalized community as african americans battled public health campaigns including during the 1918 pandemic, and she calls the historiography of the black experience in the influenza outbreak “shockingly sparse.” citing bristow in claiming the chicago health director’s stance to keep schools open was a way to continue surveillance of the black community, schlabach also uses samuel kelton roberts’ infectious fear about race and tuberculosis as inspiration for her article.47 at the time of the epidemic, schlabach writes, fifty-eight bombs were hurled at homes of blacks or real estate agents in chicago to help maintain the color line in housing, and african americans’ migration to the north had caused a fear of disease spreading. the historian contends that african americans were asserting rights to public and political spaces just at the time that public health campaigns could “upend all urban spaces.” schlabach shows how the illinois influenza commission in late september helped prohibit dances and funerals, as well as was an arbiter of medical inspections. with influenza reaching chicago via the great lakes naval training center, the health department recommended mask-wearing, flu cases were ordered quarantined, and an anti-spitting ordinance was enforced anew.48 she argues that african americans were only welcome to abide by measures, rather than protest segregated medical care, although interestingly blacks weren’t dying in high numbers nationwide. the epidemic allowed health officials to invade families’ privacy to search for unreported influenza, and measures extended to even controlling play on streets, she writes, with “toxic racialized effects” akin to jim crow laws. the city also shut down public events including athletics, banquets, and conventions october 18 and prohibited entertainment in restaurants and crowding in pool halls and saloons in the name of defense and patriotism. but the health director stressed in 1919—the year of race riots—that churches, schools, and many 46. ibid., 21. 47. elizabeth schlabach, “the influenza epidemic and jim crow public health policies and practices in chicago, 1917-1921,” journal of african american history 104, no. 1 (winter 2019): 32-3, https://doi.org/10.1086/701105. 48. schlabach, 37, 39-40. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 158 spring 2023 businesses had remained open.49 schlabach digs through local black newspapers to see postponements of the chicago american giants baseball team’s season in the national negro league and hampton institute’s fiftieth anniversary celebration in chicago, while also finding fashion advice for the flu season including about masks. additionally, the black press also covered the aau national track and field championships in september, which schlabach maintains belies the “military’s lack of knowledge of the seriousness of the epidemic.”50 while she does not address effectiveness of policies, schlabach does demonstrate how african americans still managed to make some progress in desegregating both medical training and care during the era. four other new works concentrate on the 1918 pandemic in pennsylvania, including sarah wilson carter’s “the 1918 influenza outbreak in harrisburg” (2020) and a trio of articles on philadelphia: “the 1918 spanish influenza: three months of horror in philadelphia” (2017) by christina m stetler; “an epidemic’s strawman: wilmer krusen, philadelphia’s 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, and historical memory” (2020) by the aforementioned higgins; and “influenza pandemic warning signals: philadelphia in 1918 and 1977-1978” (2020) by james m. wilson, garrett m. scalaro, and jodie a. powell. carter discusses how key civic reformers of the city beautiful movement in harrisburg also were involved with public health, including the new director, a physician who issued quarantines and closed school, churches, and public events. he also asked employers to schedule workers at intervals to alleviate crowds and limit spread of influenza, while newspapers recommended mask-wearing and good cough etiquette.51 carter uses digital tools to trace how the virus spread from an industrial area into the congested rail center of pennsylvania’s capital city. showing that african americans and immigrants had higher death rates, carter additionally argues that the epidemic was limited by public health measures—yet acknowledges more work should be done with data sets.52 even though philadelphia’s influenza crisis and responses have been the center of broader histories as seen above, stetler tackles the subject in-depth and covers much of the same ground including the initial navy yard outbreak, krusen’s initial reluctance to act, an explosive spread at the liberty loan parade, and subsequent public closures. unlike most works cited here, she addresses athletics 49. ibid., 43-4. 50. ibid., 47-9. 51. sarah wilson carter, “the 1918 influenza outbreak in harrisburg,” pennsylvania history: a journal of mid-atlantic studies 87, no. 1 (2020): 149, https:// doi.org/doi:10.5325/pennhistory.87.1.0148. 52. carter, 153-4. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 159 with the cancellation of an october 4 pep rally and october 5 football game at the university of pennsylvania against the marines—and, by october 6, the city had 200,000 announced cases. stetler expounds on catholic nuns stepping into nursing roles as the city became overwhelmed—twenty-two sisters died from influenza— and stresses their care for african american families during a “time of stark racial segregation.” she uncovers interesting nuggets of the u.s. public health service advising that the “firing range of a careless cougher or sneezer is at least three feet” and to burn a paper sack of cloths containing nose or throat secretions.53 deaths mounted, however, and 10,000 had died by october 19. as the mortality rate slowed and the city reopened slowly, penn and the marine team played the football game october 26, allowing only students to attend under health board rules, stetler writes. liquor sales were at first limited to three times a day of two hours each. in her conclusion, she notes the eighteenth amendment prohibiting alcoholic beverages passed the next fall, followed by the rise of crime, the roaring twenties, and the women’s suffrage nineteenth amendment.54 in higgins’s article on the influenza devastation in philadelphia, he challenges previous portrayals of krusen as inept and inexperienced and says the record should be set straight since the epidemic is often studied for public policy responses to disease outbreaks even a hundred years later. he argues that krusen was “overwhelmed by factors beyond his control” and that the flu was already circulating among sailors in philadelphia even before the 300 transfers arrived from boston.55 higgins particularly takes barry to task for flimsy evidence about “physicians” trying to halt the liberty loan parade, and he provides qualifications of krusen’s competence and professional experience. higgins claims the mayor alone had authority to cancel the city’s largest event since the 1876 centennial exposition and that the danger of influenza in the civilian population was not high enough at the time in philadelphia. he also says scholars have misjudged the severity of philadelphia’s navy yard outbreak and wrongly measured it against much more severe conditions at boston and chicago.56 krusen “didn’t sit idly by” but mobilized volunteers and organizations, doing what other major city health leaders did in fall 1918 “with a great deal less warning that 53. christina m. stetler, “the 1918 spanish influenza: three months of horror in philadelphia,” pennsylvania history: a journal of mid-atlantic studies 84, no. 4 (2017): 468, 473-5, https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.84.4.0462. 54. stetler, 477-8, 482. 55. james higgins, “an epidemic’s strawman: wilmer krusen, philadelphia’s 1918-1919 influenza epidemic, and historical memory,” the pennsylvania magazine of history and biography 144, no. 1 (2020): 76, https://doi.org/10.1353/pmh.2020.0003. 56. higgins, “an epidemic’s strawman,” 78-82. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 160 spring 2023 major cities farther west,” higgins contends. he concludes by blaming philadelphians for tolerating city leaders who ignored tenement conditions, admonishing historians to dig further into primary sources beyond newspapers, and advocating that cities commit to public health even when there isn’t an epidemic.57 while wilson, scalaro, and powell’s article is as much a public policy paper as history, it compares the warnings and responses of the 1918 philadelphia influenza pandemic and the 1977-78 return of flu type a/h1n1. reviewing how local media reports can serve as intelligence to inform officials of pandemics, these scholars argue that philadelphia officials in 1918 underestimated the threat level when influenza swamped nearby camp dix and opted for only disinfection and hygiene recommendations rather than social distancing measures—until october 4 (day 15 of civilian cases in philly). the trio write that police were authorized to enforce bans, and no resistance was reported other than some “editorial exchanges.” elsewhere in the state, though, scranton considered martial law after some businesses served liquor through the “backdoor.” as seen in other places, there were further protestations—plus an opinion piece “praising the ‘return to sanity’”—in the “waning days of the epidemic” as re-openings awaited.58 the authors, however, discovered an august 16 advisory of vigilance to east coast marine quarantine stations about influenza aboard ships from europe. philadelphia, which suffered with 15,785 deaths from influenza (one percent of the population), also utilized a volunteer police force to enforce quarantines and isolation for area homes which met little or no resistance, the scholars note.59 wilson, scalaro, and powell hypothesize that the war effort probably created an environment for community cooperation and that philadelphia’s lack of proactive response when forewarned was due in part to the newness of public health in the united states at the time.60 conclusion recent scholarship on the 1918 influenza in america not only examines the history of public health more in-depth for this pandemic, but it also offers parallels to the contemporary coronavirus/covid-19 crisis the world has faced this century, including how marginalized communities were impacted. while some early warnings were ignored or underplayed in 1918, widespread and faster forms of communication 57. ibid., 83-8. 58. james m. wilson, garrett m. scalaro, and jodie a. powell, “influenza pandemic warning signals: philadelphia in 1918 and 1977-1918,” intelligence & national security 35, no. 4 (june 2020): 505-6, https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2020. 1750141. 59. wilson, scalaro, and powell, 508. 60. ibid., 511. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 161 in 2020 will give historians an even larger lens in which to compare how officials’ actions saved lives or contributed to the death toll. there similarly will be plenty of opportunity and material for political and social history in how a u.s. presidential election year, racial unrest and protests against police brutality and inequality, and a growing anti-science and anti-intellectual movement affected compliance and resistance to public health measures to slow the spread. and as sports and schools started up again for the first time in months in fall 2020, social distancing remained a large part of the social fabric and a determinant in how the virulent virus circulated while researchers rushed to develop a vaccine and treatment—similar to 1918 (although modern medicine has advanced markedly). interestingly, media scholar katherine a. foss, whose constructing the outbreak: epidemics in media and collective memory (2020) was nearing publication when covid-19 struck, incorporated the 1918 influenza pandemic as one of seven case studies where diseases decimated american towns from 1721 through 1952 and how the epidemics were framed by media outlets during the outbreak as well as in the country’s popular media and collective memory. focusing on lawrence, kansas— from the overlooked original outbreak in spring at camp funston and haskell institute through the publicized deadly autumn wave—her chapter on influenza discusses actions (and inactions) from quarantines and school closures to voluntary/involuntary cancellations and limitations on entertainment businesses and public events, particularly at the university of kansas. her research into what was happening at the college in fall 1918 eerily parallels what was taking place at the time of her publication, yet with the war effort front and center instead, including the male student training corps on campus. the middle tennessee state university professor notes that female students and professors, indigenous people, and african americans not only faced disparities but also had their stories neglected in the past and present. (even the “spanish flu” moniker blamed the other, ignoring its kansas origin.)61 in 1918, bristow notes that “early cooperation was not always enough to halt the epidemic” and that “the public sometimes became restive” as attempts to contain the virus continued. the growing power of government, then as now, was a concern for the citizenry.62 however, as wilson, scalaro, and powell write, researchers today have theorized that philadelphia in 1918 needed to act sooner to save more lives and that other u.s. cities in fact responded to warnings and prevented more 61. katherine a. foss, constructing the outbreak: epidemics in media and collective memory. (amherst: university of massachusetts press, 2020), muse.jhu.edu/ book/81277, 121–147. 62. bristow, 9, 86. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 162 spring 2023 deaths by instituting social distancing measures more quickly.63 ultimately, over one hundred years ago, a number of businesses took economic hits from closures, the medical profession suffered from shortages, and numerous orphans were left by both the ravages of the influenza pandemic and war. despite the world war overshadowing the pandemic in the nation’s consciousness, historians have continued to look back both nationwide and at local communities in how authorities responded to this deadly strain of influenza by restricting activities drawing large crowds of people and instituting other public health policies. the centennial of the 1918 flu as well as parallels to the recent covid-19 pandemic should keep historians busy further investigating the subject to interpret public health responses as well as the effectiveness of social distancing measures and the acceptance and resistance therein. and perhaps the past will continue to inform the future. 63. wilson, scalaro, and powell, 511, 513. closures, masks, and quarantines: historiography of social distancing and preventative measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 163 bibliography adams, mikaëla m. “‘a very serious and perplexing epidemic of grippe’: the influenza of 1918 at the haskell institute.” american indian quarterly 44, no. 1 (2020): 1–35. https://doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.44.1.0001. barry, john m. the great influenza : the epic story of the deadliest plague in history. new york: viking, 2004. brady, benjamin r., and howard m. bahr. “the influenza epidemic of 1918-1920 among the navajos.” american indian quarterly 38, no. 4 (fall 2014): 459–91. https:// doi.org/10.5250/amerindiquar.38.4.0459. bristow, nancy k. american pandemic: the lost worlds of the 1918 influenza epidemic. oxford: oxford university press, 2012. carter, sarah wilson. “the 1918 influenza outbreak in harrisburg.” pennsylvania history: a journal of mid-atlantic studies 87, no. 1 (2020): 148-54. https://doi. org/doi:10.5325/pennhistory.87.1.0148. crosby, alfred w. america’s forgotten pandemic: the influenza of 1918. 2nd ed. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003. fanning, patricia j. influenza and inequality: one town’s tragic response to the great epidemic of 1918. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts press, 2010. foss, katherine a. constructing the outbreak: epidemics in media and collective memory. first ed., amherst: university of massachusetts press, 2020. muse.jhu. edu/book/81277. higgins, james. “an epidemic’s strawman: wilmer krusen, philadelphia’s 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, and historical memory.” the pennsylvania magazine of history and biography 144, no. 1 (2020): 61-88. https://doi.org/10.1353/ pmh.2020.0003. —. “‘with every accompaniment of ravage and agony’ pittsburgh and the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919.” pennsylvania magazine of history & biography 134, no. 3 (july 2010): 263–86. https://doi.org/10.5215/pennmaghistbio.134.3.263. martinez-catsam, ana luisa. “desolate streets: the spanish influenza in san antonio.” southwestern historical quarterly 116, no. 3 (january 2013): 286–304. https:// doi.org/10.1353/swh.2013.0010. redshaw, peggy a. “sherman, texas, and the 1918 pandemic flu.” east texas historical journal 51, no. 1 (spring 2013): 67–85. http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy. mtsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&an=84984932&site=edslive&scope=site. schlabach, elizabeth. “the influenza epidemic and jim crow public health policies and scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 164 spring 2023 practices in chicago, 1917–1921.” journal of african american history 104, no. 1 (winter 2019): 31–58. https://doi.org/10.1086/701105. shidler, james derek. “a tale of two cities: the 1918 influenza.” journal of the illinois state historical society 103, no. 2 (2010): 165-79. www.jstor.org/ stable/25701282. stetler, christina m. “the 1918 spanish influenza: three months of horror in philadelphia.” pennsylvania history: a journal of mid-atlantic studies 84, no. 4 (2017): 462-87. https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.84.4.0462. wilson, james m., garrett m. scalaro, and jodie a. powell. “influenza pandemic warning signals: philadelphia in 1918 and 1977-1978.” intelligence & national security 35, no. 4 (june 2020): 502–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2020.175014 1. "aluen hine iuengen": fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship middle tennessee state university 1 “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut nicholas dalbey abstract the supernatural themes that most readers know from the arthurian stories, such as merlin and avalon, did not always serve as the primary focus in early arthurian myths. instead, arthurian writers attempted to establish a reliable historical link with the past. between the mid-12th and early 13th century, geoffrey of monmouth, wace, and lawman wrote a series of historical narratives that helped establish the foundation myth of britain. although each author built on the work of his predecessor, each writer also expanded and redacted scenes for his own literary purposes—particularly in relation to supernatural events. compared to geoffrey and wace, lawman uses supernatural elements more freely and emphatically. not only does arthur in brut possess spiritual overtones, he also becomes a kind of liminal figure who has one foot in the world of men and one foot in the world of fairies. much of arthur’s liminality stems from lawman’s use of anglo-saxon heroic tradition, especially when compared to a hero like beowulf. and while it is tempting to read english literature as a vehicle for creating english nationalism, especially considering that many scholars seem to read lawman’s arthur as a co-opted hero for english nationalism, literature can serve other purposes than ideologically upholding nascent notions of nationhood. unlike geoffrey and wace, both of whom use arthur for predominantly political purposes, i argue that lawman’s emphasis on arthur’s spiritual qualities is meant not just to be emblematic of an english king but also to create a complex literary character who functions primarily to critique both norman and english forms of ideal kingship. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2016 although most readers are familiar with the magical elements of arthurian stories—e.g. merlin, avalon, excalibur, and various stories from the french romance tradition—supernatural themes were not always the primary focus in the early development of the arthurian myth. instead, arthurian stories attempted to establish a reliable historical link with the past. between the mid-12th and early 13th century, geoffrey of monmouth, wace, and lawman wrote a series of historical narratives that helped establish the foundation myth of britain. all three authors use the arthurian story as the climactic narrative in their longer histories. and although each author built on the work of his predecessor, he also expanded and redacted scenes for his own literary purposes. one important point of variation between all three authors is the way they introduce and negotiate the supernatural events that pervade arthurian stories. between merlin’s prophecies and arthur’s mysterious birth and death, each author explores the supernatural elements of the arthurian story with varying degrees of emphasis. compared to geoffrey and wace, lawman uses supernatural elements more freely and emphatically. in lawman’s brut, arthur not only carries spiritual overtones, but he also becomes a kind of liminal figure who has one foot in the world of men and one foot in the world of fairies. much of arthur’s liminality stems from lawman’s use of anglo-saxon heroic tradition, especially when compared to a hero like beowulf. and while it is tempting to read english literature as a vehicle for creating english nationalism, especially considering that many scholars seem to read lawman’s arthur as a co-opted hero for english nationalism, literature can serve other purposes than ideologically upholding nascent notions of nationhood. unlike geoffrey and wace who use arthur for predominantly political purposes, i argue that lawman’s emphasis on arthur’s spiritual qualities is meant not just to be emblematic of an english king but also to create a complex literary character who functions primarily to critique both norman and english forms of ideal kingship. i the myth of arthur did not begin with the round table, camelot, or even his kingship. instead, arthur emerged from the shadows of partly oral and partly written traditions. after the roman retreat and before the 6th century, stories of a british leader who managed to unite britons together against the saxons, picts, and scots began to surface. one of the earlier recordings of an arthur-like figure occurs in the writings of gildas, a sixth“aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 3 century monk who writes about the leadership of ambrosius aurelianus— a man who managed to rally the britons and fend off the saxons. arthur’s name, however, does not officially appear in writing until the ninth century, when nennius writes about the success of the britons and the heroic deeds of a man named arthur who “fought with the saxons, alongside the kings of the britons, but he himself was the leader in the battles” (qtd. in williams 6). there is also evidence to suggest that arthur’s name was gaining in popularity before and after the time of nennius. in the annales of cambriae, [annals of wales] there are two entries that mention the battle of mount badon and the battle of camlaun; and in gesta regum anglorum [deeds of the kings of the english], william of malmesbury mentions that the britons rave and disturb the peace in their enthusiasm for arthur (qtd. in paton xi). in all of this, however, arthur is a prominent leader and warrior but not a king. arthur finally emerges as king of britain in the 12th century when, in response to the political and cultural climate of his day, geoffrey of monmouth crowns him in the historia regum britanniae [history of the kings of britain] in 1138 c.e. by the time the 12th century arrives, the norman conquerors’ connection to their history had begun to fade, and they started to take a greater interest in the history of the british island and its peoples. at the time, the normans lacked a sense of historical precedent in their royal history as kings of britain. geoffrey’s historia, along with his emphasis on arthur as king, is arguably the product of his ability to seize this political and cultural opportunity. as w.r.j. barron and s.c. weinberg point out, “geoffrey’s historia furnished a link with the ancient, honourable, seemingly stable world of its schoolroom texts” in an age that was conscious of the dark chasm between their historical origins and current political issues (xvii). geoffrey himself, in his introduction to the historia, complains of a similar void in the historical works of writers like bede and gildas: “nought could i find as concerning the kings that had dwelt in britain before the incarnation of christ, nor nought even as concerning arthur and the many others that did succeed him. . .” (trans. by evans 3). by presuming to fill a historical gap and by writing a narrative about kingship itself, geoffrey is able to claim arthur as a figure from whom every future king derives authority because he transcends any one group of people’s right to the throne. geoffrey establishes the tradition of arthur as king and exemplar in two ways. first, geoffrey states in the introduction that the history he is about to record is not propaganda for any particular race of people, but rather the history of kingship on the island itself. in the first sentence scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2016 of the historia, geoffrey writes, “oftentimes in turning over in mine own mind the many themes that might be subject-matter of a book, my thoughts would fall upon the plan of writing a history of the kings of britain. . . ” (evans 3). geoffrey’s intentional use of the term “britain” reveals his disinclination to argue that any one tribe or ethnic group possessed a right to the british throne. instead, his wording suggests an interest in the pattern of succession and governance that sets precedence for contemporary kings of britain. geoffrey’s historiography also has roots in the traditional “providential narrative” formula popularized by bede. as kenneth tiller argues, “by making the norman conquest part of a repeating cycle of sin and purgation that began with the anglo-saxon displacement of the britons, these historians could thus establish continuity between english and norman history” (31). with this narrative formula in place, geoffrey is able to “flatter the norman conquerors by displaying the greatness of the race they have subdued” and encourage them to live up to the expectations established by the kings of britain who preceded them (patton xx). second, geoffrey carefully blurs the line between historical fact and fiction in order to create a living and transcendent myth of ideal kingship. although he uses the word “history” in the title, geoffrey blends celtic mythology into his “historical” narrative. geoffrey lived on the welsh border and would have been aware of the stories of arthur with whom the britons were enamored. geoffrey also includes the character of merlin (a variation on the welsh name myrddin) and merlin’s prophecies, which he claims to have translated from early welsh verse. such material adds both to the mystery of geoffrey’s historical accuracy and the supernatural quality of arthur himself. additionally, geoffrey’s allusion to a supposedly reliable historical source document, “the most ancient book” (evans 3), has been called into question. this has led some scholars to argue that his narrative is a “romance, projecting upon historical reality . . . a golden age of triumph” (barron and weinberg xxii-xix). finally, within this framework of history, romance, and celtic mythology, geoffrey situates the story of arthur at the climactic moment of the narrative. king arthur is the hero of geoffrey’s historical-mythology, and as the hero, he becomes an archetype for british kingship. following on the heels of geoffrey, wace writes his own version of the history of the britons in le roman de brut around 1155 c.e. at the time, there were several other versions based on geoffrey’s historia in circulation, but wace’s version trumped them all and solidified itself as the next step in the rise of arthur as king ( jones vii). wace was born in jersey “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 5 and was educated in caen and paris, and he was deeply indebted to the french royal court. presumably, henry ii funded wace’s “translation” of geoffrey’s historia, and, according to lawman, wace may have presented the finished work to eleanor of aquitaine herself (lawman 19-23). as a result, wace’s interest in the story of the britons closely parallels geoffrey’s political aims, but wace chooses to minimize the traces of welsh influences and instead focus on the court and pageantry of arthur’s reign. wace’s decision to exclude many of geoffrey’s welsh sources changes the whole tenor of the arthurian story. for example, wace usually only hints at or simply omits merlin’s prophecies. in the scene where merlin and vortigern have discovered the dragons underneath the foundations of vortigern’s tower, geoffrey records merlin’s prophecy of the coming kings of britain in detailed imagery, some of which includes the coming of arthur. wace, however, chooses to exclude the prophecy altogether because, as he says, i don’t want to translate [merlin’s] book since i cannot interpret it; i do not wish to say a thing if it were not as i would say it. (trans. by glowka 7,539-42) such reluctance arises again throughout the reign of arthur, where wace recalls merlin’s prophecies but insists that they have little or no bearing on what actually happened, and sometimes he chooses to cast doubt on the whole affair. even at arthur’s death, wace writes, “arthur, if the tale’s no lie, was mortally wounded in the body / and borne away to avalon. . .” (13,275-77, emphasis added). in wace’s defense, there is some evidence, as jean blacker observes, of latent anti-norman sentiments in some of merlin’s translated prophecies which could easily have dissuaded wace from emphasizing merlin’s role in his historical narrative. such circumstances suggest that “political rather than aesthetic considerations” guided wace’s editorial decisions as he wrote the roman de brut (blacker 36). even so, the result of wace’s narrative changes the tenor of the arthurian story by giving it an air of detached regality and ceremonial pageantry. wace primarily concerns himself with the proceedings of arthur’s court and the example it sets for contemporary norman royal courts. although wace redacts much of the supernatural elements found in the historia on the grounds that it may not be true, he does not shy away from inventing new components for the story if it serves his purpose. for example, wace is generally believed to be the first of the arthurian scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2016 writers to introduce the round table to arthur’s court, highlighting the equality with which people were treated: the vassals took their places there, all chivalrous, all equal too. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . none of these men were able to boast that he sat higher than his peer; all were seated equally; there was not one who was left out. (9753-54, 9757-9760) in addition, wace spends much more time embellishing the details of arthur’s courtliness and court pageantry than either geoffrey or lawman. the scene of arthur’s coronation alone is more than double the length of geoffrey’s and lawman’s narrative. the addition of the round table, the description of the feasting, and the detailed imagery of the procession that precedes the coronation scene illustrates wace’s familiarity with the ideals of behavior in the royal norman court, and thus he suggests that his historical narrative is meant to celebrate those courtly traditions. based on wace’s and geoffrey’s narratives, both clearly wrote for a predominantly norman audience and under norman patronage. in the case of the historia, geoffrey recognized an opportunity to curry favor with the normans by supplying them with historical precedents, while wace seems to have written his narrative because of norman patronage and in celebration of the norman court. as a result, both historical narratives tend to function as a mirror and standard for norman royal courts. consequently, arthur himself takes on french chivalric virtues and statesmanship. it is at this point in the development of the kingship of arthur that lawman writes the brut. charles williams, an important twentieth-century poet and scholar of arthurian romance, argues that while wace maintained and elevated the culture and medieval splendor of geoffrey’s historia, “layamon wrote under the influence of older poets, of the anglo-saxons” (williams 39). writing within a distinctly english tradition, lawman is free from the norman political pressures that guided the narratives of geoffrey and wace. and with the backdrop of anglo-saxon heroic myths, lawman can more easily emphasize the supernatural qualities of arthur’s character, which allows lawman simultaneously to use arthur to critique english and norman forms of ideal kingship even as he reflects aspects of both. “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 7 ii unlike geoffrey and wace, relatively little is known about lawman’s biography and his intended audience except for what can be gleaned from the introduction and the overall style of the brut. introducing himself to his readers, lawman writes: an preost wes on leoden, laʒamon wes ihoten; he wes leouenaðes sone —liðe him beo drihten! he wonede at ernleʒe at æpelen are chirechen vppen seuarne staþe —sel þar him þuhte— onfest radestone; þer he bock radde. (lawman, 1-5) [a priest was in the land, he was called lawman; he was leo venath’s son—god be merciful to him! he lived at areley by a noble church upon the bank of the severn—he thought it pleasant there—close to redstone; there he read books] based on lawman´s own account, he is the son of leovenath and he was a priest in a town that has now been identified as areley kings, a village ten miles outside of worcester. lawman’s language, however, is his most distinctive quality and the most telling aspect of his style. geoffrey wrote in latin and wace wrote in french—latin was the preferred language of the church, french was the language of norman royal courts, and both represent the language of the educated upper-class. the brut, in the opening lines alone, provides a jarring contrast to the works of geoffrey and wace with its englishness. not only does he write in english, the language of a conquered people, but he also uses the traditional alliterative half-line verse of the anglo-saxons; which, for an english audience, would evoke the glory of a fading heroic past. apart from what can be inferred from the limited biographical evidence, language, and meter of lawman’s brut, the brut is also “anglosaxon in temper” (lewis 23). compared to wace, to whom lawman makes frequent allusions in his introduction, one can easily see a stark difference in the overall atmosphere of the narrative. while “wace is busy with courts and progresses” (williams 39), lawman is busy with heroes, battles, and royal courts that sound suspiciously like anglo-saxon mead halls. for example, when the romans arrive at arthur’s court to summon him to the roman emperor lucius, wace and lawman provide very different descriptions. in wace’s version, the twelve ambassadors scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2016 arrive “hoary and gray, / well adorned and well attired”; they came bearing “olive branches”; and before approaching arthur’s throne they processed “beautifully and impressively, / they made a pass around the hall” (glowka 10,623-31). in the brut, however, the scene evokes a very different mood; it is colder, grayer, and does not include any form of a royal procession from the roman ambassadors. the narrator makes a point of mentioning the “grætne ring of golde” each man wore (lawman 12,349), recalling the great ring-givers from stories like beowulf, and he further describes the room in which arthur took counsel as “an ald stanene weorc; stiðe men hit wurhten” [an old stone fortification; strong men built it] (12,419). in every detail, the anglo-saxon world hangs over the events in the brut. iii one of the key features of heroes within the anglo-saxon world is the quality of liminality. liminality, as sarah higley argues in her “study of liminality in beowulf,” is consistent with the anglo-saxon view of the human condition, of being caught between heaven and hell here on middangeard [middle earth]. consequently, in this view the most powerful beings whether good or evil “can make threshold crossings that ordinary men cannot . . . for they can occupy this and the other world alike” (higley 342). i will endeavor to show, by comparing arthur with beowulf, that arthur also exhibits liminal qualities which, in addition to anglicizing arthur, further emphasizes the importance of arthur’s spiritual significance as it pertains to lawman’s literary project. in the case of beowulf, he is not only a hero with superhuman strength but also a man capable of engaging with the supernatural world on its own terms. in the battle with grendel, beowulf decides to fight grendel in hand-to-hand combat to ensure a fair fight (trans. by heaney 677-87). as soon as the conflict begins, the narrator describes grendel’s shock at beowulf ’s strength: the captain of evil discovered himself in a handgrip harder than anything he had ever encountered in any man on the face of the earth. (749-52) it is important to note here that grendel and grendel’s mother are both earlier described by hrothgar as “huge marauders from some other world,” whose “ancestry is hidden in a past of demons and ghosts” and that they “dwell apart among wolves on the hills, on windswept crags and treacher“aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 9 ous keshes. . .” (1348-49, 1356-59). and after grendel’s mother’s revenge at heorot, beowulf pursues her into her own country where “the water burns” and no man or animal dares to dive beneath the surface of her mere (1366). beowulf ’s battle with grendel and his mother represents not just a physical battle but a supernatural battle as well—a battle in which only a man with supernatural qualities could compete. beowulf, as a heroic character, portrays liminal qualities because he can engage with the natural and the supernatural world. lawman picks up on the liminality of heroes like beowulf and intentionally reflects them in the character of arthur. arthur’s transformation into a liminal hero begins with his conception and runs throughout the rest of his life. merlin’s “lechecraft” [magic], for example, brings about arthur’s conception (9448). after uther has despaired of winning ygerne for himself, he allows merlin to disguise him so that he can satisfy his longing for ygerne. as a result, ygerne conceives arthur “al þurh merlines wiʒel” [all through merlin’s magic] (9606). then as soon as arthur is born, “aluen hine iuengen” [elves take charge of him] (9608). the elves enchant arthur with strong magic; they give him strength to be the greatest knight; they secure his rise to power; and they grant him long life (9609-15). with all of these gifts and enchantment, the elves ensure that he becomes the “mete-custi of alle quike monnen” [most generous of all living men] (9614). arthur’s supernatural qualities come into play throughout the rest of his life as well. like beowulf, arthur is able to traverse and even has knowledge of supernatural landscapes. similar to the description of grendel’s mere, in an uncanny scene surrounding a scottish loch, arthur explains to his cousin howel the strangeness of the waters. in this loch, there are four kinds of fish and they all manage to remain separated from each other; at the end of the loch there is a small lake that, according to arthur, “alfene hine dulfen!” [elves dug it!] (10977). arthur goes on to explain that at the edge of the region near the seashore there is another lake that contains evil waters. the lake mysteriously does not flood when the sea pours into it, but afterwards, it swells and will flood out over the land, and the only way to keep oneself safe from its flooding waters is to face it and “þat water him glit bisiden and þe mon þer wuneð softe, after his iwille. . .” [that water glides beside him and the man stands easily, just as he wishes] (11000-01). howel, after hearing these words, is amazed. where arthur could have learned such information is not mentioned, leaving readers to infer that arthur’s knowledge and awareness of the surrounding landscape is linked with his own enchantment. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2016 in addition, one of the more important aspects of narrative variation effected by the theme of liminality is arthur’s doubtful death. in geoffrey’s narration of the story, arthur received deadly wounds “and was borne thence unto the isle of avalon for the healing of his wounds. . .” (trans. by evans 236). geoffrey does not mention merlin’s prophecies, or whether arthur eventually died of his wounds, or even an explanation of the significance of avalon. instead, he provides a bland description of the time and place of arthur’s departure along with a quick side-note about him having transferred the crown to “constantine, son of cador, duke of cornwall” (historia 236). wace, on the other hand, although he dramatizes the scene more than geoffrey, seems to find the whole event questionable: still the britons wait for him, and so they talk of him with hope: from there [avalon] he’ll come; he’s still alive. master wace, who made this book, wants not to say more of his end than merlin the prophet said of it. merlin said—and he was right— that arthur’s death would be in doubt. the prophet said the very truth. it’s always been in doubt since then and will be every day, i think, if arthur’s dead or if he’s living. (trans. by glowka 13279-90) wace’s version of arthur’s death is oddly uncharacteristic of his narrative style since he expands on geoffrey’s version by including a prophecy of merlin. in effect, however, merlin’s prophecy is an excuse for wace to provide social commentary and not, as lawman’s version suggests, a sign of arthur’s liminality. even so, wace still does not stray far from his explicit goal of writing a strict “history” of the events. in order to garner trust from his audience, he does not say that the events are false. instead, he implies reasonable doubt. he agrees with geoffrey’s version to the extent that mystery surrounds arthur’s departure to avalon after receiving deadly wounds, but he interprets the uncertainty of arthur’s death as an explanation for what must have been one of the popular beliefs among his audience. lawman’s retelling of arthur’s death continues to build on wace’s dramatic interpretation, but it further emphasizes the supernatural qualities of arthur’s character. in geoffrey and wace, the sequence of events is told “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 11 only through the perspective of the narrator. but in lawman, the atmosphere of the scene intensifies as arthur makes his final speech in which he gives instruction to constantin and explains where and to whom he is going. arthur begins by exhorting constantin to uphold the laws of uther and defend “mine bruttes” (14,274). the whole scene is reminiscent of beowulf ’s final speech to wiglaf after he slew the dragon. just before his death, beowulf boasts of his legacy, asks to see the treasure he has won, and explains to wiglaf that he must follow his “whole brave high-born clan / to their final doom” (2815-16). where beowulf ’s story ends, however, arthur continues. the most important expansion of arthur’s final scene in the brut includes arthur’s explanation that “and ich wulle uaren to aualun, to uairest alred maiden, / to argante þere queen, aluen swaðe sceone” [and i will go to avalon, to the fairest of all women, argante, the fairest of fairy women] (14,277-78). the queen of the fairies will heal arthur of his wounds and prepare him for his return to britain. and finally, the scene ends in the same way that arthur’s life began: æfne þan worden þer com of se wenden þat wes an sceort bat liðen, sceouen mid vðen, and twa wimmen þerinne wunderliche idihteæ and heo nomen arður anan, and aneouste hine uereden and softe hine adun leiden, and forð gunnen liðen (14,283-87) [with these words, there came sailing from the sea a small boat that was driven by the waves, and two women wonderfully arrayed were in it; and they quickly took arthur, and quickly bore him up and gently laid him down, and sailed away.] given that these women arrive immediately after arthur describes that he will depart to avalon and to argante, it is safe to assume that these are the “fairy women” arthur referred to earlier. like at his birth, elves immediately place arthur in their charge. following wace, lawman also bookends arthur’s life with merlin’s prophecies, but instead of offering social commentary, he demonstrates a greater amount of trust in the accuracy of merlin’s predictions—a natural authorial decision given arthur’s association with the supernatural up to this point in the narrative. on three different occasions, merlin accurately prophesies the coming of arthur and his accomplishments. the first prophecy was given to vortigern; the second occurs at the rising of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2016 star after aurleius’ death; and the third prophecy occurs when the hermit approaches merlin about uther’s desire for ygerne. given merlin’s track record, lawman places a greater amount of trust in his predictions. so in the second to last line of the poem, just before he explicitly states what is otherwise hinted at in geoffrey’s and wace’s versions, lawman claims that all of merlin’s prophecy is true (14296). he then goes on to write that merlin’s prophecy is accurate on two counts: (1) merlin accurately predicted that arthur’s death would be grievous, and (2) “þat an arður sculde ʒete cum anglen to fulste” [that an arthur should come again to aid the english] (14297). because arthur’s kingship is of supernatural origins and divinely ordered as seen in the prophecies of merlin, there is no doubt in lawman’s story, unlike geoffrey’s and wace’s, that arthur will return to britain. lawman’s certainty that arthur will return is rooted in arthur’s liminality because arthur crosses the threshold between the earth and the world of fairies. it is as if lawman poses a rhetorical question: “since he has crossed from the natural to the supernatural, why couldn’t he make the crossing again?” unfortunately, arthur’s liminality and the supernatural element in lawman’s brut is often ignored or glossed as a minor interesting distinction. for example, w.r.j. barron and s.c. weinberg argue, though greatly increased in layamon, the element of the occult is not thematically engaged; arthur is not supernaturally guided in his mission as a national messiah, as his predecessors were by merlin whom arthur never meets. it merely adds a gloss of fairy prince to his more realistic roles as war-leader, world conqueror, lawgiver and christian king. (xliv) what i have tried to show, however, is that arthur’s liminal qualities are as important as his “more realistic roles.” lawman’s depiction of arthur as a liminal figure has roots in geoffrey’s historia, but lawman’s expansion of the material, in the context of anglo-saxon heroic tradition, verges on a complete reimagining of arthur’s character. ultimately, this difference between lawman and his predecessors allows the arthur of the brut to transcend and critique the cultural and political notions of ideal kingship presented in geoffrey’s and wace’s historical narratives. iv at this point, it is tempting to argue, as many scholars have, that lawman’s characterization of arthur depicts the anglo-saxon age of heroes “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 13 more idealistically than the rule of norman kings. for example, john brennan argues that lawman’s narrative effectively shifts the dynastic history of britain into a national epic of the english (19). but strictly reading arthur as a pure anglicized form of kingship misses the subtlety of lawman’s characterization of arthur. lawman’s arthur is a complex combination of english and norman forms of ideal kingship, who, nevertheless, can transcend and critique those ideals because of his liminality. as a critique of anglo-saxon heroism, beowulf and the battle of maldon serve as helpful examples. for all of the similarities between arthur and beowulf, their stories end with different visions of the impending future. neither arthur nor beowulf father any children, and in their final speeches they must transfer their royal powers to someone else. beowulf ’s death, in particular, not only marks the end of an era, but also the imminent destruction of his kingdom and his people. in his last words to wiglaf, beowulf says, you are the last of us, the only one left of the waegmundings. fate swept us away, sent my whole brave high-born clan to their final doom. now i must follow them. (trans. by heaney 2813-16) following beowulf ’s death, there are two characters who foreshadow an ominous future for the geats. first, wiglaf recognizes that despite beowulf ’s victory over the dragon and of having won the gold, his actions were not in the best interest of his people: “often when one man follows his own will / many are hurt. this happened to us. / nothing we advised could ever convince / the prince we loved, our land’s guardian, / not to vex the custodian of the gold. . .” (3077-81). second, at beowulf ’s funeral, a geat woman sings of the coming nightmare of invasion (3150-55). beowulf ’s heroism has left his kingdom stranded because there is no one to take his place. the anglo-saxon hero cannot protect his posterity. in lawman’s brut, however, the death of arthur sounds a different note. despite their heroic similarities, arthur stands in direct contrast to beowulf ’s failure. arthur’s death represents the successful transfer of power not the ominous destruction of a whole civilization. unlike beowulf, arthur is able to say to constantin, “and hald heom alle þa laʒen þa habbeoð istonden a mine daʒen, and alle þa laʒen gode þa bi vðeres daʒen stode” [and uphold for them all of the laws that have been in place during my days, and all of the good laws that stood in uther’s days] (14276). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 14 spring 2016 arthur’s kingdom has been established as a political system not unlike the norman political system represented in wace’s roman de brut. the future kings of britain need only to maintain the laws he has already set in place. the future of arthur’s kingdom does not depend upon arthur but on the maintenance of the laws. by the same token, arthur also exhibits similar anglo-saxon heroic foibles, which add to the complexity and even paradoxical nature of arthur’s character. such complexity, however, aligns with lawman’s purpose that arthur should serve as a critique, not an emblem, of cultural and political ideals. in the battle of maldon, for example, arthur shares the same excessive pride as byrhtnoth. after a standoff with viking invaders, byrhtnoth foolishly allows the vikings to cross the river for the sake of a fair fight. but, as j.r.r. tolkien points out, byrhtnoth’s decision stemmed from a heroic pride that turned excessive; it drove him “beyond the bleak heroic necessity to excess” (20). arthur has a similar vice, which, as dennis donahue has pointed out, is clearest in arthur’s tendency toward anger and dismissal of good counsel (135). such tendencies eventually lead arthur, like byrhtnoth, to engage in a reckless war with rome at the expense of his own people. alongside his critique of english heroism, lawman also uses arthur as a vehicle to critique the atmosphere of detached cynicism and skepticism created by norman ideals of royal courts. while some of his critique is probably grounded in personal experience, it also clearly stems from the representation of norman courtliness in wace’s le roman de brut. although wace’s emphasis on the processions, the pageantry, and the courtliness of arthur’s reign help elevate arthur’s status in the imaginations of his readers, such an emphasis simultaneously conveys the idea that arthur rules from his throne and not among his people. arthur becomes more of an idea and less of a person. c.s. lewis similarly observes that in wace, “the norman courtesy can be callous, the norman lightness can be cynical;” the brut, on the other hand, is “more sensitive” (27). for example, in the scene where arthur hears of uther’s death, lawman writes: þus heo gunnen tellen and arður sæt ful stilleæ ænne stunde he wes blac and on heuwe swiðe wak, ane while he wes reod and reousede on heorte. þa hit alles up brac hit wes god þat he spac; þus him sæaide þerriht arður, þe aðele cniht: “lauverd crist, godes sune, beon us nu a fultume, þat ich mote on life goddes layen halden.” (9923-29) “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 15 [thus they began speaking and arthur sat completely still; one moment he was pale and quite lacking color, and the next moment he was red with heartfelt grief. when it all broke out, he spoke well; thus arthur the noble knight said: “lord christ, son of god, be a help to us at this time, that i may with my life uphold god’s laws.”] by expressing arthur’s vulnerability, grief, and sense of duty in this moment, lawman humanizes him in a way that wace and geoffrey did not. insofar as arthur is an ideal king, he is also a realistic king as well. lawman’s emphasis on arthur’s humanity in this moment also helps bolster arthur’s liminal qualities because it balances his supernatural characteristics with his humanity, underscoring his function as a character that stands on the threshold of the natural and supernatural world. while arthur portrays important norman qualities in lawman’s critique of anglo-saxon heroism, lawman also recognizes that a king must be more than an idea; he must be able to empathize with his people. finally, in light of wace’s insistence on censoring any element of the arthurian myth that cannot be verified, lawman uses the round table scene as a metaphor that subverts the norman tendency to monopolize history for its own political purposes. in addition, lawman reveals his own awareness of the way in which a variety of stories on a single subject, whether consistent or contradictory, can still convey truth. after the appearance and establishment of the round table in arthur’s court, lawman retains wace’s narrative structure by including a follow-up commentary on whether the stories of arthur and his round table are true. unlike wace who claims in his commentary that the stories cannot be true, lawman instead offers what elizabeth bryan describes as a “sophisticated meditation on history, narrative, and truth in which lawman uses the table as a metaphor or models for the possibilities of true history” (27). because wace is skeptical of the historical truth of arthur from the very beginning of the narrative, he routinely dismisses unverifiable elements of arthur’s story by blaming the numerous stories that have cropped up around the history of arthur. wace insists instead on the reliability of orderliness and ceremony. the round table, therefore, is simply a symbol of the norman courtliness he so admires. for lawman, on the other hand, the truth of arthur’s reign cannot be so easily dismissed or minimized. as bryan argues, the “accretion of stories and storytellers is represented” in the symbol of the round table “not as a threat but as a source of truth. negotiating the very multivocality that wace blames is the hopeful act of the truth seeker” (32). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2016 throughout his narrative, lawman relishes in embellishing his stories, from the graphic descriptions of battle scenes to the long-winded speeches of generals and kings. especially in the arthurian narrative, lawman sees all of the stories, whether fictional or real, come together in a single persona. as a character imbued with natural and supernatural qualities, english and norman ideals, arthur embodies the very act of discovering and understanding the link between the past and the present. for lawman, it is not important whether every story of arthur is a verifiable fact, but how those stories help critique and refine contemporary cultural and political ideals. conclusion the historical context of lawman’s brut provides an instructive frame of reference for our interpretation of his narrative and of arthur in particular: it is an english epic intended for an english audience who had been conquered by the normans only a century earlier. lawman, perhaps dangerously, anglicized heroes who, since geoffrey of monmouth’s historia, had traditionally been propagated as exemplar norman heroes. hence, many scholars have tended to read lawman’s brut as an english nationalistic response to norman culture and politics. nonetheless, lawman’s depiction of arthur is not an unadulterated iteration of anglo-saxon heroism—he shows signs of the same heroic foibles found in characters like beowulf and byrhtnoth while also exhibiting some of the virtues of a norman king. lawman also includes descriptions of arthur that suggest christ-like divinity, further complicating and heightening the spiritual significance of arthur. the eucharistic imagery, for example, in an earlier prophecy from merlin, resonates throughout the narrative: of his breosten scullen æten aðele scopes; scullen of his blode beornes beon drunke. [. . . of his breast noble poets shall eat; of his blood shall men be drunk.] (9411-12). lawman’s consistent emphasis on the spiritual and liminal qualities of arthur reads not just as a gloss on his role as fairy prince or english hero, but as qualities that add to the complexity of arthur’s character. such complexity ultimately allows lawman to use him as a literary figure who can critique cultural and political ideals because he does not perfectly reflect any one form of national ideology. “aluen hine iuengen”: fairies, arthur, and ideal kingship in lawman’s brut middle tennessee state university 17 works cited allen, rosamund. introduction. brut. by lawman. trans. rosamund allen. new york: st. martin’s, 1992. print. barron, w.r.j., and s. carole weinberg. layamon’s brut: king arthur. austin: u of texas p, 1989. print. blacker, jean. “where wace feared to tread: latin commentaries on merlin’s prophecies in the reign of henry ii.” arthuriana 6.1 (1996): 36-52. project muse. web. 20 march 2016. brennan, john p. “rebirth of a nation? historical mythmaking in layamon’s brut.” essays in medieval studies 17 (2000): 19-33. illinois medieval association. west virginia up, 19 july 2011. web. 25 mar. 2016. bryan, elizabeth j. “truth and the round table in lawman’s brut.” quondam et futurus 2.4 (1992): 27-35. jstor. web. 23 march 2016. bzdyl, donald g. introduction.  layamon’s brut: a history of the britons. by layamon. trans. donald g. bzdyl. binghamton, ny: medieval and renaissance texts and studies p, 1989. print. donahue, dennis p. “the darkly chronicled king: an interpretation of the negative side of arthur in lawman’s brut and geoffrey of monmouth’s historia regum brittannie.” arthuriana 8.4 (1998): 135-147. project muse. web. 4 april 2016. geoffrey of monmouth. history of the kings of britain. trans. sebastian evans. london: j.m. dent & co, 1958. print. glowka, arthur wayne. introduction. le roman de brut: the french book of brutus. by wace. trans. arthur wayne glowka. tempe, az: arizona center for medieval renaissance texts and studies, 2005. print. haas, robert, trans. “the battle of maldon.” the word exchange: anglosaxon poems in translation. ed. greg delanty, michael matto, and seamus heaney. new york: w.w. norton, 2011. 93-112. print. heaney, seamus. beowulf: a new verse translation. new york: w.w. norton, 2001. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 18 spring 2016 higley, sara lynn. “‘aldo on ofre,’ or the reluctant hart: a study of liminality in beowulf.” neuphilologische mitteilungen 87.3 (1986): 342-253. jstor. web. 2 april 2016. jones, gwyn. introduction. wace and layamon: arthurian chronicles. trans. eugene mason. dutton, ny: everyman’s library, 1962. print. le saux, francoise h.m. layamon’s brut: the poem and its sources. cambridge: d.s. brewer, 1989. print. lewis, c.s. “the genesis of a medieval book.” studies in medieval and renaissance literature. ed. walter hooper. cambridge: cambridge up, 1966. 18-40. print. paton, lucy allen. introduction. history of the kings of britain. trans. sebastian evans. london: j.m. dent & co, 1958. print. tiller, kenneth j. “the truth ‘bi arðure þan kinge’: arthur’s role in shaping lawman’s vision of history.” arthuriana 10.2 (2000): 27-49. project muse. web. 30 march 2016. tolkien, j.r.r. “the homecoming of beorhtnoth beorhthelm’s son.” the tolkien reader. new york: ballantine books, 1966. web. 25 march 2016. wace. le roman de brut: the french book of brutus. trans. arthur wayne glowka. tempe, az: arizona center for medieval renaissance texts and studies, 2005. print. williams, charles. arthurian torso: containing the posthumous fragment of the figure of arthur. norwich: fletcher and son, 1969. print. joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 19 joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses melody cook abstract in the fifth season finale of buffy the vampire slayer (2001), buffy sacrifices herself to save her sister (and the world) by leaping into a portal with her arms outstretched. in the final scenes of the cabin in the woods (2012), marty refuses to die in order to save the world, instead watching as it crumbles around him. in the former, buffy is an obvious christ-figure, while in the latter marty subverts the trope in his refusal to be a sacrifice. this paper explores the prevalence, meaning, and evolution of the christ-figure trope in the works of joss whedon. drawing from research in the fields of both whedon studies and religion and popular culture, i define and set parameters for identifying christ-figures before exploring the use of the christ-figure in buffy the vampire slayer. finally, i briefly reflect on the question, what can we learn from the conflicted religiosity of the whedonverses?. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient 20 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the field of whedon studies is dedicated to the academic study of the films, television series, and comic books written, directed, produced, and/or created by joss whedon, including such works as buffy the vampire slayer, firefly, and marvel ’s the avengers. a significant number of books, articles, and conference papers focus on the works of whedon. whedon studies scholar rhonda wilcox has coined the term “whedonverses” to describe whedon’s variety of works. there have been a small number of pieces written on religion in the whedonverses, including multiple pieces on the themes of redemption and heroism in whedon’s works, but none specifically examining the use of christ-figures. though scholars recognize the christ-figure as a recurring trope in the whedonverses, no one to date has interrogated the use of christ-figures or their evolution over the course of whedon’s career. this paper offers a solution to this oversight. specifically, i will borrow the christ-figure concept and the methodological framework for identifying cinematic christ-figures developed by anton karl kozlovic before applying said framework to whedon’s television series buffy the vampire slayer. the titular character of the series is a prime example of a christ-figure, as are other characters in the series. continuing with kozlovic’s framework, a brief examination of other christ-figures in the whedonverses follows the buffy case study. i then complicate kozlovic’s framework, which focuses on “the textual world inside the frame” and ignores “the world outside the frame,” by questioning the connections between whedon’s atheistic worldview and his employment of christ-figures throughout his works. the christ-figure scholars of religion and popular culture have for some time been discussing the cinematic christ-figure. matthew mcever traces the lineage of the “messianic figure” to the biblical epics popular in 1950s hollywood. anton karl kozlovic, in his article “the structural characteristics of the cinematic christ-figure,” defines “christ-figure” in opposition to the “jesus-figure” often found in biblical epics: “jesus-figure” refers to any representation of jesus himself. “christ-figure” describes any figure in the arts who resembles jesus. the personal name of jesus . . . is used for the jesus-figure. the title “christ”—the “messiah,” or the “anointed one”—is used for those who are seen to reflect his mission. in cinema, writers and directors present both jesus-figures and christ-figures. (par. 1) joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 21 in other words, christ-figures covertly rather than overtly symbolize jesus. this subtlety is what arguably makes christ-figures more interesting to audiences (and scholars).1 kozlovic names twenty-five characteristics of christ-figures, which are determined through his use of “humanist film criticism,” that is, “examining the textual world inside the frame, but not the world outside the frame” (par. 18, emphasis original). kozlovic emphasizes that often, though certainly not always, a significant number of characteristics will apply to the character in question. the characteristics include: 1. tangible 14. service to “lesser,” even ungrateful, others 2. central 15. a willing sacrifice 3. outsider 16. innocent 4. divinely sourced and tasked 17. a cruciform pose 5. alter egos 18. cross associations 6. special normal 19. miracles and signs 7. twelve associates 20. simplicity 8. the holy age 21. poverty 9. a betrayer associate 22. jesus’s garb (physical and spiritual) 10. a sexually-identified woman 23. blue eyes 11. pointing prophet, baptism rites 24. holy exclamations 12. a decisive death and resurrection 25. “j.c.” initials and “chris” references 13. triumphalism additionally, as arnfríður guðmundsdóttir notes, most scholars “would agree that a christ-figure has to stand independently without an explicit reference to christ in the film” (28). accepting the parameters set forth 1. guðmundsdóttir writes, “female christ-figures in films are intriguing theologically because they raise issues about the theological significance of jesus’ historical maleness and especially how christ may be viewed or incarnate among us today” (27, emphasis added). 22 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research by kozlovic along with guðmundsdóttir’s suggestion, i will now explore whedon’s first created television series, buffy the vampire slayer, as a case study. buffy: a case study buffy the vampire slayer (1997-2003) narrates the life of buffy summers, a teenager living in sunnydale, california. the pilot reveals that sunnydale is a “hellmouth,” a portal of mystical energy that draws all manner of the supernatural, and buffy is the slayer, a young woman chosen to be the sole fighter against evil in the world. buffy, along with her friends willow and xander and her watcher rupert giles, fights vampires and demons and stops a good many apocalypses while traversing life as a young (straight white) woman in america. before entering into a detailed discussion of buffy the vampire slayer (hereafter btvs), it should be noted that, as “with much popular culture, buffy is less interested in faithfully adhering to biblical or christian traditions than in drawing on particular motifs at regular points to serve its (secular) themes of buffy as a savior for humanity” (weaver 69-70). thus, btvs is a classic example of the covert symbolism characteristic of christ-figures. there are multiple examples of christ-figures in btvs, but the most obvious is undoubtedly buffy herself. she fits a significant number of the characteristics suggested by kozlovic, including #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, and #22. in addition to obvious qualities such as being tangible [#1] and being central [#2], buffy also certainly fits the christ-figure characteristic of being an “outsider” [#3]. she is not shown to be particularly popular at school, nor are her friends. willow, a lesbian “wicca,” and xander, a clumsy goofball based loosely on whedon himself, especially are outcasts at sunnydale high school, ridiculed by the beautiful and popular cordelia. buffy appears to be a typical teenager, and her classmates do not initially suspect her secret life, allowing her to live what appears to the average sunnydale resident the normal life of a young woman working at the doublemeat palace [#5, #6]. buffy is clearly “divinely sourced and tasked” [#4]; consider, for example, the opening voiceover heard at the beginnings of the earliest episodes of btvs: “in every generation, there is a chosen one: one girl in all the world. she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. she is the slayer.” in the final season, it is revealed that the slayer line began when a group of shamanic men infused a young girl from their village with demon blood and tasked her with fighting off evil. joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 23 regarding the “pointing prophet” [#11], giles is a possible choice for the john-the-baptist role, as he trains and teaches buffy and guides her friends, and he quickly becomes a father figure to the group. the second half of [#11], “baptism rites,” might be found in the first season finale in which buffy falls into a pool of water and dies; xander later revives her so she can go on to kill the master (the season’s “big bad”) and stop the impending apocalypse. admittedly, these are loose interpretations of kozlovic’s description of the pointing prophet and baptism rites. in fact, there are a number kozlovic’s characteristics that could, with a bit of stretching of the imagination, fit buffy. these include: • [#9] “a betrayer associate”—if we accept that buffy’s associates parallel jesus’ disciples, then it could be argued that willow’s transition into “dark willow” at the end of the sixth season could be read as an example of betrayal, especially as willow seems to disavow buffy’s morality. • [#24] “holy exclamations”—this reading of btvs does not account for all holy exclamations. exclamations involving “god” and “lord” are numerous and varied. however, the only time a holy exclamation other than these occurs is when xander finds out that tara has been murdered and he directs his exclamation to willow, who has already transitioned to dark willow: “christ, wil . . .” (“villains”). • [#20] “simplicity”—buffy does not fit the description of “nerds, klutzes, bumbling simpletons, mentally unbalanced, or fools” (kozlovic par. 59). however, she does struggle academically throughout the series, both in high school and in college. notably, she unexpectedly scores well on the sat. • [#21] “poverty”—buffy by no means experiences poverty. however, she finds herself in need of money to pay the mortgage following her mother’s death in the fifth season. in “life serial,” she seeks a loan, which provides one of the episode’s conflicts. • [#25] “j. c. initials”—buffy anne summers, the given name of buffy, is obviously not an example of the j. c. initials. however, “buffy” is a diminutive of “elizabeth” (from the way a child pro nounces the last syllabus), and elizabeth was the name of the so called virgin queen, leading to a possible connection from buffy to the virgin marry. 24 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research obviously, with a bit of imagination, buffy (indeed, many characters from many films and television shows) can be read to fit a significant number of kozlovic’s characteristics of the christ-figure. in order to explore even further buffy’s status as a christ-figure within btvs, it is necessary to examine both of her deaths. buffy first dies in the first season finale, “prophecy girl.” in this episode, giles uncovers a prophecy that buffy “must die” in order to stop the master, the ancient vampire who plans to usher in the apocalypse. upon overhearing giles and the vampire angel discussing the prophecy, buffy displays a range of emotions, beginning with ecstatic laughter and ending with desperate fury as she “quits” being the slayer: “i quit. i resign. i’m fired. you can find someone else.” she then rips off her crucifix, given to her by angel. already, the viewer must acknowledge the presence of the cross; despite the lack of an omniscient god in the series,2 cross imagery is omnipresent in btvs. gregory erickson notes, in current american culture as well, as present as the cross is, what it signifies is ambiguous. no longer the space of christ’s suffering, or a sign of religious opulence, the american cross, as harold bloom says, is the empty cross from which “jesus has already risen.” as bloom interprets it, american religion quests for the forty days when the disciples were with christ. . . . buffy’s cross, as well, is a simulacrum—a copy with no original—a sacred and powerful sign, signifying nothing. (115) viewers perhaps accept without difficulty the presence of the cross around buffy’s neck, as well as the use of holy water against vampires, due to the connection of such relics to vampire mythology, especially as explained in bram stoker’s dracula. the cross, as erickson has noted, signifies nothing, and its presence is never acknowledged as anything other than vampire repellant. buffy then appeals to giles, her father figure: giles: buffy, if the master rises— buffy: i don’t care. . . . i don’t care. giles, i’m sixteen years old. i—i don’t wanna die. 2. in “conversations with dead people,” an episode of the final season of btvs, a former classmate-turned-vampire asks buffy if god exists: “is there any word on that, by the way?” she responds, “nothing solid.” joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 25 this moment recalls jesus praying in gethsemane: “and going a little farther, [ jesus] threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what i want but what you want’” (nrsv, matt. 26:39). while jesus’ words are certainly more eloquent than buffy’s simple “i don’t wanna die,” jesus—similar to the weeping buffy—displays an intense emotion when he throws himself on the ground. later in the episode, buffy is seen wearing a white dress, the crucifix returned to her neck, walking through underground tunnels toward her death at the hands of the master. as kozlovic notes regarding the “spiritual garb” [#22] of christ-figures, “many cinematic christ-figures are clothed to look like popular images of jesus in his iconic white robes (i.e., the [color] of purity and holiness)” (par. 63). buffy, after fervently denying her role as the slayer, quietly accepts her fate. she is killed, and xander resuscitates her, after which she succeeds in staking the master and staving off the apocalypse. undoubtedly, her pleas, her appearance, and her willing sacrifice create a passing argument for buffy as a christfigure in “prophecy girl.” the second time buffy dies, she is older and has gained a sister. dawn summers appears suddenly at the beginning of the fifth season; it is quickly revealed that she is actually the “key,” a sort of amalgam of mystical energy sent to buffy in the form of a sister by a group of monks trying to keep the key from a demon god called glorificus, who plans to use it to dissolve the barriers between the various hells and the earthly dimension. over the course of the fifth season, buffy embraces dawn as her sister despite her unorthodox origins and, in the season finale, dies in dawn’s place. this willing sacrifice [#15] is made despite her sister’s objections as they stand atop a creaking tower beneath which a dimensional rift has opened: as dawn pleads, “blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it’ll never stop,” buffy quietly assures her, “this is the work that i have to do.” the episode, titled “the gift,” centers around buffy’s anxiety regarding an earlier revelation, received via vision quest: “death is your gift.” roslyn weaver writes that such a remark “may recall for some viewers christian ideas about the ‘gift’ of eternal life brought about by christ’s death” (70). buffy’s choice to die in “the gift” perfectly exemplifies kozlovic’s description of the “willing sacrifice”: having assumed the mantle of christhood, christ-figures are frequently empowered to choose sacrifice out of their newfound knowledge, status, position, mission requirements, etc. . . . fre26 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research quently, dying is the best thing they can do, and they really want to do it, usually against the loving protests of others. (par. 51) when buffy leaps into the rift in order to close it, she does so of her own free will and knowing that her blood will cause it to close. despite the fact that dawn’s blood opened the rift (meaning the rest of dawn’s blood must be used to close the rift), buffy understands that her blood is the same as dawn’s. the sisters share “summers blood,” as buffy tells dawn early in season five as they kneel on the ground, their hands visibly pierced and paralleling the stigmata (“blood ties”). blood is also central to “the gift.” early in the episode, as all buffy and her friends sit around a table discussing how to save dawn, the following exchange occurs: xander: why blood? why dawn’s blood? i mean, why couldn’t it be, like, a lymph ritual? spike: ’cause it’s always got to be blood. . . . blood is life, lackbrain. why do you think we [vampires] eat it? it’s what keeps you going, makes you warm, makes you hard, makes you other than dead. ’course it’s her blood. while kozlovic does not require bloodflow in any element of his characteristics of the christ-figure, the trope certainly does not suffer from the presence of blood. indeed, when taking into consideration buffy’s gender, bloodflow seems quite appropriate, bringing to mind the flow of menstrual blood that often signals the reproductive power of a biological woman. blood is sexual; after all, spike, undoubtedly the most sexualized male vampire in btvs, says that blood is what “makes you hard.” the connections between blood and women are numerous and certainly bring new meaning to the christ-figure in female form. when buffy leaps into the rift in order to close it, she spreads her arms so that she appears in the classic “cruciform pose” [17]. (see image.) joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 27 this is perhaps one of the most blatant examples of a christ-figure in the whedonverses. the voiceover played during the scene is given by buffy, presumably her last words: “[giles,] give my love to my friends. you have to take care of them now. you have to take care of each other. you have to be strong.” this, according to weaver, “can be read as echoing christ’s words to his mother and john that ensure john will take care of mary” (70). there are other examples of christ-figures throughout btvs. a notable example is xander in the sixth season finale, “grave.” in this episode, xander, who has been employed as a carpenter since graduating high school (obviously an allusion to jesus, traditionally a carpenter, although kozlovic does not specifically mention job-type as one of his characteristics), stops willow from ushering in the apocalypse following the death of her girlfriend, tara. because xander, unlike buffy and willow, has no supernatural powers—that is, he is completely ordinary—he is forced to stop willow using only his words. while buffy is trapped underground with dawn and giles is incapacitated with xander’s girlfriend anya, xander begs willow to stop. blogger kristin rawls writes, “this might be the most explicitly christian moment in the show, and it’s surprising in a secular series with a humanist impulse that dabbles primarily in other spiritual mythologies.”3 as xander recounts a story from when he and willow were both fiveyears-old and she broke a yellow crayon, the viewer understands that xander’s purpose is to remind willow that love exists in the world. earlier in the episode, willow experiences a surge of power via giles and decides that the only way to end the pain and suffering in the world, which she now feels, is to end it. the following exchange occurs: xander: i love crayon-breaky willow. i love scary, veiny willow. so if i’m going out, it’s here. if you wanna kill the world, well, then start with me. i’ve earned that. willow: think i won’t? xander: it doesn’t matter. i’ll still love you. willow: shut up. [she sends a bolt of energy towards him, resulting in a gash on his cheek.] xander: i love you. willow: [she hurls another bolt, sending xander to his knees in pain. a tear slides down her cheek.] xander: [stands, his shirt ripped open and chest bleeding.] 3. i would disagree with rawls that btvs “dabbles primarily in other mythologies.” see erickson for an analysis of the influence of american christianity on btvs. 28 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research i—i love you. willow: shut up! xander continues to repeat “i love you” as he walks toward willow and her power drains from her. the scene ends with willow weeping in xander’s arms. xander is credited with saving the world, and most viewers understand his actions as representative of a christ-figure. as giles tells anya of xander in the final minutes of the episode, “he saved us all.”4 so, what about willow? this question naturally follows any discussion of both buffy’s and xander’s statuses as christ-figures. the three friends, often called the “scooby gang,” make up a trio, and, along with giles, the dynamics of this are explored in the penultimate episode of the fourth season, “primeval,” in which the four combine their strengths to defeat the frankenstein-esque big bad: giles’ knowledge (sophus), willow’s magic (spiritus), xander’s bravery (animus), and buffy’s strength (manus). while buffy never claims any religious affiliation and xander’s family is only once described as episcopalian (“hell’s bells”), willow is the only member of the trio who multiple times mentions her religion—judaism. it is certainly interesting that the only jewish member of the scooby gang is never portrayed as a christ-figure. was jesus not, after all, himself jewish? elsewhere in the whedonverses the christ-figure trope is not only found in btvs. in fact, christfigures may be found in each of the television shows that make up the whedonverses: e.g., angel, doyle, and cordelia in angel; river in firefly; echo/caroline in dollhouse; and agent coulson in agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. christ-figures are also found in a number of whedon’s films, including the cabin in the woods and marvel ’s the avengers. in the cabin in the woods, a 2012 horror film co-written by whedon, the christ-figure is marty mikalski, a stoner who joins his friends on a weekend trip to an isolated cabin deep in the woods. unbeknownst to the group of friends, they are under surveillance by an underground facility who execute them systematically—indeed, ritualistically—in order to stave off the apocalypse and appease the ancient ones. marty, the archetypal fool, undoes the formula when he does not die. the director of the underground facility tells him 4. it is worth mentioning that this is the only season finale with which whedon had no direct involvement; he wrote and/or directed all other season finales for btvs. during the sixth season of btvs, whedon was busy with his newest television series, firefly. many fans credit the season’s showrunner, marti noxon, with the christianized direction “grave” took. joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 29 that he must die to save humanity, and marty refuses, choosing to let the world end. he tells the director, “if you’ve gotta kill all my friends, maybe it’s time for a change,” and dana, the only other survivor, comments as they share one final joint, “you were right. humanity . . . it’s time to give someone else a chance.” while marty sets in motion a change that almost seems to reflect what kozlovic calls “triumphalism,” a victory in the face of seeming defeat (such as the triumphal victory initiated by christ’s death), marty does so at the expense of humanity. this may be, in a way, a subversion of the christ-figure found in buffy and xander. while his first television series featured classic examples of christ-figures, whedon seems to have turned the trope on its head with marty’s refusal to fulfill his role as a savior for humanity. flowing blood represents salvific power in btvs’s “the gift,” but bloodflow is hardly atoning in the cabin in the woods. theologian j. ryan parker contrasts the annual sacrifice by the facility with the penal substitutionary atonement theory, the idea that christ’s death on the cross served as a substitution for all sinners: a key difference between the rite in the cabin in the woods and [penal substitutionary atonement theory] is certainly the number of deaths required to appease angry gods. the former is an ongoing sacrifice, whereas the latter only required one death, that of jesus. (202) the re-appropriation of bloodflow and the christ-figure seems to be a rejection of the jesus story, of the christ-figure and the theme of redemption so characteristic of the whedonverses. in the cabin in the woods, bloodflow must repeat in an annual ritualistic series of deaths, rather than christ’s single death, a single event that saved all of humanity at once. marvel ’s the avengers, released a mere month after the cabin in the woods, also features a sort of christ-figure in tony stark/iron man, who takes the missile meant to destroy manhattan into a portal that has been opened and is rapidly closing. as he flies with the missile into the portal, he believes that he will die; he does not, but he is a willing sacrifice nonetheless. given this classic example of a sacrifice, why does whedon, along with his co-writer drew goddard, write a subversion of the willing sacrifice for a film released at the same time? why christ-figures? a number of questions stemming from the use of christ-figures in the 30 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research whedonverses arise. whedon himself is a well-documented atheist,5 but his writing is filled with allusions to various religions, most often christianity. as k. dale koontz asks in the introduction to joss whedon and religion: essays on an angry atheist’s explorations of the sacred: why would someone who so adamantly professed himself to be an atheist spend so much time grappling with issues that are often associated with faith in the unseen and unknown? after all, you can’t watch three hours of whedon’s work without rubbing up against questions of redemption and grace, examining an expansive definition of family, or confronting the perils of blind zealotry. (2) though an argument for the “secularization” of whedon’s work and the whedonverses certainly exists (consider mal’s aversion to religion in firefly: “you’re welcome on my boat. god ain’t” [“the train job”]), the use of christ-figures results from hollywood culture. kozlovic notes, “hollywood films are frequently created within a judaeo-christian [sic] context. therefore, it is almost a natural response for western scriptwriters” like whedon, raised in the united states and educated briefly in england, “to tap into this familiar religious heritage when creating their new heroes,” drawing “consciously or unconsciously from their own [socialization], enculturation, and professional education” (par. 10). numerous scholars have written about the influence of joseph campbell on whedon.6 as kozlovic explains, “christ-figures sometimes result because filmmakers have been influenced by the hero cycle theories of [campbell]. . . . some of his famous adherents are george lucas with his star wars trilogy and george miller with his apocalyptic mad max trilogy” (par. 9). the hero cycle appears with buffy, as does the christ-figure trope, but what about marty? perhaps the use of christ-figures merely stems from whedon’s socialization in the united states, england, and hollywood; after all, both his father and grandfather were screenwriters. perhaps the christ-figure allows whedon to wax philosophical (and symbolic) on western culture and christianity. the simultaneous sudden subversion of the christ-figure trope by whedon in the cabin in the woods alongside the willing sacrifice of tony stark/iron man in marvel ’s the avengers proves especially interesting. while marty refuses to sacrifice himself for humanity, tony stark/iron man appears determined to save the day even if it costs his life. 5. e.g., see baillou2. 6. e.g., see wilcox 31. joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 31 certainly, christ-figures in the whedonverses function in the creation of heroes and to serve whedon’s recurring theme of redemption. however, marty emerges as a sort of hero at the end of the cabin in the woods, even as the world crumbles around him. it appears that whedon, in his subversive work on the cabin in the woods, is writing through the christ-figure trope so beloved by hollywood in order to find new ways to create heroes. conclusion while the future of the christ-figure trope in the whedonverses remains in question—will whedon or won’t whedon continue to configure heroes according to christ-figures, or might he write through and past the christ-figure trope to find new ways for creating heroes?—we may be certain that the whedonverses contain a wealth of christ-figures from which to choose. buffy is perhaps the strongest example through her calling as the slayer, while xander in btvs’s sixth season finale remains one of the more blatant christ-figures. other christ-figures in the whedonverses exist, including tony stark/iron man in marvel ’s the avengers; however, it is interesting to note the presence of a character whose role subverts that of the typical christ-figure: marty in the cabin in the woods. marty and his refusal to be a “willing sacrifice” (i.e., to conform to the christ-figure trope) reveals a new path for the creation of heroes in the whedonverses. while whedon’s work will undoubtedly continue to wrestle with themes of redemption and heroism, the exact configuration of these themes—how will redemption occur and how will heroes be created?—remains to be seen. 32 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research works cited baillou2. “joss whedon: atheist & absurdist.” online video clip. youtube. youtube, 28 mar. 2010. web. 31 march 2016. “blood ties.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete fifth season. writ. steven s. deknight. dir. michael gershman. 20th century fox, 2001. dvd. “conversations with dead people.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete seventh season. writ. jane espenson and drew goddard. dir. nick marck. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. erickson, gregory. “‘sometimes you need a story’: american christianity, vampires, and buffy the vampire slayer.” fighting the forces: what’s at stake in buffy the vampire slayer. ed. rhonda v. wilcox and david lavery. lanham, md: rowman and littlefield, 2002. 108119. print. “the gift.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete fifth season. writ. joss whedon. dir. joss whedon. 20th century fox, 2001. dvd. goddard, drew, dir. the cabin in the woods. perf. kristen connolly, chris hemsworth, anna hutchison, and fran kranz. lionsgate, 2012. dvd. “grave.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete sixth season. writ. david fury. dir. james a. contner. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. guðmundsdóttir, arnfríður. “female christ-figures in films: a feminist critical analysis of breaking the waves and dead man walking.” studia theologica 56 (2002): 27-43. print. “hell’s bells.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete sixth season. writ. rebecca rand kirshner. dir. david solomon. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. koontz, k. dale. foreword. joss whedon and religion: essays on an angry atheist’s explorations of the sacred. ed. anthony r. mills, john w. morehead, and j. ryan parker. jefferson, nc: mcfarland, 2013. 1-3. print. kozlovic, anton karl. “the structural characteristics of the cinematic joss’s jesus: christ-figures in the whedonverses middle tennessee state university 33 christ-figure.” journal of religion and popular culture 8 (2004): n. pag. web. 3 may 2015. “life serial.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete sixth season. writ. david fury and jane espenson. dir. nick marck. 20th century fox, 2001. dvd. mcever, matthew. “the messianic figure in film: christology beyond the biblical epic.” journal of religion and film 2.2 (1998): n. pag. web. 3 may 2015. nrsv standard bible. division of christian education. san francisco: harpercollins, 2007. print. parker, j. ryan. “as it ever was . . . so shall it never be: penal substitutionary atonement theory and violence in the cabin in the woods.” religion and joss whedon: essays on an angry atheist’s explorations of the sacred. ed. anthony r. mills, john w. morehead, and j. ryan parker. jefferson, nc: mcfarland, 2013. 196-212. print. “primeval.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete fourth season. writ. david fury. dir. james a. contner. 20th century fox, 2000. dvd. “prophecy girl.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete first season. writ. joss whedon. dir. joss whedon. 20th century fox, 1997. dvd. rawls, kristin. “preacher’s daughter: willow, xander, and the prayer of st. francis.” bitch magazine. bitch magazine, 29 sept 2011. web. 5 may 2015. “the train job.” firefly: the complete series. writ. joss whedon and tim minear. dir. joss whedon. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. “villains.” buffy the vampire slayer: the complete sixth season. writ. marti noxon. dir. david solomon. 20th century fox, 2002. dvd. weaver, roslyn. “apocalypse now and again: the apocalyptic paradigm and the meaning of life and (un)death in buffy the vampire slayer.” joss whedon and religion: essays on an angry atheist’s explorations of the sacred. ed. anthony r. mills, john w. morehead, and j. ryan parker. jefferson, nc: mcfarland, 2013. 67-82. print. whedon, joss, dir. marvel ’s the avengers. perf. robert downey jr., chris 34 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research evans, mark ruffalo, chris hemsworth, and scarlet johansson. lionsgate, 2012. dvd. wilcox, rhonda. why buffy matters: the art of buffy the vampire slayer. new york: tauris, 2005. print. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 57 la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution savanna r. teague abstract while the mass consumption of luxury items is oftentimes described as a factor leading the third estate to take action against the first and second estates in the buildup to the french revolution, that spending is presented as little more than salt in the open wounds of a starving and ever-growing population that had been growing evermore destitute since the beginnings of the early modern era. however, the causes and contexts of the conspicuous consumption as practiced by the aristocracy reveal how they directly correlate to the social tensions that persisted throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until they erupted in the 1790s. the isolation and the dictation of taste and style that louis xiv commanded through versailles and state-run luxury workshops became commonplace within a generation after the fronde in which the nobles had engaged during the previous century. versailles allowed the new generation of the aristocracy to be placated with petty privileges that developed out of the rigorous court etiquette, and their conspicuous consumption only increased as the need to compete with others at court and those newly ennobled continued. this study examines a materialistic culture alongside its material culture, focusing on explaining the expenditures of the aristocracy without becoming enamored by the spectacle of wealth itself. the goods and services that the french aristocracy indulged in purchasing were not simply marks of luxury; they represented social ideals about order and privilege. versailles allowed louis xiv and his heirs to control their nobles while simultaneously reflecting the order and the stability of the state in the architecture and gardens. 58 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research when monsieur léonard, hairdresser to queen marie antoinette, stumbled into the tattered remains of his patron’s apartments at the palace of versailles on october 6th, 1789, the mob that had stormed the palace earlier had long since left, leaving shattered glass, ripped tapestries, and broken panels in their wake. the national guard had already escorted the royal family away from versailles and into paris, amidst the cries of a raucous crowd who carried the heads of versailles bodyguards upon pikes. those remaining people under the king’s and queen’s employ, who both survived the ordeal and remained at the palace, found themselves dealing with the aftermath. after taking account of the damage in the rooms where he had styled many of the queen’s more elaborate coiffures (often satirized by propagandists), monsieur léonard found a pair of marie antoinette’s shoes unscathed.1 over two centuries later, paris druout, one of the largest auction houses in france, would place a pair of the queen’s heels, perhaps not too dissimilar to the ones that survived the parisian mob at the dawn of the french revolution, upon the auction block (ironically, just a day after the 219th anniversary of marie antoinette’s death at the place de la révolution).2 the shoes, a gift to one of the many servants who attended her, had been preserved and passed down through the generations until they arrived in the care of the auction house, weathering the revolution in far better condition than the members of the aristocracy. the winning bid of $65,000, placed anonymously, exceeded the expectations of paris druout by almost five fold. one collector’s peculiarities, tastes, and fervor could explain why this lot of royal footwear had been so drastically underestimated, at least compared to the value placed upon them by the bidder. however, the desire to possess a “piece” of the aristocracy existed prior to the advent of the revolution. servants—such as lower-ranking courtiers and favorites—received clothing from both louis xvi and marie antoinette, which was then passed down through wills, stolen, or, as these particular shoes were, auctioned. “royal items of clothing were, it would seem, given with a clear sense of the intense value attached to them, and that they might provide a tangible stimulus to enduring fidelity to the crown, even, or especially, when it was all but effaced.”3 these items also remained after their owners’ deaths as morbid souvenirs, 1. antonia fraser, marie antoinette: the journey (new york: anchor books, 2001), 297. 2. terri pous, “marie antoinette’s shoes sell for $65,000 at french auction,” time.com, october 18, 2012, under “fashion & beauty,” http://style.time.com/2012/10/18/marieantoinettes-shoes-sell-for-65000-at-french-auction (accessed july 9, 2013). 3. wrigley, the politics of appearances, 20. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 59 relics of the revolution’s victory over a desolate monarchy, or simply taken for the valuable resources from which they were made.4 while it might seem overly simplistic to argue that the fashion, etiquette, and material goods coveted by french aristocratic culture in the eighteenth century purposefully denoted social status and wealth, the rationale behind the continually more ostentatious choices in clothing and hairstyles became deeply ingrained into the aristocracy long before dr. guillotin purposed the use of a more humane method of beheading. the following argues that, before the blood spilled of the revolution, the clash between the nobility and the increasingly wealthy middle classes—who desired the same wealth and privilege of those inhabiting the palace of versailles—was a fight first waged with velvet and brocade. clothing marked privilege amongst the aristocracy; the more expensive the materials, or the more elaborate the garment (seemingly even to the point of impracticality), the higher in status the owner appeared to be.5 many coiffures and gowns made physical activity very guarded, indicating someone of leisure. catherine beecher, in her 1814 treatise on domestic economy for the use of young ladies at home, and at school, argues that, in “past ages, and in aristocratic countries, leisure and indolence and frivolous pursuits have been deemed lady-like and refined, because those classes, which were the most refined, patronized, such an impression.”6 these codes of etiquette and behavior existed not simply as a distraction for the extremely wealthy, but also as a stage constructed a century prior to the french revolution, at a time when louis xiv first prepared to move his court away from paris, hoping to turn an inherited hunting lodge into a palace fit for the image he was constructing for himself.7 as much as clothing and the elaborate trappings of privilege created barriers that attempted to exclude others from stepping onto the stage of courtly life, they also existed for public display.8 from his birth, louis xiv was an actor in an epic drama. as a king, divine right determined his roles (as warrior, as saint, as supreme authority); the spotlight shone on him. 4. ibid., 21. 5. roche, the culture of clothing, 6-9. 6. as quoted in richard l. bushman, the refinement of america: persons, houses, cities (new york: vintage books, 1992), 306. 7. peter burke, the fabrication of louis xiv (new haven, ct: yale university press, 1992), 47; see also stephen greenblatt, renaissance self-fashioning: from more to shakespeare (chicago: university of chicago press, 1980). 8. bushman, the refinement of america, xiv; roche, the culture of clothing, 184; doyle, french revolution, 27; andrew lossky, louis xiv and the french monarchy (new brunswick, nj: rutgers, university press, 1994), 114. 60 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research much as his moniker suggested, louis was the “sun king,” and the court surrounded him as a planetary mass of loyal subjects, cajolers, and inbetweens who hoped a modicum of glory might be bestowed upon them.9 however, this power relied upon nobles bowing to the king’s authority, and conflict between the monarchy and the first and second estates arose when kingly authority appeared to threaten the status granted from submitting to that authority.10 from the sixteenth century onward, a growing sense of self-image and self-awareness grew amongst both highand low-born in europe. just as a monarch could use public relations and (what now might be considered) “media” campaigns to fashion a persona readily identifiable by one’s subjects, men with education, connections, and ambition could attempt the same—regardless of rank—on a smaller scale. one misconception about the average individual prior to the industrial revolution is that they lacked privilege. too easily are the castes, particularly in french society of the eighteenth century, categorized as those with privilege and those without. regardless of social standing or personal property, the “most valuable property that a person had was his ‘privilege.’”11 privilege, as defined by those prior to the modern era, included all the person’s rights as determined by the laws governing them, but the privileges of a merchant or a peasant farmer could hardly be called equal to those enjoyed by a member of the royal family. however disproportionate the benefits, those that recognized their own privilege “clung to it with equal tenacity” as someone who had more wealth and status. in combination with the growth of selfconsciousness (not the philosophical understanding of the term but rather in the awareness of one’s presence in society), it became apparent that the possibility of fashioning identity for oneself was just as possible as dictating identity to others.12 even though members of the nobility balked at the repressive measures being enacted by louis xiv and cardinal richelieu after the thirty years war—as well as the civil wars of the fronde (an insurrection of nobility and third estate against the king, stretching from 1648 to 1653 and leading to absolute monarchy)—the second estate did not attempt to parcel their own lands into factions, choosing instead to draw closer to the monarchy, hoping to gain more influence in policymaking, even as 9. burke, the fabrication, 59. 10. lossky, louis xiv, 26. 11. ibid., 31; greenblatt, renaissance self-fashioning, 1. 12. ibid.; bushman, the refinement of america, xiv. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 61 they despised the efforts of the crown to centralize the government.13 the creation of appointments for those outside the second estate constituted the main objection many aristocrats had with louis xiv’s early reign. the royal treasury relied upon two sources income—taxes for one, but also the fees paid by people freshly appointed as officers of the french government. to remove someone from his prescripted post, the treasury would face reimbursing the fee, which was often spent without funds to replace it, meaning that the officer’s position was permanent.14 though both louis xiv and cardinal richelieu often dared to meddle with the privileges already established, the creation of new offices available to the rising middle class—who benefitted from the upswing in france’s economy—could replace the income lost by being unable to tax the second estate without threat of further revolt.15 privilege, therefore, as ephemeral as it could be, became ingrained as the paramount of society; the mandates and rules surrounding privilege appeared to fashion how the country operated. in terms of economy, that assumption is not wholly incorrect.16 as absolutist as louis xiv’s measures were, centralization could not dismantle something established as fundamental to how society functioned. the king’s ability to negotiate with the aristocracy remained limited. if he dealt with them too harshly, open revolt could erupt, but he could neither bribe them (without risking france’s finances further) nor raise their rank any higher than what they already had. an opportunity to solve many of these issues presented itself when renovations to the louvre, which had been the parisian royal residence since the middle ages, were proposed. though he had the option of keeping his court within paris, louis turned his attention to the isolated hunting lodge of versailles, twenty kilometers away.17 moving the court to a more secluded location, by 1680, allowed for the development of codes of conduct and etiquette that were both elaborate and calculated. it created “marks of distinction” based upon proximity to louis xiv himself that “cost him nothing except courtesy, which came 13. lossky, louis xiv, 24; robert m. kingdon, geneva and the consolidation of the french protestant movement, 1564-1572: a contribution to the history of congregationalism, presbyterianism, and calvinist resistance theory (geneva: librarie droz, 1967), 395. 14. lossky, louis xiv, 5, 19; guy walton, louis xiv’s versailles (chicago: university of chicago press, 1986), 48. 15. charles breunig, the age of revolution and reaction, 1789-1850 (new york: w. w. norton & company, 1977), 3. 16. lossky, louis xiv, 31. 17. ibid., 113. 62 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research to him naturally.”18 the symmetrical construction of the palace of versailles mimicked the order that louis had created amongst his courtiers, making the days structured and regimented, glorifying everyday activities into theatrical productions (such as daytime meals occasionally open to public spectacle), and refining taste in furniture, art, and music to a stateapproved operation.19 the construction of versailles and the institutionalization of louis xiv’s codes of conduct into a form that would eventually be featured in books on manners for other european courts to copy took a considerable amount of time and financial means. jean-baptiste colbert, louis xiv’s finance minister and superintendent over the bâtiments du roi (buildings of the king), became quite successful at funding his king’s massive building projects. he focused on centering france’s economy on mercantilism, ensuring that the number of exported goods exceeded those imported. his encouragement of national spending internally created new opportunities to stimulate the economy, including the production of governmentapproved luxury goods as well as promoting the use of products being imported from the french colonies. rather than import italian marble for the palace, colbert ordered the opening of french quarries. versailles itself “became a vast showroom of the best luxury items to come out of the government workshops. and the french bought at home rather than from abroad, restraining the traditional outflow for luxury goods.”20 the centrality of the economy and the appearance of prosperity gave colbert the ability to then justify government centrality as versailles’s construction continued through the decades, leading into the eighteenth century.21 the bourgeoisie, specifically the merchants and landowners, benefitted significantly from this economic arrangement. with taxation being one of the few ways in which the treasury could be replenished and with members of the nobility exempt from the highest levied taxes (the taille and the gabelle, the salt tax), the middle class carried the burden of supporting the country with their profits. they therefore faced higher taxes as their station improved. though they could not often sell their goods to other nations, those who operated colonial plantations found the french market largely free of competition with foreign imports. the taxation, along with the restrictions preventing them from fully enjoying the privileges of the high 18. ibid., 114; walton, louis xiv’s versailles, 114. 19. lossky, louis xiv, 114; bushman, the refinement of america, 36-37; walton, louis xiv’s versailles, 47. 20. walton, louis xiv’s versailles, 49; bushman, the refinement of america, 36. 21. ibid., 48. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 63 nobility, left the bourgeoisie with little recourse for greater privilege (outside of marrying into a noble family, buying a title, or outright rebellion against those institutions). in order to incorporate this influx of income into the royal coffers so that the state could meet its financial obligations, louis xiv created many new appointments and divided up duties among existing offices in order to take advantage of the fee paid upon being granted entry into the noblesse de robe (“the nobility of the robe,” high-ranking officials who received their appointments through hereditary nobility).22 the aristocracy actively detested these measures, and the bourgeoisie—even those who obtained noble rank by purchasing it—continued to struggle against the privileges that remained out of their reach. the lesser middle-class shared something in common with the wealthiest merchants, since the “resentment against the aristocratic privilege and discrimination based on birth was shared as well by the lesser bourgeoisie— the shopkeepers, artisans, and petty bureaucrats.”23 although the bourgeoisie often possessed lands and could afford to play the part, enjoying all the leisure activities and luxury goods as the nobility, the desire for equality of privilege remained. by the time the last of louis xiv’s construction projects was completed in 1710, the cost for building versailles alone totaled sixty million livres, roughly $509 million.24 this consumed over three percent of the annual expenditures for the french government between the 1660s and 1670s, reaching its peak in 1685 (with a total of eleven million livres being spent 22. breunig, the age of revolution, 3. 23. ibid., 6; doyle, the french revolution, 26-27. 24. lossky, louis xiv, 115; robert a. selig, “appendix 2: conversions between eighteenth century currencies,” in the washington-rochambeau revolutionary route in the state of delaware, 1781-1783: an historical and architectural survey (state of delaware: dover, 2003); measuring worth, “purchasing power of british pounds: 1245 to present, measuringworth, http://www.measuringworth.com/ppoweruk/ (accessed september 10, 2013); currency converter, google, https://www.google.com/finance/ converter (accessed october 10, 2013). the conversion of the eighteenth century livre into a dollar amount was accomplished by taking dr. selig’s currency chart, which lists the british pound sterling to be equivalent to 23 livres 3 sols 6 derniers (23.2 livres) in the 1700s. the eighteenth century pound sterling is equal to the value of 122 pounds (adjusting for retail price and inflation, as of 2012, through the measuring worth calculator), which is equivalent to 2,830.40 livres. the final step, converting the livre to dollars, was done by comparing the dollar’s value to pounds via google.com’s currency converter (with the usd being roughly equivalent, as of october 2013, to 0.62 gbp, meaning that 122 gbp is equal to 196.77 usd. using that conversion chain [23.2 livres = 1 gbp (1714) = 122 gbp (2012) = 196.77 usd (2012)], it is possible to calculate the value of what was being spent on versailles’s construction into a modern sum. 64 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in that year alone).25 this final round of construction before louis xiv’s death ushered in a new period of decadence, centered around the concept of gloire, the glorification of the king and state through the amassing of great artistic and architectural works that displayed both refinement of taste and uniqueness to the owner.26 even a mini-ice age during the beginning of the 1700s could not impede the finishing touches on the palace, despite the detriment it wrought upon france’s economy. with france relying on its agriculture, the failure due to frost of its staple crops and important exports plagued most of france’s population with ill health, starvation, and higher taxes. the centralization of the government did not equate to order on the whole. while the microcosm of versailles could be structured, and tempers could be assuaged with petty indulgences, the country itself dealt tenuously with its own subjects and other european nations, resulting in “a period of ‘general’ crisis.”27 though the aristocracy and middle classes saw a sufficient increase in their incomes, the monarchy’s financial hardships—beginning in the latter half of louis xiv’s reign through louis xv’s reign and partly into louis xvi’s—remained problematic. from the outset of the eighteenth century, the aristocracy appeared much altered after several decades of being cloistered at versailles, less likely to rebel against the monarchy as had happened during the fronde. a new generation of courtiers, raised at versailles, accepted and depended upon their monarch’s generosity for their upkeep, since courtly life at the palace had drained the finances of many aristocratic families. they no longer held the same connections to their ancestral lands and family estates that had enabled their ancestors to support full-scale revolt against state authority.28 what the aristocracy that lived at versailles lacked in autonomy, it made up for in adherence to etiquette and the pursuit of new luxury items, even when they could not afford them. while a balance had been struck between the king’s desires and the state’s capacity to meet his ambition, louis xiv’s attitude shifted from a guarded centrality to what can now be defined as absolutist policymaking. the inability of the king to give up his own personal wants in favor of dealing with growing financial concerns ushered in a “new sense of unreality” that placed versailles (as it represented the french state to the public) and the country’s needs at odds with one another.29 25. walton, louis xiv’s versailles, 50-51, 141. 26. ibid., 45-47. 27. ibid., 149, 181. 28. lossky, louis xiv, 115. 29. walton, louis xiv’s versailles, 174. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 65 popular belief maintains that louis xvi and his ministers failed to control the economy as colbert did during louis xiv’s reign, but the beginnings of louis xvi’s fourteen years on the throne showed some financial prosperity. france experienced an economic upswing in the decades prior to 1789, as the burgeoning industrial revolution produced more products for export and foreign trade within france’s colonies rose. however, this prosperity was not experienced unilaterally. the merchants (due to the increased interest in trade) and the landowning first and second estates (due to increased cost of staple crops in a country with a rapidly expanding population increasingly unable to support themselves in the inflated economy) reaped the most benefits.30 alexis de tocqueville, reflecting in the mid-nineteenth century, argued that it was this visible and apparent prosperity that hastened the french revolution by revealing the inequity within the country to an increasingly upwardly mobile middle class: the sight of this prosperity, already so great and so flourishing, gives good grounds for astonishment if we think of all the defects still evident inside government and of all the obstacles still encountered by industry. it may even be that many politicians deny this fact because they cannot account for it, assuming, like molière’s doctor, that a patient cannot get better in the face of the rules. in fact, how can we believe that france could prosper and grow wealthy with inequality of taxation, differences of local practices, internal customs barriers, feudal rights, union guilds and sales of office, etc.? in spite of all that, france was, nevertheless, beginning to prosper and improve everywhere because, alongside all this badly built and badly geared machinery which appeared likely to slow down the social engine more than drive it forward, there were concealed two very strong and simple springs which were already enough to hold the entire mechanism together and to enable this whole to advance towards its aim of public prosperity: a still very powerful but no longer despotic government which maintained order everywhere; a nation whose upper classes were already the most enlightened and free on the continent of europe and a nation in whose midst every individual was capable of growing wealthy in his own way and of keeping that fortune once acquired.31 30. breunig, the age of revolution, 2; alexis de tocqueville, the ancien régime and the revolution, trans. ed. gerald bevan (london: penguin classics, 2008), 168. 31. alexis de tocqueville, the ancien régime, 172-173. 66 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research upon his deathbed in 1715, louis xiv uttered his final words, imparting that his legacy would be the state that he had built, though he would be part of it no longer. those present at his side doubted that the regime he had instituted could last without its figurehead.32 however, along with the lasting effects of creating an absolutist monarchy, the codification of exorbitant spending into courtly life, enshrined in the palace of versailles, endured as part of louis xiv’s legacy. a few months prior to her arrest, marie antoinette prepared for a procession of the royal family from paris to versailles. léonard, who had come to coiff her hair, noted that the queen of france appeared withdrawn and disheartened. she lamented, “i must go like an actress, exhibit myself to a public that may hiss at me.”33 the public may have had reason to jeer their queen, viewing her as the cause of much of their suffering. by 1788, the economic prosperity of the last few decades, which had never trickled completely up or down, disappeared. france’s debt swelled, and the interest on that debt devoured fifty percent of the national budget.34 though a rotating assortment of finance ministers attempted to reform france’s laws in order to compel the taxation of the aristocracy, none had been successful.35 both louis xv and louis xvi, who grew up in that environment, spent as they pleased, continuing to add to versailles even as the national debt increased. the other courtiers, particularly those belonging to the royal family, demanded the compensation that was due to their standing. the differences between necessity and desire became hopelessly intertwined from birth, never to be fully untangled. the personal debt of the comte d’artois (louis xvi’s younger brother), for example, ran upwards of twenty-one million livres, over twenty-five times that of marie antoinette’s expenditure early in her marriage.36 though marie antoinette disliked the public displays, she nonetheless called for léonard, who was responsible for creating her grander hairstyles meant for special occasions. court ritual, like the looming specter of louis xiv, expected her compliance with the spectacle she was to perform.37 first as the dauphine and later as the queen of france, marie antoinette knew that her position came with certain expectations of appearance and dress. marie antoinette represented the height of fashion, as had her pre32. lossky, louis xiv, 294-296. 33. fraser, marie antoinette, 271. 34. breunig, the age of revolution, 3. 35. ibid., 5-6. 36. fraser, marie antoinette, 149-150. 37. ibid., 271. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 67 decessors, employing the finest artisans for her clothing and jewelry and commissioning artists to furnish her apartments. the luxury trades flourished in paris thanks to supporting the spending habits of the court, even as the countryside continued to suffer from the ill effects of poor harvests and high taxation: “paris was a city dependent on the financial support of the noble and rich to maintain its industries, which were in the main to do with luxury and semi-luxury goods.”38 this system, however, failed to acknowledge that the cyclical nature of its tax system—upon which it relied solely for its economic stability—could not last, i.e. the impoverished cannot pay taxes; the aristocracy does not pay taxes, but they do spend money amongst the luxury trades; the merchants and wealthy bourgeoisie pay taxes out of money spent by the aristocracy; the taxes go back into the treasury to be doled out to the aristocracy to be spent into the luxury trades again. ultimately, it was unsustainable, especially when the taxes had to be raised to meet the demands of the state, nor could it trickle down to benefit anyone below the middle classes. this, in addition to the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy that had been building since louis xiv opened new offices for the middle classes to refashion themselves into the image of nobility, crippled the state’s ability to function and spilled over into a need for reform and revolution amongst the urban third estate. with the swift fall of the guillotine upon the necks of the fallen monarchs, so too closed the curtains on the stage that was versailles. those who cherished the memory of the king and queen, those that wanted a curious souvenir from the end of french absolutism, those that wanted to make a profit on valuable materials, and those that simply desired to touch gloire held onto pieces of what luxury was left behind, swooped like carrion birds to collect what they could—a sleeve from a dressing gown, a cipher from a gilt panel, a pair of silk shoes. the roots of the spending that, so easily blamed for the french revolution, began decades before the births of either louis xvi or marie antoinette. their habits and routines within the court became as institutionalized as the taxes levied against the third estate and the privileges of the first and second estates they hoped to attain. 38 ibid., 148. 68 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bibliography breunig, charles. the age of revolution and reaction, 1789-1850. new york: w. w. norton & company, 1977. burke, peter. the fabrication of louis xiv. new haven, ct: yale university press, 1992. bushman, richard l. the refinement of america: persons, houses, cities. new york: vintage books, 1992. doyle, william. the ancien régime. atlantic highlands, nj: humanities press international, 1986. reprint, 1988. fraser, antonia. marie antoinette: the journey. new york: anchor books, 2001. greenblatt, stephen. renaissance self-fashioning: from more to shakespeare. chicago: university of chicago press, 1980. guiffrey, jules, ed. comptes des bâtiments du roi sous le règne de louis xiv. 5 vols. paris: imprimerie nationale, 1881. kingdon, robert m. geneva and the consolidation of the french protestant movement, 1564-1572: a contribution to the history of congregationalism, presbyterianism, and calvinist resistance theory. geneva: librarie droz, 1967. lossky, andrew. louis xiv and the french monarchy. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press, 1994. pous, terri. “marie antoinette’s shoes sell for $65,000 at french auction.” time.com, october 18, 2012. accessed july 9, 2013. http:// style.time.com/2012/10/18/marie-antoinettes-shoes-sell-for65000-at-french-auction. roche, daniel. the culture of clothing: dress and fashion in the ancien régime. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1996. selig, robert a. “appendix 2: conversions between eighteenth century currencies.” in the washington-rochambeau revolutionary route in the state of delaware, 1781-1783: an historical and architectural survey. state of delaware: dover, 2003. la belle et la bête: the palace of versailles, self-fashioning, and the coming of the french revolution middle tennessee state university 69 tocqueville, alexis de. the ancien régime and the revolution. edited and translated by gerald bevan. new york: penguin classics, 1998. walton, guy. louis xiv ’s versailles. chicago: university of chicago press, 1986. wrigley, richard. the politics of appearances: representations of dress in the revolutionary france. london: berg, 2002. 70 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research middle tennessee state university 1 a current look at the mmr and autism crisis linda purkey abstract there has been a tremendous amount of controversy between parents, autism advocacy groups, various governments and medical science about the measles, mumps, rubella (mmr) vaccine and whether or not it contributes to autism. media coverage of a hypothesis that was published in the late 1990’s suggested that autism may be a direct result of the mmr vaccination. because little is known about the actual causes of autism, medical science has conducted several investigations that have successfully proven that the mmr vaccination does not cause autism. however, the unfortunate consequence of this dilemma is an overall decrease in much needed vaccinations. this situation not only places children at risk for three potentially deadly diseases, but it could also bring about a possible worldwide epidemic that could affect millions of people, leading to hospitalization and death. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 2 spring 2012 in recent years, there has been a tremendous amount of controversy regarding whether or not children develop autism as a result of the measles, mumps, rubella (mmr) vaccine. speculation also suggests that the vaccination leads to a greater number of diagnosed cases of autism. according to author karen honey (2008), who writes for the journal of clinical investigation, many parents and autism advocacy groups continue to blame the vaccine, in spite of extensive scientific research that has provided a tremendous amount of evidence showing no link between the incidence of autism and the mmr vaccine. media coverage of a hypothesis that was published in the late 1990’s has only added fuel to an already heated debate. because little is known about the actual causes of autism, medical science has conducted several studies that have clearly proven that the mmr vaccine does not cause autism, but these scientific truths are still contrary to the stout beliefs and concerns of many parents. the mmr vaccine does not cause autism, and the decrease in unvaccinated children has led to an increase in measles, mumps, and rubella worldwide. the fact that the mmr vaccination does not cause autism has not affected the decline of vaccinations over the last two decades. the positive result of the mmr and autism debate is the increase of long-overdue and much-needed funding for research regarding the causes of autism. the unfortunate consequence of this dilemma, however, is a decrease in necessary vaccinations, and lower vaccination rates contribute to an increase in these preventable diseases. this situation not only places children at risk for three potentially deadly diseases but could also bring about a possible worldwide epidemic that would affect millions of people, leading to hospitalization and death. edward purssell (2004), author of exploring the evidence surrounding the debate on mmr and autism, believes that the mmr and autism crisis initially began with a hypothesis paper that was published in the lancet in the fall of 1998. since that time, quite a few parents have claimed that shortly after receipt of the mmr vaccination, their child developed autistic symptoms. medical statistics show that diagnosed cases of the disease have truly been on the increase over the last several decades (purssell, 2004). this is possibly due in part to media coverage of the hypothesis–henceforth known as the wakefield hypothesis–that has created a worldwide scare of children being diagnosed with autism shortly after vaccination. some families dated the onset of their child’s neurological deterioration to occur within two weeks of the administration of the mmr vaccine (meissner, orenstein and strebel, 2004). the wakefield hypothesis paper was written by andrew wakefield and his colleagues in the fall of 1998 and was based on the cases of twelve children who already had a previous history of pervasive developmental disorders and whose parents had already assumed a link between the mmr vaccine and their child’s symptoms of autism (purssell, 2004). however, wakefield and his colleagues eventually concluded that they “did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described” (purssell, 2004, p.834). in spite of this statement, the media picked up the story and chose to exploit the suggestion that these children’s autistic symptoms were a direct result of the a current look at the mmr and autism crisis middle tennessee state university 3 mmr vaccination. this exaggerated media coverage alarmed parents all over the world about the safety of vaccinations. autism is a developmental disability included in a group of neurological disorders known as autism spectrum disorders (asds). autism is a serious neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause impairments and difficulties with nonverbal and verbal communication, social interaction, the ability to pay attention, repetitive behaviors, and different physical reactions to certain sensations (croen et al., 2006). people with autism may have intense internal struggles with cognitive processes that can range from being cognitively gifted to severely challenged. the symptoms of autism generally begin to appear physically prior to three years of age and continue for the duration of an individual’s lifetime. according to croen et al., (2006) “males are four times more likely to have autism than females,” and the majority of people with autism are unable to live independently as adults. since the publication of the wakefield hypothesis, many cases of autism have been diagnosed during a developmental time period when children are being vaccinated against measles, and this time period parallels the time when certain children may also be showing symptoms of autism (meissner et al., 2004). children generally begin to show clearlyrecognizable signs of autism–such as loss of language skills–generally between one and two years of age, and this time period coincides with the mmr vaccine (taylor, 2006). rather than consider this overlap as two separate events, many hypothesize that the vaccine is to blame. children with autism generally manifest abnormal development from birth, but about 20% to 30% may experience regression and do not show symptoms of the disease until between eighteen and twenty-four months of age. these children are typically documented as having normal development up until that point (croen, hertz-picciotto, jones, pessah and van de water, 2006). this may explain why certain children seem to develop autism shortly after they are given the mmr vaccine; it may be simply coincidental. in february of 2008, the united states government recently agreed financially to compensate the family of a child who was nine years of age for possible autism-related injuries that were caused by vaccinations (honey, 2008). the center for disease control (cdc) paid the family of the child from a federal fund called the national vaccine injury compensation program, or nvicp, that compensates the families of people who are injured as a result of vaccines. in response to the decision to pay the family, the president of the national autism association, wendy fournier, stated “vaccines can and do cause children to regress into autism” (honey, 2008 p.1586). statements of this type from public officials like wendy fournier have the potential to create very strong convictions about issues such as vaccination safety among the public and can have an enormous impact on the health and safety of entire societies if they are not wholly based on fact. when discussing this particular judgment, the director of the u.s. center for disease control and prevention (cdc), julie gerberding, stated, “this does not represent anything other than a very special situation” (honey, 2008, p.1586). the judgment to pay this family scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 4 spring 2012 has created a stronger foundation for the argument against vaccine safety and has added strength to the controversy that certain vaccinations can and do cause autism. an important fact about this case that was not well publicized was that in this particular situation, the child was already showing signs of autism, but the parents stated that the symptoms were severely worsened by receiving vaccinations (honey, 2008). children in today’s society are routinely vaccinated against fourteen different diseases during their infancy and preschool years. the reason that vaccines are administered at such a young age stems from the fact that protection from these diseases needs to precede exposure to the diseases themselves (miller and reynolds, 2009). beginning in 1963, the u.s. began the vaccination program against measles virus, and it has been an important part of childhood immunizations since that time. most children, approximately 95%, will develop immunity to the disease (meissner et al., 2004). according to miller and reynolds (2009), in the usa and uk, the occurrences of autism have increased, and the mmr vaccine has been implicated as the cause because the increase was noted after the release of the mmr vaccination. while there is very likely a genetic component to autism, it does not account for every case of the disease or the noticeable increase in the number of diagnosed children over the past few years. a study that was conducted in california suggests that between 1987 and 1998, the diagnosed cases of autism rose approximately 273% and between 1998 and 2002, the cases rose another 97% (purssell, 2004). a possible factor for the increase is the ability of the immune system to be able to respond to certain vaccines (purssell, 2004). some scientists speculate that the immune system of a child has difficulty processing more than a single virus at one time. the mmr vaccine has three (purssell, 2004). since the wakefield et al., paper was published, numerous scientific studies have taken place to address the possibility of any link between the vaccine and neurological disorders, like autism. many highly respected organizations in the medical and scientific communities have come to disagree with the wakefield hypothesis. according to the american academy of pediatrics and the institute of medicine, “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship . . . the available evidence does not support the ‘wakefield’ hypothesis that mmr vaccine causes autism or associated disorders” (meissner, et al., p.1068). it should also be noted that since the paper’s original publication, most of wakefield’s colleagues who had assisted in the research and creation of the hypothesis have retracted their initial statements and findings (purssell, 2004). the actual cause of autism is unknown, but scientific evidence speculates toward a combination of possible factors. the major proposed categories that are suspected to be contributing factors are genetics and certain environmental components before and after the child is born. (parker, schwartz, todd and pickering, 2004). these environmental factors fall into five classes of exposure: metals, toxic pollutants, prenatal infections, medications and pesticides (croen et al., 2006). croen and his colleagues claim that prenatal exposure to thalidomide may also be a possible contributing factor that has been associated with specific a current look at the mmr and autism crisis middle tennessee state university 5 autistic behaviors. although a few studies have shown a possible correlation between xenobiotic chemicals, autism, and/or viruses, croen et al., (2006) states that no true and solid, “methodologically rigorous investigations . . . have been undertaken” (p. 1119). several case-controlled and clinic-based studies have shown that if a family has a history of certain language abnormalities, social deficits and varying psychiatric disorders, they may have a higher chance of autistic symptoms in their children. there have also been several cases of autism reported after the mother was diagnosed with infections during pregnancy. prenatal cases of measles, mumps, herpes, syphilis, and cytomegalovirus have also been associated with autism in the child. other reports and records show that the relative risks of the mother smoking cigarettes daily during early pregnancy could also contribute to autism (croen et al., 2006). the link between genetics and autism has been suggested as another possible cause when viewing whether or not a family has a history of twins or siblings with autism. croen et al. (2006) states that the probability of developing autism if a person’s sibling is autistic has been estimated at 2% to 14%. studies that have been conducted on twins suggest a “strong genetic contribution to the etiology of autism” (p, 1120). meissner et al., author of measles vaccines and the potential for worldwide eradication of measles, states, “the weight of scientific evidence suggests that asd is a consequence of a complex genetic mechanism that seems to affect brain growth and development in utero and in the first year of life” (p. 1068). meissner et al., also explains that the increasing prevalence of autism that has been reported may be a result of a change in the way autism is diagnosed and the criteria that are related to diagnosis, which has been greatly improved in recent years. genetic components combined with environmental factors–including vaccinations– during a child’s development make it very challenging for medical science to pinpoint the true cause of autism. each individual case of autism is unique, which makes the disorder particularly challenging to understand fully from a medical and scientific standpoint. croen and his colleagues explain that the prevalence of autism has increased because of improved diagnostic practices–”changes in case definitions and changes in reimbursement for medical services” (p. 1120). in the pre-vaccine era, very early reports had estimated that the prevalence of autism was at four to five per 10,000 births. croen et al., also shares that recent statistics, which state that “autistic disorder occurs in at least [one] to [two] per 1000 births[,] and autism spectrum disorder may be as high as [four] to [six] per 1000 “ (p. 1121). another controversial issue in the mmr and autism debate is a component that is used as a preservative in the vaccine called thimerosal. it has been suggested that vaccines that contain thimerosal may also be a contributing factor to autism. thimerosal is a preservative that was previously used in the mmr vaccine. it is 49.6 % ethyl mercury by weight. the purpose of thimerosal is to prevent bacterial contamination in vaccinations that contain more than one dose of different viruses (parker, schwartz, todd and pickering, 2004). in a peer-reviewed article entitled “thimerosal-containing vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder: a critical review of published original data,” parker and her colleagues review “[ten] epidemiologic studies and [two] pharmacokinetic studies” to “assess scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 6 spring 2012 the quality of evidence assessing a potential association between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism and evaluate whether that evidence suggests accepting or rejecting the hypothesis” (p. 791). the result was that the studies, “did not demonstrate any link between asd and thimerosal-containing vaccines[,] and the pharmacokinetics of ethyl-mercury make such an association less likely” (parker et al., 2004 p. 794). it is interesting to note that even though the united states has discontinued the use of thimerosal in the mmr vaccine, the diagnosed cases of autism still continue to increase. although the wakefield hypothesis has been seriously undermind, many parents still continue to refuse the administration of necessary immunizations to their children. the media fervor has resulted in measles immunization programs suffering a major setback as a result of the alleged association between the mmr vaccine and autism. in a study conducted by cook, et al., (2004), these highly qualified medical researchers looked at the possibility of an association between receipt of the mmr vaccination and an increase in the risk of autism. the results of their case study were published in an article entitled “mmr vaccination and pervasive developmental disorders: a case-control study.” this study used “the method of a matched case-controlled study using the united kingdom’s general practice research database” (p. 963). the study included 1294 cases and 4469 controls that “were matched by age, sex and general practice” (p. 963). according to this study, 1010 cases (78.1%) were diagnosed with autism prior to the mmr vaccination which is “compared with 3671 (82.1%) prior to the age at which their matched case was diagnosed” (p. 963). the results of this study were not much different when the controls were isolated to children with autism and to those who were vaccinated before the child turned three years of age. as the article states mmr vaccination was not associated with an increased risk of subsequently being diagnosed with a pdd. the findings were similar when analysis was restricted to children classified as having autism, or to children who had mmr vaccination before age [three] years (p. 966). cook and his colleagues finally concluded that: we have found no convincing evidence that mmr vaccination increases the risk of autism or other pdds. no significant association has been found in rigorous studies in a range of different settings. these are severe diseases for which very little is known about causation; this absence of knowledge itself might have contributed to the misplaced emphasis on mmr as a cause. research into the real origins of autism is urgently needed (p.968). shortly after the mmr vaccine program was introduced in japan in april of 1989, an outbreak of aseptic meningitis occurred. aseptic meningitis is considered to be a possible side effect of mmr vaccination. because of this possible connection, the administration of all mmr vaccines was brought to an abrupt halt four years later (uchiyama, kurosawa a current look at the mmr and autism crisis middle tennessee state university 7 and inaba, 2007). this unique situation provided an opportune chance for scientists and the medical community to conduct extensive studies and observations regarding the children that would be diagnosed with autism during the ensuing non-vaccine era. in japan, the mmr vaccine program was used from 1989 to 1993. a study of 904 patients with asd was conducted by yokohama rehabilitation center in yokohama, japan and the institute of psychiatry in london. this study measured the incidence of autism “before and after the termination of the mmr vaccination program” (honda, rutter and shimizu, 2005, p. 573). this study focused on the occurrence of asd to children up to the age of seven in the city of yokohama, which has a population of approximately 300,000. the mmr vaccination was not administered after 1993, yet the study’s findings clearly show that even though no children received the mmr vaccination, the diagnosed cases of autism continued steadily to increase. the study found that “no decline in asd incidence occurred in the five-year period from 1988 to 1992 during which mmr vaccine usage fell from 69.8% to zero population coverage” (honda et al., 2005, p. 575). as is shown in the following graph, the incidence of asd continued to increase after the vaccination program was discontinued: (http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/vaccines/nommr.html). if the mmr vaccine had been responsible for an increase in autism, there should have been a decrease in diagnosed cases of autism following japan’s removal of the administration of the mmr vaccine. this study was very helpful in showing the effects of the withdrawal of the vaccine from an entire population with regard to the incidence of autism cases. the mmr vaccine cannot be attributed to the many children in japan who were diagnosed with autism who “were born and grew up in the era when mmr was not available” (honda et al., 2005 p. 578). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2012 it is important to note that the frequency of children diagnosed with autism during this period was comparable to the frequency of other nations where children diagnosed with autism received the mmr vaccination. according to the study, “this frequency is at least as high as populations of other countries in which most children were vaccinated; it implies that mmr could not cause a substantial proportion of cases of autism” (honda et al., 2005 p. 576). this study proves that failure to provide important vaccinations to children will not result in lower diagnosed cases of autism. if the mmr vaccine is responsible for autism spectrum disorders, then it stands to reason that the number of cases of autism would be significantly higher in societies where children are receiving the vaccine. in yokohama, japan, the cases of autism would have been expected to increase after the vaccination program was introduced and decrease after the program was ended, but that was clearly not the case. as uchiyama (2007) states, “if the mmr vaccination is related to ‘regressive autism,’ regression in the development of children with autism should be more common in the mmr generation than in the preand post-mmr generations” (p. 215). the following graph from coghlan (2005) depicts diagnosed cases of autism in california and yokohama in relation to the vaccine: it is helpful to note that the japanese mmr immunization program was terminated prior to the time period when the wakefield hypothesis was made public and exploited by the media worldwide. the yokohama study concluded that, “the mmr vaccination is most a current look at the mmr and autism crisis middle tennessee state university 9 unlikely to be a main cause of asd, that it cannot explain the rise over time in the incidence of asd, and that withdrawal of mmr in countries where it is still being used cannot be expected to lead to a reduction in the incidence of asd” (honda, et al., 2005 p. 577). what can be learned from the japanese study is that the removal of mmr cannot be expected to reduce the cases of autism. simply terminating the mmr vaccine will not lead to a decrease in autism or other pervasive developmental disorders, but it could unfortunately lead to a serious outbreak of measles, mumps, or rubella. an outbreak could lead to a worldwide epidemic, and an epidemic is obviously far more serious and life threatening to multitudes of human lives. in the time before measles vaccination, the us reported three to four million measles cases each year, resulting in thousands of deaths (meissner et al., 2004). since the mmr vaccination program was introduced in 1963, the number of measles cases has dropped 98%. measles infection accounts for almost half of the 1.6 million fatalities that are a result of diseases that could be prevented by proper vaccinations. it is estimated that approximately thirty-one million cases of the measles virus are contracted each year in third world countries (meissner et al., 2004). in 2001, the world health organization reported 745,000 fatalities that occurred in children younger than fifteen years old (meissner et al., 2004). this was tragically a direct result of low measles vaccination rates. meissner and his colleagues (2004) state that: on a global basis, 98% of all deaths as a result of complications of measles occur in countries where malnutrition, especially vitamin a deficiency, is common. . . .the effectiveness of a comprehensive measles immunization program on disease elimination is so profound that it is appropriate to consider the possibility of global measles eradication and how obstacles to that objective might be overcome (p. 1067). in the us, certain states allow parents the option of becoming immunization exemptors. this means that the individual has the right to choose not to become immunized based on medical, religious, or philosophical grounds. this is believed to cause an increased risk to children who do not receive proper and timely immunizations. according to meissner et al. (2004) “among unvaccinated school-aged children (three to ten years of age), the risk of measles was sixty-two times greater than among properly vaccinated students” (p. 1167). the following graphs show a strong correlation between mmr immunization levels and diagnosed cases of measles. it clearly shows a decrease in the percentage of children being vaccinated and an increase in measles cases after the release of the wakefield hypothesis: scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 10 spring 2012 as the number of parents who choose to keep their children unvaccinated increases, the possibility of others in a community contracting the measles virus also increases due to a greater possibility of exposure to the virus. the decision not to receive proper vaccinations from contagious diseases can have an impact on other people in the community as well. lack of an individual’s vaccination can place many other people at a very serious risk, particularly people who may be more vulnerable, such as infants, the elderly and immunocompromised individuals (meissner et al., 2004). not only is abstaining from vaccinations an important issue, but the effectiveness of the vaccine itself is a topic of concern. while the number of reported cases of measles, mumps, and rubella has been greatly reduced, the effectiveness of the vaccine is still in question. according to the cdc, “measles transmission has been clearly documented among vaccinated persons. in some large outbreaks . . . over 95 percent of cases have a history of vaccination” (honey, 2008 p.1586). this basically means that just because individuals are vaccinated, does not necessarily mean that they will not contract the disease. the mmr vaccine does not necessarily offer a permanent immunity, and measles outbreaks somtimes still continue to occur in vaccinated populations (cook, 2004). due to a resurgence of measles outbreaks among children that had previously been vaccinated, the american academy of pediatrics and the advisory committee on immunization practices began recommending two doses of the mmr vaccine instead of just one. it is for this reason that it is recommended that children receive their first mmr vaccination at one year of age and the second vaccination at four years of age. in the united kingdom, it is a current look at the mmr and autism crisis middle tennessee state university 11 estimated that about two in four children have not received their second mmr vaccination (meissner, et al., 2004). it is critical to realize that vaccines are intended to prevent diseases–not to treat them. in the united kingdom, it is important to note the proportional parallel between the lower number of children that have received the mmr vaccination and the greater number of diagnosed measles cases. the amount of measles cases increased from fifty-six cases in 1998 to 971 cases in 2007 (honey, 2008). in a recent measles outbreak in california, nine out of the twelve children that had contracted the measles virus had not received their childhood vaccination against the disease, and the three other children were not yet old enough to receive their vaccination (honey, 2008). it has been well documented that public concerns regarding the safety of vaccinations may result in fewer people receiving vaccination. lower vaccination rates would ultimately lead to disease outbreaks, and money that could be spent on important autism research would be spent healing nations of preventable diseases. while many countries allow individuals to choose whether or not to immunize their children against contagious diseases, if the unvaccinated children contracts the disease, it may spread to others that do not have immunity, resulting in a possible epidemic. when individuals choose to remain unvaccinated against highly contagious and lifethreatening diseases, they inevitably jeopardize entire populations and waste valuable resources that could be used in a more productive manner, such as neurological disorder research. the us currently spends approximately forty-five million dollars each year for the mmr vaccine. it is “estimated that 1.5 billion is spent annually on treatment and prevention of measles worldwide” (meissner et al., 2004, p. 1068). there is always an element of risk involved when taking any type of medication or vaccination, and there is also a risk attached to the decision not to vaccinate against diseases. the wakefield hypothesis that originally suggested the possible link between the mmr vaccine and autism is theoretically possible but is based on weak evidence. it is true that autism is on the rise, but there is no scientifically proven and absolute explanation for this increase. the mmr vaccine is a vital part of controlling diseases that cause a considerable amount of hospitalization and death and should be taken very seriously when considering the outcome of having a child vaccinated or allowing them to remain non-vaccinated and vulnerable. wakefield’s hypothesis seems to have been counterproductive, but in reality, it has actually created a much-needed and long overdue opportunity for better funding and research for vaccinations and neurological disorders, such as autism. parents can be assured by strong, scientific evidence that there is very little reliable information to support any connection between the mmr vaccine and autism, and refraining from vaccination may lead to a large measles outbreak and the easily avoidable and untimely tragic deaths of millions. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 12 spring 2012 references autism in the absence of mmr vaccine [graph] bandolier, retrieved july 10, 2011, from http://www. medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/vaccines/nommr.html croen, l. a., hansen r., hertz-picciotto, i., jones, c. r., pessah, i. n. & van de water, j. (2006). the charge study: an epidemiologic investigation of genetic and environmental factors contributing to autism. environmental health perspectives, 114:7, 1119-1124. cook, c., fombonne, e., hall, a. j., heavey, l., rodrigues, l. c., smeeth, l., et al. (2004). mmr vaccination and pervasive developmental disorders: a case-control study. the lancet, 364, 963-969. coghlan, a. (2005). mmr and autism [graph]. in new scientist health, retrieved july 3, 2011, from http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7076-autism-rises-despite-mmr-ban-in-japan.html honda, h., rutter, m., & shimizu, y. (2005). no effect of mmr withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 46:6, 572–579. honey, k. (2008). attention focuses on autism. the journal of clinical investigation, 118:5, 1586-1587. meissner, c. h., md, orenstein, w. a., md, & strebel p. m., md. (2004). measles vaccines and the potential for worldwide eradication of measles. pediatrics, 114:4, 1065–1069. miller, l., md., & reynolds, j., rn. (2009) autism and vaccination-the current evidence. journal for specialists in pediatric nursing, 14:3, 166-171. mmr immunisation level [graph] in left brain right brain, retrieved july 10, 2011 from http:// leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2008/11/measles-rising-thanks-to-mmrautism-idiots/ parker, s. k., md, schwartz, b., md, todd, j., md, & pickering, l. k., md. (2004). thimerosalcontaining vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder: a critical review of published original data. pediatrics ,114:3, 793-802. purssell, e. (2004). exploring the evidence surrounding the debate on mmr and autism. british journal of nursing,13:14, 834-838 taylor, b. (2006). vaccines and the changing epidemiology of autism. child: care, health and development, 32:5, 511–519. uchiyama, t., kurosawa, m., & inaba, y. (2007). mmr-vaccine and regression in autism spectrum disorders: negative results presented from japan. journal of autism and developmental disorders, 37, 210-217. yearly measles cases [graph] in left brain right brain, retrieved july 10, 2011 from http:// leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2008/11/measles-rising-thanks-to-mmrautism-idiots/ middle tennessee state university 51 augustine’s confessions: symbolism in autobiography mike smith abstract some scholars have criticized augustine’s confessions for lacking structure. in this paper scenes from augustine’s life depicted in confessions are analyzed allegorically in order to better understand what his intention may have been as an author. augustine was a talented writer and it is worth considering that he was aware that confessions may have had less impact had it been written in a more straightforward autobiographical style. 52 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in confessions, the narrator describes his secular journey towards a spiritual life, told from the point of view of a middle-aged augustine. in his recollections, augustine describes his past, having formerly embraced scholarly pursuits while mocking christianity–which starkly contrasts his situation at the time of publication, when he was living as a catholic bishop devoted to theology. henry chadwick discusses augustine’s view of “the acquisition of mental skills” as toil worse than that of a manual laborer (69). at the same time, peter brown suggests that augustine regarded his past “as a training for his present career” (162). brown also discusses the appropriateness of augustine’s travels as metaphors for his spiritual journey (38). this dualistic view of his life before his conversion to christianity presents the idea that augustine selected–and perhaps modified–aspects of his autobiography for literary effect. book ii presents one of the most memorable scenes in confessions, in which augustine recounts an episode from his youth when he, with a group of friends, stole pears from a tree. he tells us that he did not steal the pears out of a desire for the pears themselves, as he had access to better pears at home and threw most of the stolen pears to pigs, but that he did so simply for the thrill of doing something he knew he should not. later, augustine writes that the motivation for the theft was a desire to commit the crime with a group–a need for companionship (34). james o’donnell suggests that the analogy of comparing the theft of the pears with the fruit eaten by adam in the garden of eden is intended by augustine, to some degree (88). while augustine would argue against the doctrine of an “age of accountability,” as he believed all people to be born into sin, augustine’s age at the time of the crime–around sixteen years old–coincides with passages in which his father makes reference to augustine reaching sexual maturity, suggesting that the pear tree incident signals augustine’s entry into adulthood and the onset of his own manifestation of original sin (26). augustine also details his time with the manicheans in confessions. this passage was certainly included in response to contemporary critics accusing him of maintaining some manichean doctrines in his personal beliefs and christian writings (wetzel 52). one would imagine that, in light of these attacks, augustine would have preferred to minimize his discussion of his knowledge of manichean beliefs and rituals, yet he demonstrates the same frankness and openness here as he does in the rest of his work. augustine discusses the practices of the hearers and the elect. in augustine’s account, the hearers were responsible for picking fruit for the elect, who were prohibited from doing so themselves. in doing so, the digestive processes of the elect would permit bits of the divine to be freed from the fruit. this is a fairly specific description of a manichean practice, which may be cause for consideration as to why augustine would have included it. rather than avoiding manicheism, he discusses its mythology in detail–perhaps for literary effect. if one accepts that augustine employed a literary aspect in his writings, one may conclude that his intent was twofold. by speaking scornfully of the manicheans, augustine distanced himself from them, but this description of these practices is open to interpretation as symbolism. consistent with his earlier use of the pear as a symbol for original sin, in augustines’s ‘confessions’: symbolism in autobiography middle tennessee state university 53 this scenario, one could interpret the events as the diet of the elect consisting primarily of sin, gathered for them by their followers. this seems to be a staunch denunciation of the manicheans as heretics who–by denying responsibility for sin–choose instead to gorge themselves with it. the final mention of fruit comes during the climactic moments beneath the fig tree at the garden in milan. this fig tree is thought by many to represent allegorically the garden of eden’s tree of life–in contrast to the aforementioned pear tree’s possible representation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (ferrari 240). this dual imagery creates a circuitous effect, reminding the reader of augustine’s beginnings at the pear tree and his journey back, and it further supports the notion of his use of symbolism and literary techniques, opening the door for the consideration of potential symbolism surrounding other events in his life. in 372, augustine’s unnamed concubine bore him a son, adeodatus. the latin meaning of this name is “gift from god,” which potentially holds significance. brown summarizes augustine’s feelings about the boy by describing the awe which he felt regarding his son’s intelligence as well as his sentiment following his son’s death that he could take credit for no part of him but the sin that created him(61). it is possible that augustine left the mother of his son unnamed because of the shame he felt in consorting with her, but the possibility also remains that he believed that naming her may have appeared to be an effort to share the blame for their shared lust. his son played little part in augustine’s biography, other than sharing in conversations augustine had with his peers and having been baptized along with augustine and alypius. one could speculate that adeodatus appears in confessions only to symbolize the way in which augustine felt trapped by his sexual desires. the boy and his mother travelled with augustine from carthage to rome, and then to milan–just as the burden of lust that augustine came to recognize in africa remained with him until his conversion in milan. shortly after arriving in milan, augustine dismissed the woman in order to pursue an arranged marriage, which he hoped would help him to achieve an appointment to public office. the boy stayed in milan with his father. if viewing augustine’s life from a literary standpoint, his decision to discuss these details may suggest that although he has rid himself of the object of his lust, his urges remain, immediately finding a new mistress; furthermore, the consequence of his sin is still present–adeodatus. in describing his love for his son, augustine could be speaking in the same vein in which he does when discussing how his secular life has been a gift from god, preparing him for his ascetic life. when discussing the spiritual issues preceding his conversion in milan with his friends alypius and nebridius, augustine often notes that his son is present. this may represent that augustine is weighed down not only by his continuing physical lusts, but also by the awareness of his past transgressions, which pose an obstacle for him when he tries to achieve the level of purity that he believes to be a prerequisite for his conversion. in 390–within three years of the baptism augustine shared with his son and friend– adeodatus died. the death of his son may have seemed significant to augustine not only 54 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in the way it would be significant to any father, but also as a representation of how he had begun shedding the artifacts of his secular life. adeodatus’s age in 390 would have been nearly eighteen–close to the age at which augustine and his mother conceived him. augustine may have seen the death of his son as a representation of the death of his own, former self. this idea brings us back to the argument that augustine felt that his secular years acted as training for his life in the church. if augustine used both fruit and his son as metaphors for his own spiritual journey, it is possible that his actual physical journey served as an analogy in this same fashion. augustine was born in 354 in thagaste to patricius–a pagan–and monica–a catholic. already, we see a choice laid out before him. thagaste itself may hold symbolism, as well, given that citizens of the european regions viewed northern africa as remote, backwards, and unsophisticated–as an empire might view a remote colony (brown 24). these views suggest a physical distance from the italian cities of wealth, scholarship, and philosophy. by corollary, this simpler region might be more amenable to the ascetic life augustine would eventually adopt. thagaste as the scene of the pear tree theft and the death of a close childhood friend whose baptism he mocks can be seen to represent his origins. the events that led augustine to leave thagaste might be viewed as the debased triggers which launched his sinful life. augustine’s mother was a virtuous catholic woman, a point which augustine acknowledges throughout the work. a recurring theme in confessions is monica’s desire to see her son converted and baptized. augustine himself begged for this baptism at an early age when he fell sick, though monica hesitated as she feared that if he were to live through the illness that the baptism would be for nothing, as the sins of adolescence and later life would be inevitable. if augustine’s mother represents piety and the catholic church to him, this attitude regarding baptism–although common at the time–may be seen as foreshadowing his secular lifestyle. augustine left thagaste, his birthplace and home of his mother, to travel to carthage in order to study and, eventually, to teach rhetoric. the students here were wild and undisciplined, vandalizing the campus at which augustine taught. he might have seen some of himself in this unrestrained youth. he described his ambitions in this regard to have been fuelled primarily by greed and a desire for recognition. his research brought him to read cicero’s hortensius, which instilled in him a desire to study rhetoric. augustine says that he “wanted to distinguish [him]self as an orator for a damnable and conceited purpose, namely delight in human vanity” (38). these ambitions and studies would plot the course of his secular life until his conversion. this city is also where he met the mother of his son and where adeodatus was born. this union represents not a commitment to the woman but a commitment to his lustful urges. the benefit of her companionship is only described by augustine as having been an outlet for his carnal desires. augustine would cultivate this vice throughout his travels. similarly, adeodatus and his mother accompanied augustine in these same travels to rome and milan, as previously mentioned. augustines’s ‘confessions’: symbolism in autobiography middle tennessee state university 55 while in carthage, augustine also developed an interest in theater, which he might later believe to epitomize the path away from truth. he said that his favorite indulgence was tragedy, and that the sadder a production could make him feel, the more he loved it. he confesses that he loved suffering and sought out opportunities for suffering in his own life. he was “glad to be in bondage, tied with troublesome chains, and with the result that [he] was flogged with the red-hot iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and contention” (35). he describes this in contrast to an inner longing to seek the truth, which fits with his eventual theories of predestination, in that as a sinner, he was free only to sin (wetzel 55). additionally, carthage served as the scene of augustine’s introduction and conversion to the manichean faith. when monica heard about his conversion, she told augustine that he was no longer welcome in her home, until a later vision prompted her to reconcile with her son. the pursuit of manichean studies represents augustine’s embarkation into a lifestyle that would pull him away from the truth he will eventually find in the catholic church, as it also initially caused him to be pulled away from the catholic faith of his mother. in seeking truth and understanding, augustine also began to study astrology around this time, a practice he would later denounce. these false spiritual pursuits not only represent a lack of movement towards god but also a movement away from the catholic church. the sum of his time in carthage, where he spent nine years, ignited the interests that drove him to strive for empty goals and to sate material and physical desires. in this way, augustine changes from the young boy begging his mother for baptismal rites to a young man interested only in the fulfillment of earthly desires and ambitions. at this point, augustine’s frustration with his carthaginian students led him to leave for rome. he did not tell his mother, but, following the death of his father, she found out and followed him, still anxious to aid his spiritual health. the secrecy surrounding his journey suggests not only a lack of willingness to accept the catholic faith but also a willful escape from it. in rome, augustine hoped to find more civilized students, but he had difficulty collecting the fees for his classes. his secular pursuits were not providing him with an adequate means to support himself–a parallel to the lack of provision for his spiritual well-being. additionally, shortly after arriving in rome, he fell ill, mirroring the spiritual sickness he would soon feel as a result of the roman climate. augustine personally linked the illness that befell him in rome with what he perceived as a desertion of monica (brown 69). he felt disappointed by the manners of the romans and the way in which his students avoided paying him. rome came to symbolize the less virtuous aspects of his profession. the application of skill as a rhetor in rome was primarily to win cases in a court of law, with no care paid to whether one was espousing fact or fiction. in this way, augustine describes in confessions that he feels that he is not only guilty of dishonesty through his own actions but also through aiding others to perpetrate it. “overcome by greed [him]self, [he] used to sell the eloquence that would overcome an opponent” (53). spiritually, augustine had all but abandoned his interest in manicheism by this point, but he had not yet replaced it with anything better. socially, he had attracted the attention of symmachus, prefect of rome and prominent pagan; he was also the cousin of 56 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ambrose, who would be central to augustine’s future conversion. symmachus eventually helped augustine to secure a prestigious teaching position in milan. in this way, rome marked a milestone in the life of augustine. at this time, he was in the middle of drifting away from his manichean faith as well as his profession as a simple professor, as the new appointment in milan would come with many of the responsibilities and benefits of a public office. it is clear, in retrospect, that augustine would have recognized the irony in being helped to the position from which he eventually would find his way to christianity through the inadvertent aid of a pagan, namely symmachus (brown 70). after augustine had left for milan, monica arrived in rome to discover that her son was already gone, and she continued on to milan after him. in milan, augustine had the dubious honor of preparing a panegyric publicly to praise the emperor, valentinian ii. this opportunity represented his success in his profession and the promise of future rewards, such as social connections that would further his career ambitions. despite these reasons for happiness, augustine found himself embroiled in inner turmoil, troubled by the knowledge that his “mendacity would win the good opinion of people who knew it to be untrue.” augustine identifies an episode in which he encountered a beggar in the street, through which was “made . . . conscious of [his] misery.” he questioned how much happiness the grandeur of public office could bring him compared to the simple pleasures enjoyed by a drunken man offering well-wishes to passersby. he lamented to his friends that “what [the beggar] had gained with a few coins, obtained by begging . . . is the cheerfulness of temporal felicity [which augustine] was going about to reach by painfully twisted and roundabout ways” (97). as the pear tree incident marked augustine’s descent into sin, the internal struggle brought about by the brush with the beggar denotes his departure from secular ambitions. augustine eventually left the manichean faith and began to associate with the academics. while he spent some time dabbling in their skepticism, he also pursued neoplatonism, the principles of which would ease his transition into christianity. these neoplatonic texts described many of the tenets of christianity, except for the death of christ (122). during his time in milan, he came to know ambrose, the bishop of milan. augustine was initially drawn to ambrose because of his skill as an orator; however, ambrose would become instrumental in assisting augustine to understand the old testament in an allegorical sense. augustine’s acceptance of christianity hinging on the use of allegory and symbolism suggests that the importance placed on these tools might have led to his own adoption of them in his own writings. augustine speaks earlier in confessions–while he is pursuing scholarly understanding of the truth–of his envy of the man who can blindly accept the faith. he comes to justify faith, comfort and acceptance in the absence of knowledge, in saying “i realized how unmoveably sure i was about the identity of my parents from whom i came, which i could not known unless i believed what i had heard” (95). monica also had arrived in milan by this time and had been similarly moved by ambrose, suggesting that, symbolically, the teachings and interpretations of ambrose did not differ from monica’s own, in essence, confirming the idea of the universality of the catholic church. monica’s augustines’s ‘confessions’: symbolism in autobiography middle tennessee state university 57 devotion to ambrose also mirrors augustine’s own admiration of the man. “she loved that man as an angel of god” (91). additionally, these two characters may have been contrasted in order to draw attention to ambrose’s more scholarly and sophisticated understanding and interpretation of faith and scripture and monica’s humbler, blinder type of devotion. to place both of these characters together in harmony represents the unification of augustine’s secular and spiritual desires. as augustine became drawn into the christian faith, he began to reject the secular aspects of his life. although he longed to resign from his academic post, augustine felt that he had to continue until he had an excuse to leave, fearing he might draw undue attention to himself. augustine continued to occupy this office until his conversion, leaving at that time because of what he considered to be fortunately timed health problems, “pleased that [his] indisposition was a genuine excuse” (157). in this way his physical health declined as he improved his spiritual health. he also continued to grapple with his carnal urges, trying to cleanse himself so that he might be worthy of converting to his new faith. it is not until the garden scene beneath the fig tree that augustine came to the realization that he did not need to achieve perfection prior to pursuing his faith; in contrast, he could pursue perfection through his faith. both adeodatus and monica passed away within a few years of his baptism by ambrose, but the deaths are recounted in close proximity to augustine’s baptism in the text of confessions, which may support the argument for adeodatus as a symbol of augustine’s own youth. monica initially stated that she would like to be buried with patricius, furthering her christian devotion to her marriage. on her deathbed, however, she tells augustine that she is satisfied with her life, having seen his conversion, telling him, “bury my body anywhere you like. let no anxiety about that disturb you. i have only one request to make of you, that you remember me at the altar of the lord, wherever you may be” (173). monica’s remains are interred in ostia. augustine, too, returned to africa, taking a religious post in hippo, where he eventually became bishop. hippo is geographically close to thagaste within one hundred kilometers which may have caused augustine to consider the two places–or the region of his birth as a whole–to represent the same values. at this point, his travels have brought him full circle, back to the place of his birth, a much-changed man. the chance exists that augustine saw this evolution himself, recognizing the allegorical significance of his own journeys. while he was moving away from christianity and then back towards it spiritually, he was moving toward his secular goals and then away from them physically. this contrast fits with the duality between mind and body, which augustine discusses in his doctrine. in retrospect, the journey to carthage and the time augustine spent there represent the largest lapses in spirituality for augustine, as it was during this period that he delved into manicheism and astrology. he also took a concubine and fathered a child. after this, he travelled to rome to advance his career and to pursue acclaim for his skill in rhetoric. when he arrived in rome, however, he found it to be less than he expected, representing the dead-end path of secular goals. at the same time, he continued to associate with the manicheans–though he soon began to distance himself from them. augustine may have 58 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research used this account of his time in rome in confessions to foreshadow his change of heart in milan, where he began to pursue christianity and attempted to end his secular career. with his baptism and conversion, augustine had finally reached the goal of spiritual fulfillment that had nagged him all along. the return to africa symbolizes a return to simpler times for augustine, as his childhood in thagaste was one in which he accepted christian faith through his mother. additionally, if africa is to be seen as the augustine’s “origin,” his return to this area may represent the neo-platonic belief that the soul strives to return to its source to achieve unity. augustine was a brilliant and complicated man, though confessions draws criticism from some scholars for its lack of structure (mcmahon 2). perhaps what critics view as a haphazard string of anecdotes interspersed with prayer is an effort to bring the symbolic aspects of his life into focus, using them as a literary tool rather than the convoluted ramblings of a man in the rapture of devotion. augustine was very well educated, and the allegorical interpretations, which were introduced to him by ambrose, clearly had an effect upon him. for these reasons, it should be considered that augustine may have attempted to incorporate this same type of allegory when describing his own past. augustines’s ‘confessions’: symbolism in autobiography middle tennessee state university 59 works cited augustine. confessions. trans. henry chadwick. new york: oxford university press, 1998. print. brown, peter. augustine of hippo. london: faber & faber, 1967. print. chadwick, henry. augustine. oxford: oxford university press, 1986. print. ferrari, l. c. “the pear-theft in augustine’s ‘confessions.’” revue des études augustiniennes 15 (1970): 75-112. print. mcmahon, robert. augustine’s prayerful ascent. athens: the university of georgia press, 1989. print. o’donnell, james j. augustine. boston: twayne publishers, 1985. print. wetzel, james. “predestination, pelagianism, and foreknowledge.” the cambridge companion to augustine. ed. eleonore stump and norman kretzmann. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001. 49-58. print. middle tennessee state university 39 history day at middle tennessee state university matthew hibdon abstract middle tennessee state university has educated thousands of people since its founding in 1911. in addition to its focus on academic courses for collegiate students, the university has sponsored several programs that educate people throughout murfreesboro and the surrounding communities. there is a rich history of history competitions on our campus that dates back to 1971. in 1974, national history day was founded. middle tennessee state university has a long history with this competition from its beginnings in tennessee up until the present day. this essay investigates the university’s commitment to supporting history education programs since the 1970s 40 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the national history day contest at middle tennessee state university has affected many students’ lives since its creation in 1974. national history day is an educational competition in which students create historical projects based upon the contest theme, which changes annually. students compete in two divisions that are judged separately at all levels of competition. the junior division is for sixth through eighth graders, and the senior division is for ninth through twelfth graders. the students are then divided as to whether their project is an individual project or a group project of two to five students. the eight categories in which students can compete include: “paper (individual only), individual exhibit, group exhibit, individual performance, group performance, individual documentary, group documentary, [and] website (individual and group combined).” entries in every category other than papers must include three copies of the title page, process paper, and annotated bibliography to give to the judges.1 these basic rules serve as the structure of the competition. with the profound impact national history day has had on so many students, one question comes to mind: how did it get started? national history day is much more than a simple history contest and has a history all of its own. dr. cathy gorn, executive director of national history day, has many years of experience with the program because of her time spent as a graduate student at case western reserve university in cleveland, ohio. gorn explains the creation of this educational phenomenon in an interview with journalist stephen goode. as gorn noted, “basically, it was a group of historians sitting at lunch one day, lamenting the devalued nature of the humanities in general and of history in particular. . . . they decided that the students could write a paper or do a tabletop exhibit on a subject from history, and they had 129 kids in the cleveland area participate in the first year.”2 the leader of this group of pioneering educators was david van tassel, who later served as gorn’s mentor and dissertation advisor.3 the first year’s contest that gorn referred to happened on may 11, 1974 at the western reserve historical society and case western reserve university and focused on the topic of “ohio and the promise of the american revolution.”4 van tassel had perfect timing by starting the contest a few years before america’s bicentennial celebration in 1976. the growing interest in the country’s history at this time and the allure of a new history contest surely contributed greatly to the success of history day. the program continued to grow and finally caught its first big break in 1979. the history day program was “incorporated into a nonprofit organization under the name national history day, inc.”5 the event that signified national history day’s major success happened the following year. in 1980, nineteen states participated in the first national 1 national history day, inc., contest rule book revised 2009/2010 (clarksville, tn: jostens, 2008), 6-9. 2 stephen goode, “gorn helps make history come alive,” insight on the news, (october 15, 2002): 1-3. 3 kathy gorn, “a tribute to a founding father: david van tassel and national history day,” history cooperative (february 2001): 4. 4 kathy gorn, “building interest in studying history,” oah magazine (april 1985): 14. 5 david d. van tassel, encyclopedia of cleveland history, s.v. “national history day, inc.” history day at middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 41 contest that was held at georgetown university in washington, d.c.6 this increase in participation continued, and the contest had to be moved to its current home. the national contest is now held at the university of maryland at college park every year in june.7 on june 15-18, 1983, more than fourteen hundred participants gathered for the national contest.8 the large number of participants in the national contest only reflected a portion of the students who were competing across the nation by the mid-1980s. in 1984, participation skyrocketed nationwide with one hundred and fifty thousand students from 43 states competing in the contest.9 the growth the contest had in its first ten years is mindboggling and clearly showed that national history day was there to stay. during its existence, national history day, inc. has only had three different executive directors. the first executive director, dr. lois scharf, served from 1979 to 1992, dr. gordon mckinney served from 1992-1995, and dr. cathy gorn, the present executive director, has served since 1995.10 sponsorship for the contest has grown over the years and now includes two major sponsors, jostens and the history channel.11 several presidential libraries became district or state sponsors for national history day in the 1990s, such as the eisenhower library, the johnson library, and the truman museum and library.12 sponsorships like these greatly benefited the program and allowed it to continue to grow. in 2000, tragedy struck at the heart of national history day when its founder, david van tassel, passed away. that year’s national contest happened not too long after his death and an astounding 2,112 students from all fifty states competed.13 if this participation boost was not tribute enough to van tassel, the number of students who competed the next year definitely was. according to an article by michael simpson and steven s. lapham, “in the 2000-2001 school year, more than 700,000 students and 40,000 teachers participated in the contest at the district, state, or national level.”14 history competitions like this are vital to students’ success in studying and comprehending history. national history day’s continued growth and longevity over the years are testament to the great importance of the program. van tassel’s brilliant idea in 1974 has grown into a wonderful program that reaches many students each year; however, he was not the first person in the 1970s to organize a 6 ibid. 7 national history day, inc., contest rule book revised 2009/2010 (clarksville, tn: jostens, 2008), 4. 8 lois scharf and pamela zoslov, “national history day: a learning experience for students and teachers,” the history teacher (november 1983): 89. 9 david wallace adams and marvin pasch, “the past as experience: a qualitative assessment of national history day,” the history teacher (1987): 179. 10 david d. van tassel, encyclopedia of cleveland history, s.v. “national history day, inc.” 11 national history day, inc., contest rule book revised 2009/2010 (clarksville, tn: jostens, 2008), 27. 12 lee ann potter, “education programs in the presidential libraries: a report from the field,” the public historian (2006): 134-135. 13 david d. van tassel, encyclopedia of cleveland history, s.v. “van tassel, david d.” 14 michael simpson and steven s. lapham, “nhd national history day,” social education (september 2001): 320. 42 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research history competition for students. in fact, one such contest happened at middle tennessee state university in murfreesboro, tennessee. the tennessee blue book 1973-1974 provided facts about middle tennessee state university from that year and noted that, “the campus serves as the site for volunteer girls state, the aerospace workshop, the summer institute for teachers of united states history, the national science and mathematics institute, and a variety of professional workshops, conferences, symposiums, and athletic tournaments.”15 although this list includes a mention of a program for history teachers, it does not include a campus event that was started a few years earlier by the middle tennessee state university history department. according to dr. fred colvin, in the late 1960s, dr. james huhta contacted local schools about promoting the study of history and created the tennessee congress of american history teachers. the purpose of this organization was to “create a type of contest to recognize achievements of good history students in local high schools and provide opportunities for teachers themselves to further their own knowledge and expertise through various activities.”16 one of those “various activities” was the creation of the history department’s own competition through a history test. in 1971, dr. colvin and dr. robert jones developed the test that covered american history. it was a multiple-choice test consisting of about 100 questions and included an essay portion for the students to complete. the test was revised every three to four years, and eventually, a second test about western civilization was added. the contest was held the week after final exams at middle tennessee state university each spring while the participating schools were still in session. students would pre-register for the contest and check-in that morning. they then went to room 221 of the ned mcwherter learning resource center, where the test and essay were administered at 10:00 and lasted until 12:00. while the students were testing, teachers were treated to educational workshops taught by members of the history department. because of time constraints and the large number of participants, the students’ essays were not graded unless it was to break a tie on the multiple choice test. at 2:00, everyone met for the awards ceremony. awards, in the form of certificates and plaques, were given to high-scoring individuals and groups of students.17 as dr. colvin said of the contest, “this provided the university–our department–a way to reach out to regional high schools.” the contest became fairly competitive among several schools including warren county, coffee county, tullahoma, mcgavok, franklin county, franklin high school, riverdale high school, lincoln county, and bradley county. several private schools entered the competition including webb school, memphis university school, baylor, saint cecilia, and mccallie.18 the contest grew in popularity, 15 joe c. carr, “tennessee blue book 1973-1974,” ed. rita a. whitfield, 1974. 16 fred colvin, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, february 25, 2010. 17 ibid; according to dr. haskell greer, a teacher from warren county, over time, two versions of each test were created, one for advanced placement students and one for regular students (haskell greer, interview by author, mcminnville, tennessee, march 24, 2010). 18 fred colvin, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, february 25, 2010. history day at middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 43 and 276 students from 21 area high schools competed in 1989.19 unfortunately, in the mid-1990s, dr. jones moved to an administrative job with student affairs, and dr. colvin decided to take a hiatus from the contest in the false hopes that someone would take its place. although the contest served as a good recruiting device for the history department over the years, it came to an end.20 even though the history department’s history competition was short lived, it made way for the emergence of a new national history day competition at middle tennessee state university. although middle tennessee state university’s real success with national history day occurred within the past decade, the school’s involvement with the contest goes back to 1979. when tennessee students first competed in national history day, dr. robert jones was the editor of tennessee historical quarterly. in the spring 1981 edition of quarterly, jones wrote about national history day on the editor’s page. he said that in 1980, approximately 450 students competed in district competitions across tennessee. the district winners then competed in the state contest on a designated history day. those winners competed in at the first national national history day contest in washington, d.c. with 594 other students. in an even more impressive feat, three of those tennessee students placed first in the national contest that year. jones speculated that in 1981, tennessee could have as many as 750 students compete in seven district contests. he also wrote, “realizing the value of this program in fostering an interest in history in our young men and women, the tennessee historical commission lent its financial support to the endeavor last year and has increased its commitment this year. governor lamar alexander has given his endorsement, designating the date of the state competition, may 9, as history day and proclaiming that a ‘careful and thoughtful examination of our history’ provides ‘invaluable guidance’ in the ‘development of a strong and prosperous future for our state.’”21 dr. jim huhta and dr. ron messier–both from middle tennessee state university– were the first state directors for tennessee history day. they established the regional and state contests about which dr. jones wrote in the tennessee historical quarterly. dr. jerry brookshire was asked to become the state director for 1980-1981. he recalled his experiences as state director in an e-mail. brookshire wrote: basically, i managed by taking over an existing well-run organization. at that stage, we had an off-campus grant (probably from the national history day) of approximately ten thousand dollars. most of it was spent on the regions and their contests, some on the state contest held at mtsu, and a little left over on chartering a bus to take some of the state winners to the national contest held in washington, d.c. . . . i remember trying and failing to obtain outside funding for tennessee history day for the next year. during my period as state director, the key people were 19 “history competition,” mtsu history department newsletter, 1989. 20 fred colvin, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, february 25, 2010. 21 robert b. jones, “the editor’s page,” tennessee historical quarterly 40, no. 1 (spring 1981): 2. 44 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the regional directors or co-directors. . . . some were able to get modest outside funding for their regional contests. brookshire was only state director for one year. he stepped down due to time constraints and lack of assigned help from department staff and student workers. the position was then given to dr. david rowe. rowe only held the position for a short time because outside funds for the contest were depleting.22 with such success, support, and recognition in national history day’s first two years in tennessee, the next chapter of the contest’s history was quite shocking. dr. janann sherman was the former state coordinator for tennessee history day. in an e-mail, sherman wrote: the u[niversity] of m[emphis] sponsored the first west tennessee district competition in 1980. two years later, after the grant ran out, mtsu dropped history day and the district system, ostensibly established under the purview of mtsu with the assistance of that grant, collapsed. the u[niversity] of m[emphis] picked up tennessee history day rather than let it disappear altogether. for the next 20 years, the only history day in tennessee was the state competition hosted by the university of memphis. in 1999, i took over as coordinator and [was] determined to build a truly state-wide history day system. the districts were established and completed in time for the 2002 contest.23 sherman stated in another e-mail that while the state contest was held at the university of memphis before the redevelopment of the districts, that it only involved local memphis students.24 with such dramatic changes within the first few years of tennessee history day’s existence, the almost twenty-year stint in memphis provided stability for the contest. in addition to the competition she continued in memphis, sherman ultimately helped create three other district competitions within the state in chattanooga, knoxville, and murfreesboro. britt brantley, former executive director of the chattanooga regional history museum, explained to rebecca conard in an e-mail that before hosting the regional competition in chattanooga for national history day, the museum just had a history fair that mostly consisted of second through fourth graders competing.25 the first chattanooga regional history day was held at the chattanooga regional history center in 2002.26 east tennessee history day had its first competition on march 15, 2002, at the east tennessee history center with eighty-seven students competing that day. lisa oakley was in charge of organizing the event and wrote in the east tennessee history 22 jerry brookshire, e-mail message to author, may 2, 2010. 23 janann sherman, e-mail message to author, april 16, 2010. 24 janann sherman, e-mail message to author, march 26, 2010. 25 britt brantley, e-mail message to rebecca conard, february 26. 2003. 26 rebecca conard, “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition,” june 5, 2003: 2. history day at middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 45 day dispatch, “in 2003, the east tennessee historical society entered into a partnership with the university of tennessee’s department of history to co-sponsor east tennessee history day.” from 2002 to 2009, a total of 1,606 students took part in east tennessee history day.27 the other person that sherman recruited to her history day cause was dr. rebecca conard at middle tennessee state university. conard had previous experience as a judge at national history day at wichita state university.28 on february 5, 2001, sherman sent a letter to conard asking her to join the tennessee history day advisory committee.29 being on this committee got conard involved with the contest in tennessee, and later that spring, she was at a cocktail party where she was introduced to dr. cathy gorn.30 fortunately for conard, there was a school district in middle tennessee that had already been gearing up to compete at the state contest in 2001. according to an interview with sherman filmed at the 2001 state contest, there were 21 schools at the contest that year.31 thanks to the efforts of curriculum specialist judy butler and an assistant principle, tracy lamply, williamson county schools got involved in national history day, and the contest no longer included just memphis students. their labors proved fruitful, and almost 300 students competed in the county level contest in 2001.32 with the success of williamson county schools’ first competition in 2001, dr. conard sought to bring the contest to middle tennessee state university the following year. williamson county schools was willing to contribute $2,000 to the contest that year, and dr. conard asked for $1,500 from a mtsu public service grant on january 24, 2002.33 rosemary w. owens sent an on-campus memo to dr. conard on february 22, 2002, which stated that the public service committee approved $840.00 for the contest with the restriction that a formal evaluation must be done.34 with these funds in hand, the williamson county schools district competition for national history day was held at the keathley university center on march 8, 2002. thirty-eight judges and about 300 students were present for the contest. the students brought 119 total entries in the categories with 81 exhibits18 documentaries, ten performances, and ten papers. the total cost of the event was $4,500, which was covered by williamson county schools, the mtsu public service committee, the mtsu history department, and the office of the dean of the mtsu 27 william e. hardy and lisa n. oakley, east tennessee history day dispatch (summer 2009): 7. 28rebecca conard, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, march 26, 2010.; on september 3, 2009, the wichita state university history department posted this announcement on their website: “due to budget cuts at the state level, the department of history regretfully announces that there will be no history day at wsu in 2010” (robert m. owens, “history day 2010,” (september 3, 2009)). 29 janann sherman, letter to dr. rebecca conard, february 5, 2001. 30 rebecca conard, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, march 26, 2010. 31 “history day saturday, march 3, 2001, the university of memphis student center,” vhs. 2001. 32 rebecca conard, “public service grant application middle tennessee state university”: 2. 33 rebecca conard, “public service grant application middle tennessee state university”: 3. 34 rosemary w. owens, on-campus memo to dr. rebecca conard, february, 22, 2002. 46 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research college of liberal arts. the contest was well-received on campus, and dr. sidney mcphee, middle tennessee state university president, even attended the awards ceremony.35 dr. conard thought that by having middle tennessee state university host the regional competition, high-achieving students would be more exposed to the university and all it could offer to them.36 in an effort to establish middle tennessee state university as home to the regional competition, the history department and the dean of the college of liberal arts gave history day a budget.37 this budget came from what dr. conard called dr. thad smith’s “major and timely contribution” to history day. he went to the dean, dr. mcdaniel, and asked that he set aside a budget for the contest. the dean agreed to give annually $6,000 from his discretionary funds.38 in addition to this budget, the regional contest also received aid from the teaching american history grant. the grant sponsored teacher workshops until the fall of 2005 for “schools in the cumberland river valley consortium (bedford, cannon, coffee, marshall, maury, and warren counties).”39 also because of the partnership with teaching american history, perky beisel was assigned to help with history day at middle tennessee state university. beisel was the project assistant from teaching american history and provided much needed assistance for the contest.40 with the dedicated budget and help, the contest continued to grow and was spared the fate of the contest that was at middle tennessee state university in the early 1980s. on march 21, 2003, the first mtsu regional history day competition was held. twelve teachers came to the contest and brought with them 90 students, 82 of whom participated and 8 who were just there to observe. unfortunately, snow caused the event to be postponed so approximately thirty students withdrew. although the first regional contest experienced a decline in student participation, it was acceptable because it included students from more than just one county. 24 judges judged the entries that came from maury county schools, metro davidson county schools, rutherford county schools, warren county schools, and williamson county schools.41 by the next year, the contest grew tremendously in popularity. the second annual competition occurred on march 5, 35 rebecca conard, “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition,” june 5, 2003: 1-2. 36 rebecca conard, “public service grant application middle tennessee state university”: 2. 37 rebecca conard, “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition,” june 5, 2003: 2. 38 rebecca conard, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, march 26, 2010. 39rebecca conard, “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition,” june 5, 2003: 2.; note that two of the cumberland river valley consortium school systems (coffee and warren) were also two systems that participated in the mtsu history department’s old history competition. 40 rebecca conard, interview by author, murfreesboro, tn, march 26, 2010. 41 rebecca conard, “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition,” june 5, 2003: 2. history day at middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 47 2004. it attracted 283 students with 119 entries, 17 teachers, 38 judges, and 14 volunteers.42 middle tennessee state university has continued to host the middle tennessee regional history day, and numerous regional winners have gone onto the state and national contests. in 2008, the state competition gained a new sponsor, the tennessee historical society. the tennessee historical society hosted the event with financial support from the tennessee general assembly.43 when the state contest finally moved from the university of memphis to nashville, tennessee in 2009, 230 students competed.44 as national history day grows in popularity in tennessee and throughout the nation, it is important to stay proactive in seeking funding and new ways to help the program survive. all supporters of the program should be as bold as dr. cathy gorn when asking for help. on april 2, 2009, she spoke to the members of the tennessee state senate and said, “in the race for math and science education, history education has been left behind, and when we are talking about the future of democracy, we can’t allow that any longer. history day is filling the gap, and i hope you will help us do that.”45 although national history day was not the first history competition even at middle tennessee state university, it has had a positive and lasting impression on the lives of thousands of students. 42 judy butler and susan kuner ed.d., “mtsu regional history day competition march 5, 2004 evaluation report,” (2004): 3. 43 carroll van west, ed, “news from the ths: tennessee students compete for honors at national history day contest,” tennessee historical quarterly 68, no. 1 (spring 2009): 108. 44 william e. hardy and lisa n. oakley, east tennessee history day dispatch (summer 2009): 2. 45 william e. hardy and lisa n. oakley, east tennessee history day dispatch (summer 2009): 11. 48 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bibliography adams, david wallace, and marvin pasch. “the past as experience: a qualitative assessment of national history day.” the history teacher, 1987: 179-194. brantley, britt. “e-mail message to rebecca conard.” february 26, 2003. brookshire, jerry. “e-mail message to author.” may 2, 2010. butler, judy, and susan kuner ed.d. mtsu regional history day competition march 5, 2004 evaluation report. nashville, tn: dragonfly enterprises, 2004. carr, joe c. tennessee blue book 1973-1974. edited by rita a whitfield. 1974. colvin, fred. interview by matthew hibdon. februray 25, 2010. conard, rebecca. interview by matthew hibdon. march 26, 2010. —. “mtsu public service grant: project no. 230240, final report: national history day, mtsu competition.” june 5, 2003. —. “public service grant application middle tennessee state university.” january 24, 2002. goode, stephen. “gorn helps make history come alive.” general onefile. october 15, 2002. http:// find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do?&contentset=iac-documents&type=retrieve&tabid=t 003&prodid=itof&docid=a93457406&source=gale&srcprod=itof&usergroupname=tel_ middleten&version=1.0 (accessed february 3, 2010). gorn, cathy. “a tribute to a founding father: david van tassel and national history day.” history cooperative. february 2001. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/34.2/gorn.html (accessed february 11, 2010). —. “building interest in studying history.” oah magazine of history, april 1985: 14-15. greer, haskell. interview by matthew hibdon. (march 24, 2010). hardy, william e, and lisa n oakley. east tennessee history day dispatch. summer 2009. “history competition.” mtsu history department newsletter. murfreesboro, tn: mtsu printing services, 1989. history day saturday, march 3, 2001, the university of memphis student center. vhs. 2001. jones, robert b. “the editor’s page.” tennessee historical quarterly xl, no. 1 (spring 1981): 2. national history day, inc. contest rule book revised 2009/2010. clarksville, tn: jostens, 2008. owens, robert m. history day 2010. september 3, 2009. http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=history&p=/ historyday/ (accessed april 10, 2010). owens, rosemary w. “on-campus memo to dr. rebecca conard.” february 22, 2002. potter, lee ann. “education programs in the presidential libraries: a report from the field.” the public historian, 2006: 133-142. scharf, lois, and pamela zoslov. “national history day: a learning experience for students and teachers.” the history teacher, november 1983: 89-93. history day at middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 49 sherman, janann. “e-mail message to author.” march 26, 2010. —. “e-mail message to author.” april 16, 2010. —. “letter to dr. rebeca conard.” february 5, 2001. simpson, michael, and steven s lapham. “nhd national history day.” social education, sept 2001: 320. van tassel, david d. encyclopedia of cleveland history, s.v. “national history day, inc.” http://ech.cwru. edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=nhdi (accessed february 11, 2010). —. encyclopedia of cleveland history, s.v. “van tassel, david d.” http://ech.cwru.edu/ech-cgi/article. pl?id=vtdd (accessed february 11, 2010). van west, carroll, ed. “news from the ths: tennessee students compete for honors at national history day contest.” tennessee historical quarterly 68, no. 1 (spring 2009): 108. racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 1 contact hypothesis in context: household characteristics, community perception, and racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. amanda watson meredith dye, ph.d. and brian p. hinote, ph.d. abstract although overt racism has diminished, there remain vast racial and ethnic disparities in the united states. many households are isolated from these disparities simply by where they live. contact theory hypothesizes that under certain conditions, individual contact with minorities can decrease prejudice. using a nationally representative sample from the 2000 general social survey, this paper explores contact, residential segregation, and anti-minority prejudice in american households. we employ linear regression techniques to analyze the characteristics of white respondents in white households by perception of community composition, region, city size, education, and household type, to identify prejudice against minority groups. results indicate strong regional effects, with higher levels of prejudice in the south when compared to other regions. anti-hispanic prejudice is higher in the northeast than in the south. contact theory is not supported, except to show that the effect of more contact is greater on anti-black prejudice in the northeast than in the south. following prior research, education was associated with lower prejudice, and age exhibited a positive relationship with prejudice. we also discuss the general implications of our findings. scientia et humanitas 2 spring 2011 introduction the twenty-first century is a time of nearly unprecedented diversity when it comes to race and ethnicity in the united states (e.g., larsen, 2004; mckinnon, 2003; ramirez & de la cruz, 2002; reeves & bennett, 2003). as jeffrey dixon (2006) succinctly notes, “if the problem of the 20th century was that of the color line, then the problem of the 21st century is that of increasingly numerous color lines.” as a result, the character and quality of interactions among various racial and ethnic groups are of particular interest to sociologists. current demographic trends permit continued development in the area of social theory, but perhaps more importantly, there is also the opportunity to peer more deeply into important racial/ethnic issues facing us today, like immigration, prejudice, and many others. social science research emphasizes two contrasting theoretical backgrounds in analyzing the relationship between racial/ethnic composition and prejudice (ulrich et al., 2006). the first deals with social contact (see allport, 1954), while the second focuses on threat effects (see blalock, 1957). previous findings offer evidence both in support and in critique of these frameworks (see dixon, 2006), but more recent analyses (e.g., crisp & turner, 2009; pettigrew & tropp, 2008) focus current research efforts more and more upon the idea of social contact and its effects upon phenomena like prejudice and racism. this paper investigates racialand ethnic-based prejudices in non-hispanic white households, and examines the ways that contact with minorities affects prejudice in the united states. specifically, this research looks to disentangle prejudice against blacks, hispanics, and asians from the characteristics of residential segregation. while much research focuses on institutional discrimination, and prior research has shown that overt racism is in decline, the racial and ethnic disparities existing within the united states warrant further exploration ( johnson & jacobson, 2005). in addition, the recent election of the first african-american president in the u.s. has renewed public interest in race and has increased race and ethnic dialog in media outlets. immediately after the election of president barack obama, a gallup poll found that 67% of americans thought that a solution to relations between blacks and whites would eventually be worked out. this was the highest percentage gallup has measured on that particular question (gallup, 2008). while that is certainly positive news, we cannot so quickly dismiss the past or disregard the current situations of minorities in the u.s. in the 1950s, “white flight” allowed whites to flee urban neighborhoods, leaving behind blacks who did not have the same opportunities or life chances, thus increasing segregation. trends show that the black middle-class has recently increased in size, and although many of its members remain in the central city, some have begun moving into the suburbs. however, this does not necessarily translate into equality. research also indicates that blacks, even if they are in the middle-class, still tend to live in poorer neighborhoods than their white counterparts (logan, 2002). hispanic populations are rapidly expanding as well, along with hispanic presence within many communities. the pew hispanic center (2009) reports that the hispanic populations of the united states (nativeand foreign-born) represent fifty percent of the increase in population from 2000 to 2007. little research has investigated the effects of white nonracial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 3 hispanic and hispanic prejudice or contact (weaver, 2007). asians, on the other hand, are considered a ‘model minority’ and experience higher levels of integration within american society (gans, 1999). is there a basis for anti-minority prejudice in white households, since there is such a high level of residential segregation in the united states? and is prejudice mediated by the perception of a higher level of minority presence by the respondent within his or her community? these are questions of particular interest in this research. this study evaluates the assumptions and propositions of contact theory by looking at selected characteristics of non-hispanic white households in the united states (e.g., region, city size, family income, household type, and perception of community racial/ ethnic composition) to identify relationships between these characteristics and prejudice. anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice are analyzed separately for a more comprehensive study. this research seeks to uncover the extent to which anti-minority prejudice still exists among whites, and if the perception of community racial/ethnic composition affects that prejudice in any observable way. the research conducted here is important because we have not yet clarified the causes and correlates of residential segregation in u.s. society. doing so could feasibly inform future economic and social policies capable of addressing the causes persistent forms of residential segregation and prejudice. contact and residential segregation in considering solutions to racial/ethnic prejudice, allport (1954) hypothesizes that on an individual level, meaningful contact with another individual of a different race or ethnic group decreases prejudiced attitudes, further specifying that so-called ‘meaningful contact’ exhibits specific characteristics that must exist for the reduction in prejudice to occur. as johnson and jacobson (2005:388) explain, positive outcomes to social contact occur only (1) in cooperative events, (2) among participants of equal status, (3) between those who hold common goals, and (4) with those who have supportive authority. allport’s contact hypothesis has since been widely tested and is now recognized as a theory (pettigrew, 2008). however, is contact theory based on individuals without prejudice having more contact with minority individuals? pettigrew (2008), in a review of the literature, claims that this is not the case. as for residential segregation, allport (1954:263) notes that, “where segregation is the custom, contacts are casual, or else firmly frozen into superordinate-subordinate relationships.” this is negative contact, and the vast inequalities that exist as a result of dilapidated and segregated minority neighborhoods begin to appear as characteristics of that particular race (allport, 1954). however, while whites may be highly segregated at their residences, it follows that contact will become more and more unavoidable as minority populations continue to expand. it is easy to point to the civil rights movement or the fair housing act as indications of dismantling segregation. however, these very public actions did not solve covert discrimination and racism (massey & denton, 1993) and residential segregation persists. scientia et humanitas 4 spring 2011 recent and previous studies (e.g., clark & blue, 2004; freeman, 2008; massey & denton, 1993) emphasize economic status and interpersonal or institutional discrimination in explaining the persistent gap between white and minority neighborhoods. the economic explanation is perhaps the most straightforward: blacks and whites differ, on average, in both income and wealth, with blacks falling behind some in the former and even more in the latter (oliver & shapiro, 1997). whites, it follows, can afford higher quality housing, which is coincidentally located in different neighborhoods than housing that is financially available to blacks. according to the spatial assimilation model, this condition should be temporary; as racial and ethnic minorities increase their levels of education, occupational prestige, and income, integration should follow (charles, 2003). for example, asians have been better able to assimilate into american society, presumably because of their higher education levels (gans ,1999). the place stratification model, on the other hand, more fully considers the effects of institutional discrimination, emphasizing the “persistence of prejudice and discrimination – key aspects of inter-group relations – that act to constrain the residential mobility options of disadvantaged groups, including supraindividual, institutional-level forces” (charles, 2003:3). in the past, this included ‘redlining’ throughout the united states (wilson, 2008), or selecting out primarily black neighborhoods from any mortgage, regardless of the socioeconomic status of the individual or family. through government programs initiated after world war ii, whites were encouraged to move out into the suburbs and buy homes, leaving dilapidated urban areas behind (massey & denton, 1993). institutional discrimination also affects housing searches, encouraging blacks to settle or stay in predominantly black neighborhoods even if they could afford to move into the white suburbs (gans, 1991; lake, 1981; williams & williams-morris, 2000). indeed, logan (2002) analyzes 2000 decennial census data and uncovers a neighborhood gap between black and hispanic minorities and whites. as whites earn more money, they move to neighborhoods that correspond with their income. in 2000, the average white household with an income of $60,000 or more lived in a neighborhood where the median income was above $64,000. however, the average black and hispanic household with an income of $60,000 or more lived in neighborhoods where the median income was below $50,000 (logan, 2002:4). this same trend follows in the south, with the average white household earning $60,000 or more living in a neighborhood where the median income was $52,000 and the average black household living in a neighborhood where the median income was $41,918. based on these data, logan (2002:7) concludes that this gap is “not merely a reflection of income differences between the races. comparable whites and blacks face a very different structure of opportunities about where to live, yielding considerable advantage to whites.” this is not the result of blacks’ preference to stay in their familiar poor and segregated neighborhoods. like other racial and ethnic groups, african americans aim to pair social and geographic mobility, moving to better neighborhoods as they become racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 5 financially able, but they are nonetheless more likely to stay in poorer areas (patillo-mccoy, 1999:23). as quillian (2002) summarizes, income differentials and institutional discrimination do not fully account for contemporary levels of segregation in the united states. this and other research (e.g., clark, 1991; krysan, 2002; zubrinsky & bobo, 1996) turns our attention to preferences, or the way that personal desires (particularly the desire to live near neighbors who are of the same or a different racial and ethnic background) shape choices of home and neighborhood. these preferences are measured in diverse ways, both directly – asking respondents about their willingness to buy in real or hypothetical neighborhoods of varying racial compositions – or indirectly, by modeling moves to and from neighborhoods with varied racial compositions, and inferring preferences as motives behind these moves. this latter line of inquiry documents actual patterns of white flight, linking them with neighborhood composition. for example, quillian (2002) shows that as the number of blacks in a census tract rises, whites’ probability of moving to a different census tract increases, as does probability of moving to a different type of tract – one with fewer black residents. “whites move to neighborhoods that are whiter than their origin and are by far most likely to move to the whitest possible destinations. this is consistent with concerted efforts by whites to avoid black neighbors” (quillian, 2002:212). in a similar study, crowder (2000) finds that regardless of other individualand neighborhoodlevel predictors of mobility, whites living in minority neighborhoods are more likely to move out than those in whiter areas. the availability of white destination tracts has a positive and significant effect on whites’ probability of moving, as does the presence of recently constructed housing. although this research suggests that blacks prefer to live in racially-mixed and upwardly mobile neighborhoods, the racial composition of their current neighborhood influences the likelihood of moving and reflects movement toward racial homogeneity. in other words, black residents are most likely to switch census tracts if they are in predominantly white areas, often moving to blacker neighborhoods (quillian, 2002; zubrinsky & bobo, 1996). since the findings on preference point away from racial homogeneity, there are likely other factors preventing racially diverse neighborhoods. while these studies focus on mobility patterns, they offer little insight into the perception of race itself. race is not just a factor in the perception of a particular community, it is also a factor in blacks’ and whites’ awareness that a community exists. asking about communities in several metropolitan areas (of varying social, economic, and racial composition), krysan (2002) found that blacks consistently classified each community as more desirable than did white respondents. however, when black respondents had information on a possible negative racial climate of the area (for example, whites discriminating or acting out against black neighbors), the desirability changed. black respondents were also less likely to know about neighborhoods that were further away from the core of the metropolitan area than whites, suggesting that “housing searches for blacks may be biased away from suburban whitercommunities about which they have less knowledge; whites’ housing searches may be biased away from racially mixed communities, in part, for the same reason” (krysan, scientia et humanitas 6 spring 2011 2002:526). furthermore, blacks may assume that predominantly white areas about which they have little other knowledge are more racist, leading them to prefer more mixed neighborhoods (krysan, 2002:537). whether or not areas have explicitly racist histories or local cultures, middle class blacks often experience both overt and subtle discrimination in predominantly white neighborhoods (feagin, 1991), and some may prefer more mixed areas for this reason. overt discrimination may include such clear discriminatory acts as prejudiced comments, while subtle discrimination may include avoidance or exclusion from neighborhood activities. given the research on continuing forms of discrimination and residential segregation, are whites’ preferences rooted in racism, or based on the correlations between neighborhood racial composition and property values, crime, or school quality? is the avoidance of black neighbors simply a reflection of the desire to avoid the problems associated with poor neighborhoods of color? emerson, yancey, and chai (2001) investigate these factors by presenting respondents with a hypothetical ideal house, and controlling for factors including school quality, crime, housing values, and racial composition. the first three variables were always strong predictors of the willingness to buy the home, but as far as racial composition of neighborhood (which was presented as proportionately white and one other racial group), only the presence of black residents impacted the respondents’ willingness to buy. the likelihood to purchase declined at all levels of black population, particularly for respondents who had minor children. race, it seems, does shape housing preferences, in both the kinds of preferences held by racially differentiated groups and the types of neighborhoods that individuals prefer. this research suggests that blacks may still experience discrimination among those who live in a segregated neighborhood. within suburban neighborhoods, we see trends toward gated communities that separate these residents from surrounding areas. these communities cater to families and offer amenities geared toward households with children. the areas surrounding these communities have also refused public housing, further insulating themselves from urban problems and surrounding themselves with wealth and prestige ( jackson, 2000). on the other hand, carter et al. (2005) found that city residents have more tolerant views toward blacks than non-city residents. when they measured views by region, they also found that southerners were less likely to be tolerant of blacks. this discrimination could be rooted in prejudice, but the current analysis aims to disentangle prejudice from the other previously mentioned causes of residential segregation. racial and ethnic prejudice this study follows the definition of prejudice provided by jeffrey dixon (2006), and used in his prejudice index, which includes a combination of the traditional meaning and elements dealing with the emergence of laissez-faire racism. “prejudice has traditionally been defined as ‘an antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization.’” it has also come to include the feelings that “a minority group is inferior, different, alien and threatening to one’s own racial/ethnic group” (dixon, 2006:2180). however, research indicates that overt racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 7 racism (called jim crow racism, based on the post-civil war south) has declined because it goes against american values (bobo, kleugal & smith, 1997). rather, a new racism, termed ‘laissez faire,’ has emerged. bobo et al. (1997) distinguish this racism from other types in that it removes social responsibility from the continued economic disadvantages for blacks, including residential segregation. “in short, a large number of white americans have become comfortable with as much racial inequality and segregation as a putatively nondiscriminatory polity and free market economy can produce: hence the reproduction and, on some dimensions, worsening of racial inequalities” (bobo et al., 1997:41). laissez-faire racism lends itself well to the prejudice index, as it measures attitudes toward qualities whites might believe blacks or other minority groups to possess as the reasoning behind their lack of economic mobility (e.g., laziness). while residential segregation is primarily focused on the white/black dichotomy, other research suggests that whites flee neighborhoods when any minority group representation increases (crowder, 2000:226). gans (1999) presents the possibility of a new racial hierarchy, which adds a third category that does not fit into the black/non-black dichotomy that exists today. one of the first minority groups who seemingly have been able to assimilate into the non-black dichotomy includes part of the asian and asian-american population. gans (1999:267) terms this group the “model minority,” as they have been able to “eradicate many of the boundaries between it and whites.” it remains to be seen what will occur with the hispanic population, as some groups within the hispanic ethnicity are able to ‘pass’ as non-black, while others have darker skin color that could be labeled as black. hence, there is a need to include asian and hispanic prejudice in the current study. prior research on prejudice suggests that while whites may not have completely negative attitudes toward blacks, it does not follow that they necessarily have positive attitudes (federico, 2006:345). for example, a white person may not be completely prejudiced against a black person, or hold entirely prejudiced attitudes towards black people, but that does not mean that no prejudice exists. therefore, questions that ask respondents to make a choice strictly between positive and negative prejudice may be missing a chance to delve deeper into the issue. conversely, this research relies on a scale, which takes this point into consideration. another previous study (carter et al., 2005) indicates that two types of modules are needed to fully test for prejudice. the first should contain questions based on principles which literally assess a person’s principles or beliefs regarding race and equality. the second module should contain questions on implementation, which typically involve feelings on government interaction with minority groups. this includes questions regarding support for affirmative action or enforcement of equal opportunity housing laws. our study contains questions regarding principle, since implementation questions were not asked on this particular topic in the 2000 general social survey. scientia et humanitas 8 spring 2011 data and methods the data for this study comes from the 2000 national opinion research center’s general social survey (gss). gss samples are nationally representative of englishspeaking persons eighteen years of age or over living in non-institutional households in the united states (see davis & smith, 1992). respondents for the 2000 survey were chosen using probability sampling, and the survey was administered to 2,817 respondents. only a portion of the questions used to create the prejudice index were asked of a subset of the full sample, so we removed all cases that were not asked each question, as well as those not asked about prejudice. we then selected white respondents from white households and adjusted our sample for missing cases. this left a total of 789 cases analyzed for anti-black prejudice, 774 cases for anti-hispanic prejudice, and 770 cases for anti-asian prejudice. hypotheses previous research (e.g., clark, 1991; krysan, 2002; zubrinsky & bobo, 1996) into the white flight phenomenon explores residential preferences and current and/or previous neighborhood racial composition, but has failed to look at the characteristics of households and their relationship to racial and ethnic group prejudice. this analysis investigates the relationship between characteristics of non-asian and non-hispanic whites in white households and perceptions of racial/ethnic community composition with racial and ethnic group-based prejudices, and what role contact plays. the characteristics measured here include: 1) region, 2) household type, 3) city size, 4) education of the respondent and 5) family income of the respondent, and we specifically examine white respondents’ antiblack, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice. we first hypothesize that white respondents in southern white households have higher levels of anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice than households in the northeast, midwest, and west. this is based on previous research (e.g., crowder, 2000) indicating that white flight occurs more prominently in the south. it also follows evidence of historical racism in this region, and carter et al.’s (2005) findings of more racist attitudes among southerners. h1: white respondents in white households in the south will have higher levels of anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice, compared to households in other regions. following the propositions of contact theory (allport, 1954), we next hypothesize that lower levels of racial/ethnic presence within the community are associated with higher levels of racial/ethnic prejudice net of all household characteristics. h2: as perceived levels of racial/ethnic presence increase, anti-black, antihispanic, and anti-asian prejudice will decrease. due to the importance of the variable used to test contact theory and the preliminary results showing highly significant results by region, we also test for interaction effects. since racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 9 contact theory is grounded in place, we examine interaction between variables representing place (i.e., region) and community composition. we hypothesize that prejudice is explained by the interaction of perception of community composition by race and the region where they live. h3: the effect of perceived levels of racial/ethnic presence on anti-black, antihispanic, and anti-asian prejudice will vary by region. we next posit that households with children exhibit higher levels of prejudice than households without children. this is based on the characterization that families participate in white flight, and as jackson (2000) explains, communities located in white suburbs are geared toward households with children. in addition, emerson et al. (2001) report that whites with children are more likely to decline purchase of a home within a neighborhood at any level of black population. therefore, it follows that individuals with children would be more likely report prejudice and to flee neighborhoods that have a large minority population. h4: white respondents with children in white households will have higher levels of anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice, compared to households without children. because white flight occurs toward the suburbs (e.g., crowder, 2000), we next hypothesize that white respondents in suburban households exhibit greater prejudice than those in city or rural areas. blacks have not relocated to the suburbs at the rate of whites either due to racial factors or institutional discrimination (logan, 2002). since these neighborhoods tend toward more homogeneity, perhaps the white residents of suburbs exhibit higher levels of prejudice against minorities. h5: white respondents in suburban white households will have higher levels of anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice, compared to households in urban areas. finally, because white flight is typically a middle-class phenomenon, prejudice should decrease as education and family income increases. while white neighborhoods tend to have higher education and family income levels than minority neighborhoods (logan, 2002), the more educated persons are, perhaps the less prejudiced they are as well. h6: as education and family income of white respondents in white households increase, anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice will decrease. in summary, this study tests the idea that education, household type, city size, region, and perception of community composition among white respondents in white households influence the degree to which whites hold anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian attitudes. scientia et humanitas 10 spring 2011 dependent variables dependent variables are based on the prejudice index developed by jeffrey dixon (2006). rather than ask a strict yes or no question on prejudice, the index is based on scaled questions, which permits a deeper look into the issue of prejudice. a scale allows the respondent to provide an answer within a range of responses, so there may be less of a stigma associated, rather than just choosing a response that says “yes, i am prejudiced toward….” the first index item asks respondents to rate on a scale of 1 to 7 whether or not they think a certain group is committed to strong families, with 1 being a strong commitment and 7 being no strong commitment. the next item asks whether they think a certain group is hard working (1) or lazy (7). the final item asks whether they think a certain group is unintelligent (1) or intelligent (7). the question on intelligence is reverse coded (negative to positive) following the other items used in the scale. the prejudice index is based on previous research indicating that whites position their views of other groups in reference to how they view themselves (e.g., blumer, 1958). therefore, dixon (2006) subtracted whites’ placement of each minority group from the placement of their own group, then combined scores to create scales. higher scores indicate the white respondent rated the other race more negatively than their own, indicating greater prejudice. a score of zero indicates that the white respondent rated the other race at the same level as his or her own, indicating no prejudice. negative scores indicate that white respondents rated the other race more positively than their own, indicating they hold members of the other race or ethnic group in higher esteem than their own (see figure 1). figure 1 independent variables we also employ a series of variables assessing the racial/ethnic make-up of respondents’ local communities. respondents were asked, “just your best guess what percentage of the people who live in your community is each group?” since we examine anti-black, antiracial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 11 asian, and anti-hispanic prejudice, we use variables that gauge minority presence within the respondent’s community. respondents reported a percentage between 0-100, and we employ composition variables corresponding to the respective dependent variable (e.g., percent black composition is used with anti-black prejudice, etc.). based on prior research (e.g., allport, 1954; carter et al., 2005; crowder, 2000; emerson et al., 2001; jackson, 2000; krysan, 2000; logan, 2002), we operationalize the characteristics of white households as independent variables. we first include region, which coded as a series of dummy variables for various sections of the united states west, midwest, northeast, and finally the south, which is used as a reference group. this schema is based on definitions provided by the u.s. census bureau (see http://www.census.gov/geo/www/us_regdiv.pdf ). size of place is measured at the nominal level, and is dummy coded into categories for city, suburb, other city, and rural households, with suburb used as the reference group. household type is measured at the ordinal level. we dummy coded variables for married with children households, not married with children households, and households without children, and use married with children households as the reference group. accordingly, the reference group in each model consists of married whites who live in suburban households in the south with children. we employ family income and education measures to operationalize social class. education is measured in years of education, and family income is measured at the ordinal level. respondents were asked to group their total family income before taxes from the previous year. in the gss, family income is grouped according to midpoints, making it an ordinal-level variable (see ligon, 1988 for further discussion), but due to significant skewness and kurtosis, we logged the income variable to yield a more manageable distribution for analysis (see tabachnick & fidell, 2007). we also include control variables consistent with other studies of racial attitudes, including age (in years) and sex (e.g., dixon, 2006; krysan, 2000). preliminary analysis revealed several missing cases for family income, and we replaced these cases with the sample mean income of $38,331.93. accordingly, we created a flag variable for the missing cases to use as a control in regression equations. sensitivity analysis we analyze these data using cluster analysis, conducted in stata, and linear regression, conducted in spss. since households are nested within region, we also employ cluster analysis to detect differences in prejudice across region that might also explain differences across households. this is to ensure any significant differences at the household level do not actually reflect regional differences. this test detects bias in standard errors within the linear regression model, and allows the researcher to correct the standard errors if clustering does indeed exist (long & freese, 2003). the statistical models for the cluster analysis are as follows: scientia et humanitas 12 spring 2011 anti-minority prejudicej = a + b1northeastj + b2midwestj + b3westj + b4community compositionj + b5household not married with childrenj + b6household no childrenj + b7cityj + b8ruralj + b9other urbanj + b10educationj + b11family incomej + b12income flagj + b13agej + b14femalej + uj where uj = σ ei*xi jcluster regression analysis cluster analyses did not suggest significant standard error biases, and we thus proceeded with our regression models. we conduct models independently for each outcome variable, with regression equations shown below (anti-minority prejudice is substituted for each separate dependent variable): model 1: anti-minority prejudicej = a + b1northeastj + b2midwestj + b3westj + b4community compositionj + b5household not married with childrenj + b6household no childrenj + b7cityj + b8ruralj + b9other urbanj + b10educationj + b11family incomej + uj model 2: anti-minority prejudicej = a + b1northeastj + b2midwestj + b3westj + b4community compositionj + b5household not married with childrenj + b6household no childrenj + b7cityj + b8ruralj + b9other urbanj + b10educationj + b11family incomej + b12income flagj + b13agej + b14femalej + uj model 3: anti-minority prejudicej = a + b1northeastj + b2midwestj + b3westj + b4community compositionj + b5community composition*northeastj + b6community composition*midwestj + b7community composition*westj + b8household not married with childrenj + b9household no childrenj + b10cityj + b11ruralj + b12other urbanj + b13educationj + b14family incomej + b15income flagj + b16agej + b17femalej + uj model one tests all hypotheses by separately testing for the difference between means for anti-minority prejudice among the household characteristics of region, perception of community minority composition, household type, city size, and education. again, we analyze each dependent variable independently of the others (anti-black prejudice, anti-hispanic prejudice, and anti-asian prejudice) and community minority composition corresponds to racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 13 the prejudice being tested (e.g., perception of percent blacks in the community with antiblack prejudice). model two examines control variables, and estimates the effect of antiminority prejudice among the household characteristics of region, perception of community minority composition, household type, city size, and education while controlling for sex, age, and family income. this helps ascertain whether the effect of household characteristics and perception of community composition remain significant on anti-minority prejudice while simultaneously holding individual-level variables constant. finally, model three tests interaction effects. preliminary analysis suggested a strong regional effect over the other independent variables, so we included regional interaction effects with the perception of community racial composition to look more closely at the relationship between the two variables tied to place in relation to contact theory. model three estimates the impact of household characteristics and perception of community composition on anti-minority prejudice and introduces an interaction term to determine if the effect of perception of community minority composition on prejudice differs by region. this is important because the aspect of contact theory that this study explores is grounded in place, and the measure of location in this study is region. contact theory posits that interaction with minorities decreases prejudice, and the region in which a white household is located may have an impact on the perception of community composition. results table 1 presents means and standard deviations for each variable in the analysis. tables 2 through 4 present regression results and are discussed below. we discuss results from the third and completed model, unless otherwise noted. scientia et humanitas 14 spring 2011 table 1. means and standard deviations of prejudice indices, perception of community composition, and household characteristics (n = 798)   non-hispanic and non-asian white respondents   mean std. dev. minimum maximum anti-black prejudice 2.233 3.449 -6 18 anti-hispanic prejudice 0.940 3.162 -8 13 anti-asian prejudice -0.486 3.073 -10 16 region   south 0.310 0.463 0 1 northeast 0.182 0.386 0 1 midwest 0.267 0.443 0 1 west 0.242 0.428 0 1 community composition   estimated percent black 14.280 15.553 0 99 estimated percent hispanic 13.850 16.791 0 97 estimated percent asian 6.760 9.708 0 85 household type   married with children 0.267 0.443 0 1 not married with children 0.098 0.297 0 1 no children 0.635 0.481 0 1 city size   city 0.173 0.378 0 1 suburb 0.269 0.444   rural 0.112 0.315 0 1 other urban 0.446 0.497   family income (logged) 10.173 0.964 5.81 11.86 education 13.750 2.646 3 20 age 44.510 16.481 18 89 female 0.524 0.500 0 1 income flag 0.073 0.259 0 1 racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 15 anti-black prejudice regression results indicate that region, the product of community composition and region, education, age and sex are significant. while controlling for individual-level characteristics, anti-black prejudice in the households located in the midwest (b = -0.145) is significantly lower when compared to anti-black prejudice in households located in the south (p ≤ .05). introducing the interaction terms gives a more detailedpicture of the effect of region on anti-black prejudice. the percent black composition/northeast interaction term is significant at the .01 level (b = 0.162). the positive coefficient for the product term indicates that the difference in levels of prejudice between regions is greater when respondents report a higher perceived percentage of blacks in their communities. this means that the effect of perceived percentage of blacks living in the community area has a more pronounced effect on prejudice towards blacks in the northeast rather than the south. thus, as respondents’ perceptions of the percentage of blacks living in their community increases, levels of anti-black prejudice decrease, but the effect is only significant for the northeast region. results also indicated that as the level of education increases for the white respondent, anti-black prejudice decreased by 0.184 (p ≤ .001), controlling for the other household factors, perception of black community composition, and individual characteristics. in addition, the individual-level control variables were significant. age had a positive relationship with anti-black prejudice. as age increases, anti-black prejudice increases (b = 0.226, p ≤ .001). females have lower levels of anti-black prejudice than males (b = -0.107, p ≤ .01). model 1, without controlling for household factors and individual characteristics, had an r2 of 0.053, meaning that 5.3% of the variance in anti-black prejudice is explained by the variance in the household variables. in further models that included control variables and interaction terms, the r2 increased to 11.1% and then to 12.2% (see table 2). scientia et humanitas 16 spring 2011 table 2. standardized coefficients from ols regression of anti-black prejudice for white respondents in white households (n = 789)   model 1   model 2   model 3   region   south ------  northeast 0.000 -0.013 -0.119 * midwest -0. 075 -0.078 * -0.145 ** west -0.066 -0.057 -0.077   community composition, percent black -0.010 0.043 -0.058   interaction terms   percent black * south ------  percent black * northeast ----0.162 ** percent black * midwest ----0.086   percent black * west -----0.009   household type   married with children ------  not married with children -0.020 0.010 0.000   no children 0.024 -0.039 -0.042   city size   suburb ------  city -0.081 * -0.053 -0.048   rural -0.028 -0.018 -0.014   other urban -0.112 ** -0.082 -0.067   education -0.191 *** -0.185 *** -0.184 *** family income (logged) --0.040 0.046   income flag --0.038 0.042   age --0.224 *** 0.226 *** female ---0.112 ** -0.107 ** constant 6.369 *** 3.027 3.138 * r2 0.053   0.111   0.122   *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p < .001 racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 17 anti-hispanic prejudice the regression results in table 3 indicate that region, education, and age are significant. while controlling for other individual-level factors, anti-hispanic prejudice for white respondents in white households located in the northeast (b = 0.085) is significantly higher when compared to anti-hispanic prejudice in the south (p ≤ .05, model 2). as for the west, there are significantly lower levels of anti-hispanic prejudice for white respondents in white households than in the south even with the individual-level characteristics (p ≤ .05). whites living in white households in the west are 0.100 lower on the anti-hispanic prejudice scale, controlling for other factors. education was statistically significant, even with the control variables. for every year increase in education, anti-hispanic prejudice decreased by 0.166 (p ≤ .001). age, one of the individual-level control variables, was also highly significant. as age increases, antihispanic prejudice increases (b = 0.228, p ≤ .001). model 3 did not produce significant interaction effects for anti-hispanic prejudice. for model 1, without controlling for household factors and individual characteristics, had an r2 of 0.070, meaning that 7.0% of the variance in anti-hispanic prejudice is explained by the household variables. with the inclusion of control variables in model 2, the r2 increased to 11.8% (see table 3). scientia et humanitas 18 spring 2011 table 3. standardized coefficients from ols regression of anti-hispanic prejudice for white respondents in white households (n = 774)   model 1   model 2   model 3 region   south ----  -- northeast 0.096 * 0.085 * 0.082 midwest -0.040 -0.050   -0.058 west -0.087 * -0.100 * -0.040 community composition, percent hispanic -0.019 0.004   0.035 interaction terms   percent hispanic * south ----  -- percent hispanic * northeast ----  0.009 percent hispanic * midwest ----  0.023 percent hispanic * west ----  -0.093 household type   married with children ----  -- not married with children -0.017 -0.002   0.001 no children 0.041 -0.022   -0.025 city size   suburb ----  -- city -0.077 -0.055   -0.057 rural 0.008 -0.001   -0.001 other urban -0.100 * -0.082   -0.076 education -0.175 *** -0.162 *** -0.166 *** family income (logged) --0.004   0.006 income flag --0.033   0.034 age --0.228 *** 0.230 *** female ---0.029   -0.033 constant 4.173 *** 2.114   2.013 r2 0.070   0.118   0.122 *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p < .001         anti-asian prejudice racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 19 the regression results in table 4 indicate that region, size of place, education, and age are significant. while controlling for other individual-level factors, anti-asian prejudice for white respondents in white households located in the west (b = -0.112) is significantly lower when compared to anti-asian prejudice in the south (p ≤ .01). in other words, for each white respondent located in a white household in the west as opposed to the south, anti-asian prejudice decreased by 0.112, controlling for other factors. in addition, white respondents living in white households located in rural areas had significantly higher levels of anti-asian prejudice compared to those located in suburban areas of the largest smsa’s, net of individual-level control variables (b = 0.099, p ≤ .05). education was also found to be significant. for every year increase in education, antiasian prejudice decreased by 0.195 (p ≤ .001). in addition, one of the individual level control variables was also significant. age had a positive relationship with anti-asian prejudice. as age increases, anti-asian prejudice increases (b = 0.087, p ≤ .05). again, model 3 did not produce significant interaction effects for anti-asian prejudice. for model 1, without controlling for household factors and individual characteristics, had an r2 of 0.095, meaning that 9.5% of the variance in anti-asian prejudice is explained by the variance in the household variables. in the second model, which included control variables, the r2 increased to 10.4% (see table 4). scientia et humanitas 20 spring 2011 table 4. standardized coefficients from ols regression of anti-asian prejudice for white households (n = 770)   model 1   model 2   model 3 region   south ----  -- northeast 0.071 0.067 0.088 midwest -0.037 -0.044   -0.062 west -0.120 ** -0.126 ** -0.112 * community composition, percent asian -0.026 0.034   0.055 interaction terms   percent asian * south ----  -- percent asian * northeast ----  -0.044 percent asian * midwest ----  0.035 percent asian * west ----  -0.031 household type   married with children ----  -- not married with children 0.025 0.020   0.023 no children 0.037 0.000   0.000 city size   suburb ----  -- city -0.037 -0.038   -0.040 rural 0.101 0.096  * 0.099 * other urban 0.052 * 0.048   0.047 education -0.214 *** -0.192 *** -0.195 *** family income (logged) ---0.054   -0.048 income flag --0.029   0.028 age --0.087 * 0.091 * female ---0.031   -0.033 constant 2.647 *** 3.598 **  3.407 * r2 0.095   0.104   0.107 *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p < .001         racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 21 discussion previous research has not directly examined the link between household characteristics, contact theory, and levels of anti-minority prejudice for whites. we do know that residential segregation exists and that this could be a result of preference, institutional access, or perhaps prejudiced views toward minorities. segregation allows whites to isolate themselves from minority groups. is this isolation associated with racial/ethnic prejudice? in addition, as minority populations continue to grow, it follows that it will become more difficult to limit contact. this study used data from the 2000 general social survey to ascertain any relationship between residential segregation as measured by certain household characteristics of whites, contact with minorities, and racial prejudice. based on the analysis, the hypothesis that anti-minority prejudice would be greater among households located in the south was supported, except in one scenario. there were significant mean differences, and the mean of anti-black prejudice for white respondents in white households was lower in the midwest when compared to the south. this follows previous research on residential segregation, which found that white flight occurs more predominately in the south (crowder, 2000). in addition, the mean of anti-hispanic and anti-asian prejudice in white households was significantly lower in the west when compared to the south. this finding is also consistent with previous research that found higher racist attitudes among southerners (carter et al., 2005). for this study, it means that there is some relationship that exists between the regional distribution of white households and racial/ethnic prejudice. there was a significant interaction effect with perception of black community composition in the northeast when compared to the south. an increase in perception of black community composition for white respondents located in the northeast was associated with a decrease in anti-black prejudice, when compared to households located in the south. this indicates that contact with blacks matters more in the prediction of lower prejudiced views among whites in the northeast than in the south. allport (1954) specifies the aforementioned conditions that must exist for contact to truly reduce prejudice such as individuals of different race or ethnic groups having equal status or working together toward common goals. these conditions may be more prevalent in the north. since white flight occurs more predominately in the south (crowder, 2000), it may be the case that whites are more isolated in this compared to other u.s. region. an increase in perception of black community composition may not make a significant enough impact in already isolated areas to affect prejudiced attitudes. or, the conditions that must exist for contact to reduce prejudice may never occur because whites may flee with an initial increase of black residents. the one case that did not follow the first hypothesis was for anti-hispanic prejudice in white households in the northeast, which was significantly higher compared to the south. this could be due to a number of factors. as weaver (2007) points out, hispanics tend to be grouped geographically by origin. in this particular relationship, puerto ricans are likely to live in the northeast while mexicans are likely to live in the south (weaver, scientia et humanitas 22 spring 2011 2007:269). another factor could be contact theory. while there was no significant interaction effect with perception of hispanic community composition by region, and that variable represented contact, we cannot ignore the difference in hispanic population by these two regions. from 2000 to 2006, the hispanic population in the northeast increased by 15.1%. in comparison, the hispanic population in the south increased by 31.2% (u.s. census bureau, 2006). with such high hispanic population growth in the south, it may be the case that more contact with this population has allowed prejudiced attitudes to decline. the hypothesis that white households in the suburbs would have higher levels of antiminority prejudice was not supported. white respondents in white households in rural areas had significantly higher levels of anti-asian prejudice than households in suburban areas. this could be a result of less contact with asians in rural areas. although this is an assumption, this finding does show that contact operates in a specific way. education levels had a significant effect on anti-minority prejudice. across anti-black, anti-hispanic, and anti-asian prejudice, an increase in years of education attained was associated with a highly significant decrease in prejudice. this follows previous research into racial prejudice (logan, 2002), and is also a key component in the spatial assimilation model. residential segregation should dissipate, this model claims, as levels of education increase across all races (charles, 2003). this finding is a positive step towards reducing racial/ethnic prejudice. however, residential segregation still exists and minorities do not have the same access to resources as whites. as for our contact hypothesis, there were no significant findings to suggest that higher levels of perception of minority community composition had an effect on racial/ethnic prejudice. this is aside from the interaction term previously discussed. however, as the other significant variables show, contact may have some indirect effects on the racial make-up of the region and city size that these households are located. indeed, numerous studies have indeed shown the importance of contact (pettigrew, 2008; weaver, 2007). conclusion despite the important findings of this research, more research into the causes and mechanisms of residential segregation is still needed. region, education, and age had effects across all minority prejudice. as indicators of residential segregation, household type and suburban location were not significant predictors of racial/ethnic prejudice in the current study. however, we know that this is where white flight is continuing to occur. research on residential segregation focuses on the city/suburb dichotomy, as whites “flew” from cities into suburbs. more research should delve into the prejudiced views of rural residents, as they are also isolated. further research must disentangle these factors, and incorporate questions on implementation of racially prejudiced policies as well as principle, or feelings of prejudice (dixon, 2006). while implementation questions can establish a possible underlying prejudice against minority groups, this research can still be looked at as a step in exploring the relation of household characteristics and community perception to prejudiced attitudes of whites. furthermore, the contact variable used does not satisfy racial/ethnic prejudice in the u.s. middle tennessee state university 23 all the requirements of the contact theory. ideally the contact variables would represent allport’s conditions of contact that reduces prejudice (1954). in addition, to completely link racial prejudice to household characteristics and community perception, research would need to consider locational data of respondents. the racial make-up of the areas where respondents live would provide an alternative measure and more nuanced test of contact theory. this study emphasizes the importance of region, education, and age on levels of racial/ ethnic prejudice. higher levels of education were associated with lower levels of prejudice, while increase in age was associated with higher levels of prejudice. this can be a tool to further reduce prejudice. also, while many studies focus on the prejudiced and racist attitudes of the south, this research shows a more complicated picture. there were differences among households in the midwest and the south on anti-black prejudice, and among the west and the south on anti-hispanic and anti-asian prejudice. however, households in the northeast had higher levels of anti-hispanic prejudice than households in the south. this finding alone is important as research on the hispanic population evolves as the population rapidly expands. further research should look into hispanic differences by origin, and if there are any trends of white prejudice toward different groups. 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(1996). prismatic metropolis: race and residential segregation in the city of angels.social science research, 25, 335-374 an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 29 an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction using f t-ir instrumentation anna m. love and ngee sing chong abstract chlorine dioxide has been used to replace traditional water treatments, deactivate anthracis bacillus, and remediate various molds and bacteria. this study aims to analyze the products of the gas phase reaction between chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds produced during putrefaction. the study focuses on the reactions between chlorine dioxide and three specific chemicals: cadaverine (amine), 2-hexanone (ketone), and cyclohexyl mercaptan (thiol). the analysis of the gas phase reaction products is carried out using a varian 7000 fourier transform infrared spectrometer (ftir) with a 2.4 m gas cell. the measurement of most reaction by-products requires spectral resolution of 0.5 cm-1 because the spectra of most gas phase standards are available for spectral resolutions of 0.5 cm-1 or 0.25 cm-1 only.the reaction between cadaverine and chlorine dioxide resulted in the rapid formation of ammonia gas. the gc-ms analysis of the reaction between chlorine dioxide and cadaverine showed the presence of the following nitrogenous compounds: cyanogen chloride; chloromethane; dichloromethane; chloroform; dichloro-acetonitrile; and hexachloroacetone. the reaction by-products of cyclohexyl mercaptan were identified as sulfur dioxide, methanesulfonyl chloride, cyclohexene, 1-chlorocyclohexene, cyclohexanone, and 2-chlorocyclohexanone. detected byproducts of the reaction between the tenax sorbent material and chlorine dioxide include acetophenone; 2-chlorophenol; benzyl chloride; chlorobenzene, benzeneacetaldehyde; phenylethyne; and benzene. increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other reaction products were mirrored by decreased concentrations of chlorine dioxide and the malodorous chemicals. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 30 spring 2013 introduction mammal putrefaction has many noxious products, including mercaptans, amines, and carbonyl compounds. in the past a 15% lead acetate solution has been used to convert odorous compounds in coffins into salts, which, in turn, must also be removed via glass wool (1). chlorine dioxide is a safer, more practical method for neutralizing these compounds. chlorine dioxide is also “more powerful, easier to use, and more environmentally friendly than equivalent chlorine treatments” (6). although chlorine dioxide treatments are not as cost efficient as chlorination, they do not produce the same harmful byproducts as chlorine when reacting with organic compounds, and as a result many water treatment plants for highly populated areas have replaced traditional chlorination with a chlorine dioxide treatment (7). in addition to the treatment of water, the environmental protection agency acknowledged liquid chlorine dioxide as a safe and effective treatment for: bleaching textiles, washing fruits and vegetables, bleaching paper and pulp, disinfecting meat and poultry in 1967, and in 1988, chlorine dioxide in the gas phase was registered as a sterilant for manufacturing laboratory equipment, environmental surfaces, tools, and clean rooms (8). there are, of course, many more cited applications for chlorine dioxide. in 1998, hisashi inomura and yoshinao makino applied for a patent for a method of generation for chlorine dioxide gas for sterilization, citing coffin disinfection as a possible application (4). the following year another japanese patent application was filed for chlorine dioxide products to be used for disinfecting the dead (2). the products include a spray solution and an injectable solution of chlorine dioxide, which are used to disinfect and deodorize bodies before placement in coffins (2). while these patents are on file, little to no other information is available on the gas phase reaction between chlorine dioxide and the compounds associated with decomposing cadavers. cemeteries, livestock farms, and disaster areas often encounter challenges with cadavers, especially the noxious gases released during decomposition. in an effort to characterize several types of reactions between chlorine dioxide and volatile organic compounds released during mammalian decay, model compounds with three distinct functional groups were chosen for the study: cadaverine (a biogenic amine), 2-hexanone (a ketone), and cyclohexyl mercaptapan (a thiol). the relationship between cadaverine and chlorine dioxide gas is especially significant because liquid chlorine dioxide is currently an accepted treatment of the volatile sulfuric compounds that cause bad breath, which is also caused, in part, by cadaverine (3)(6). also, cold-smoked fish are undergoing scrutiny by the food and drug administration because of the hazardous biogenic amines that are still present after processing; cadaverine is among these biogenic amines (9). as mentioned previously, the epa considers chlorine dioxide an effective treatment of meat and poultry; therefore, it also has the potential to reduce concentrations of cadaverine and other biogenic amines in cold-smoked fish (8). an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 31 the analysis of the gas phase reaction between chlorine dioxide and these compounds associated with putrefaction explores the various reaction byproducts and their respective concentrations. this project seeks to determine the efficacy of chlorine dioxide as a disinfectant and deodorizer of malodorous compounds released during decomposition. materials and methods chlorine dioxide production z series research – fast release chlorine dioxide requires mixing equal amounts of part a and part b chemical precursors to generate chlorine dioxide gas (ica trinova; newnan, ga). for these trials, approximately 2 g, unless noted otherwise, of part a and part b were mixed in a 500 ml büchner flask, which was sealed with a rubber stopper while the sidearm of the flask had a short piece of hose that was pinched shut with a clamp. as the clo2 gas was generating, a silicon-lined 6-l gas stainless steel canister was prepared by evacuation to -30 in hg followed by the injection of 5 μl of the malodorous compound with a gastight syringe into the canister. then, after approximately 60 minutes of generation, the chlorine dioxide gas was introduced to the 6-l gas canister. nitrogen gas was immediately used to pressurize the canister to 30 psi, and samples were taken successively for 40 minutes. the samples were collected with a 2.4 m gas cell, which was evacuated to -30 in hg between each sample and was filled with the gaseous reaction mixture to a pressure of 0 psig to minimize the transfer of gas between the gas cell and the ambient air. this reaction involves a second procedure, which is similar to the aforementioned method with the exception of the resolution, the quantities of the starting materials, and a glass tube with a teflon seal in lieu of the 6-l gas canister. for this reaction, 3 μl of cadaverine and 4 g of part a and part b of the chlorine dioxide precursor materials are used. also, the chlorine dioxide gas production occurs over a 3-week period in a 6-l gas canister, after which it is introduced to the glass tube with teflon seal containing 3 μl of cadaverine. instrumentation a varian 7000 fourier transform infrared spectrometer (ft-ir) was used to analyze the samples in the 2.4 m gas cell. a 4 cm-1 spectral resolution allows the sample spectra to be acquired at a shorter time interval and hence a greater frequency relative a higher resolution at 0.5 cm-1 so that, while the spectral features are not as well defined or sharp in peak shape, the time series gives a more accurate depiction of the reactions’ chronological phases and can better identify any transient intermediate products. each sample spectrum is processed using 25 coadded scans with an open aperture. when the cadaverine was analyzed, the ft-ir’s resolution setting was0.5 cm-1 in order to facilitate the measurement of ammonia gas evolved. both methods have a sensitivity setting of 1 on the ft-ir. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 32 spring 2013 results figure 1.1: concentration of carbon dioxide graph in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reactions figure 1.2: f tir spectrum; region of c-o asymmetric stretch indicative of carbon dioxide concentration in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reaction, trial 1 an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 33 figure 2.1: concentration of chlorine dioxide graph in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reactions figure 2.2: f tir spectrum; region of cl-o asymmetric bending indicative of chlorine dioxide concentration in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reaction, trial 1 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 34 spring 2013 figure 3.1: variation of hexanone concentrations as a function of time in reactions of 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide figure 3.2: f tir spectrum of the fingerprint region featuring 2-hexanone concentrations in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reaction (trial 1) an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 35 figure 4.1: concentrations of carbon dioxide produced in the reactions of cyclohexyl mercaptan and chlorine dioxide figure 4.2: f tir spectral region of c-o asymmetric stretch of varying carbon dioxide concentrations resulting from the reaction between cyclohexyl mercaptan and chlorine dioxide (trial 1) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2013 figure 5.1: time-dependent concentrations of chlorine dioxide in reactions between cyclohexyl mercaptan and chlorine dioxide figure 5.2: f tir spectrum; region of cl-o asymmetric bending indicative of chlorine dioxide concentration in 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide reaction, trial 1 an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 37 figure 6.1: f tir spectrum; region of s-h stretch, absence of peak indicates depletion of cyclohexyl mercaptan concentrations scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2013 figure 7.1: concentration of chlorine dioxide graph in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reactions at 4 cm-1 resolution figure 7.2: f tir spectrum; region of cl-o asymmetric bending indicative of chlorine dioxide concentration in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reaction, trial 1 at 4 cm-1 resolution an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 39 figure 8.1: concentration of chlorine dioxide graph in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reactions at 4 cm-1 resolution figure 8.2: f tir spectrum; region of c-o asymmetric stretch indicative of carbon dioxide concentration in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reaction, trial 1 at 4 cm-1 resolution scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2013 figure 9.1: f tir spectrum; 2800-3000 cm-1 region of cadaverine presentation an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 41 figure 10.1: concentration of chlorine dioxide graph in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reactions at 0.5 cm-1 resolution figure 10.2: f tir spectrum; region of c-o asymmetric stretch indicative of carbon dioxide concentration in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reaction, teflon tube trial at 0.5 cm-1 resolution scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2013 figure 11.1: concentration of ammonia graph in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reactions at 0.5 cm-1 resolution figure 11.2: f tir spectrum; region of asymmetric deformation for n-h bonds indicative of ammonia concentration in cadaverine and chlorine dioxide reaction, teflon tube trial at 0.5 cm-1 resolution an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 43 figure 12.1: graph of cadaverine peak area in the reaction between chlorine dioxide and cadaverine at 0.5 cm-1 resolution figure 12.2: f tir spectrum, cadaverine peak area time series for the reaction between chlorine dioxide and cadaverine at 0.5 cm-1 resolution scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2013 conclusions the experimental trials all exhibited the same trend: the concentrations of carbon dioxide and intermediate organic products of the malodorous precursors increased as a function of time, while the concentrations of the gaseous chlorine dioxide and the malodorous compounds decreased or were undetectable in the spectra. overall, the results suggest that chlorine dioxide successfully diminished the concentrations of the malodorous compounds in question. a preliminary study on chlorine dioxide gas generation and concentrations as a function of time was complete prior to this study. the study consisted of several time series to indicate the concentrations of chlorine dioxide gas as generation and degeneration occurred. the gas reached peak concentrations at around 20 minutes and began to degenerate after that time. when 2g of each precursor were allowed to react, the concentration of chlorine dioxide was 749 ppm at the 20-minute interval. as suspected, when 5g of each precursor were allowed to react, the concentration was higher at the 20-minute interval at 923 ppm. of the three studies on the model compounds, the trials involving 2-hexanone produced the most dramatic results. the reaction between 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide presented very high concentrations of chlorine dioxide (fig 2.1) and carbon dioxide (fig 1.1), while the peak area of 2-hexanone diminished significantly (fig 3.1). during the reaction between 2-hexanone and chlorine dioxide, the peaks representing 2-hexanone were visible in the fingerprint region spectra (fig 3.2). in the analysis of the reactions involving cadaverine and cyclohexyl mercaptan, the chlorine dioxide concentrations were lower than expected. in this instance, the reaction was occurring very quickly producing large quantities of carbon dioxide and even larger quantities of hydrocarbons while simultaneously depleting the concentrations of chlorine dioxide and malodorous chemicals. the reactions occurred, to a large extent, in these experiments before the first sample of the time series could be processed, which was approximately 2 minutes after the introduction of the chlorine dioxide to the malodorous compounds. the results of the cyclohexyl mercaptan time series presented no peaks at the 2550 cm-1 wavenumber, which is where the s-h stretch of a mercaptan would be visible (fig 6.1). the diminished peaks were another signifier that the reaction occurred very quickly before the first sample was processed by the ftir. during the characterization of this reaction, the chlorine dioxide concentrations decreased by approximately 50%, while the carbon dioxide concentration increased almost 400% (fig 5.1 and 4.1). the studies on cadaverine were done at 0.5 cm-1 and 4 cm-1 spectral resolutions. prior to completing the study of the reaction between chlorine dioxide and cadaverine, a sample of cadaverine was processed with a golden gate atr to create a reference spectrum; this spectrum presented two strong peaks between 2800 cm-1 and 2950 cm-1 wavenumbers. in the 0.5 cm-1 resolution study, these peaks were very small, and they continued to diminish as a function of time (fig 12.1). in contrast, the study at 4 cm-1 had no detectable peaks in that region (fig 9.1). the reaction an exploration of the gas phase reactions of chlorine dioxide and malodorous compounds of putrefaction middle tennessee state university 45 characterized with a higher resolution displayed concentrations of ammonia that decreased as a function of time (fig 11.2). because the ammonia peaks overlapped the chlorine dioxide peaks in this reaction, the concentrations of chlorine dioxide could not be calculated. however, the reaction analyzed at 4 cm-1 showed a decrease in chlorine dioxide concentrations (fig 7.1). overall, the cadaverine was no longer detectable or had significantly diminished concentrations, which supports the efficacy of the chlorine dioxide. while all of the studies presented consistent results, further analysis of the reactions should be carried out using gas chromatography mass spectrometry to positively identify the intermediate organic byproducts of the reactions. a preliminary gc-ms study was carried out on the reactions between cadaverine and chlorine dioxide and cyclohexyl mercaptan and chlorine dioxide using a preconcentrator. however, the tenax sorbent material in the pre-concentrator reacted with the chlorine dioxide contaminating the reaction and muddling the results. some of the contaminated products were acetophenone; 2-chlorophenol; benzyl chloride; chlorobenzene; benzeneacetaldehyde; phenylethyne; and benzene. in spite of the contamination, the cadaverine reaction showed the presence of several nitrogenous compounds: cyanogen chloride; chloromethane; dichloromethane; chloroform; dichloroacetonitrile; and hexachloroacetone. in the cyclohexyl mercaptan study, sulfur dioxide; methanesulfonyl chloride; cyclohexene; 1-chlorocyclohexene; cyclohexanone; and 2-chlorocycloheanone were present. a glass bead trap may be used to substitute the tenax sorbent material to prevent contamination of the reactions. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2013 references 1 carissimi priori, l. purifying and deodorizing gases produced by decomposition of corpses inside air-tight coffins. e.s patent 509605, mar. 1, 1983. 2 fukui, a. set for handling dead body using chlorine dioxide as disinfectant.   jp 2001129041, may 15, 2001. 3 goldberg, s.; kozlovsky, a.; gordon, d.; gelernter, i.; sintov, a.; rosenberg, m. cadaverine as a putative component of oral malodor. j. dental res. 1994, 73, 1168. 4 inomura, h.; makino, y. method for generation of chlorine dioxide gas for sterilization. jp 2000154003, june 6, 2000. 5 peruzzo d.; jandiroba, p.; nogueira, f. use of 0.1% chlorine dioxide to inhibit the formation of morning volatile sulphur compounds (vsc). brazilian oral research. 2007, 21, 70-74. 6 scotmas group. what makes chlorine dioxide different to chlorine. http:// scotmas. com/what-we-do/chlorine-dioxide/chlorine-dioxide-faqs.aspx (accessed jan. 22, 2013). 7 stevens, a. reaction products of chlorine dioxide. environ. health perspect. 1982, 46, 101-110. 8 united states environmental protection agency. (2012). chlorine dioxide fact sheet. retrieved from http://epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/chlorinedioxidefactsheet. htm. 9 united states food and drug administration. potential hazards in cold-smoked fish: biogenic amines. (2012). retrieved from http://fda.gov/food/scienceresearch/ researchareas/safepracticesforfoodprocesses/ucm094576.htm. middle tennessee state university 105 the pedagogy of progressive hip hop brian criswell abstract the purpose of this paper is to consider music as a means of educating people about the broad, sociological concept of social inequality as it relates to class, examining how lyrics might shape one’s views regarding this paradigm. music is a medium of active engagement that reaches the masses and encourages critical thought among listeners, regardless of their interest in sociological concepts. i would argue that ignorance of the issues surrounding social inequality and society’s at-large acceptance of a false consciousness serves to perpetuate the status quo and keeps individuals from becoming informed consumers of sociological thought. through music people can become not only informed but also empowered to engage in active change against the structures limiting them. progressive hip-hop, in particular, tends to focus on a sociological definition of inequalities and the road to overcoming these injustices. by analyzing the lyrics of two progressive hip hop artists– blue scholars and common market–i will illustrate how one sub-genre of music can be used to reach multiple audiences (at various levels of social class) and encourage knowledge dissemination while paving a course to action. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 106 spring 2012 the study of music and lyrics is in no way new to the discipline of sociology; however, the vast research to date regarding rap and hip hop emphasizes critical race theory and approaches rap music as a genre that exists within and for the african-american community. ignoring the artists and listeners who are not of african-american descent who identify with the messages of social injustices that are a part of rap music, the current scholarship fails to be all-inclusive in rap music’s legitimate use as a pedagogical tool. concerning the sub-genre often referred to as progressive hip hop and/or conscious rap, the themes reverberated throughout the lyrics are issues of social inequality to which subordinate class members of all races and ethnicities can relate. specific themes expressed in the lyrical content of progressive rappers will be visited below. furthermore, i would posit that the lyrics in some conscious rap explore important current events and provide the foundation for a discourse that may be otherwise overlooked. the youth who came up in the post-industrial society of the late 1970’s and 1980’s experienced high levels of neglect and isolation. as a response to these circumstances, hip hop music and what is known as hip hop culture developed (pulido, 2009). this postindustrial shift resulted in higher value being placed on careers requiring a college degree and increasingly lower value on traditional, “blue collar” positions, such as factory and manufacturing jobs. the resulting growth of individuals who were forced from the middle and lower-middle classes into the lower class is a theme often repeated in the lyricism of conscious rappers (e.g. the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor). important aspects of hip hop music–from its origins through today–include identification with the plight of the lower class as well as grass roots involvement as part of its major tenets (bennett, 1999). many conscious rappers/progressive hip hop artists are actively involved in their communities through such endeavors as youth music programs and political activism. theoretical framework critical race theory although i criticize the heavy use of critical race theory (crt) in the academic study of rap music due to its narrow focus on african-american artists and communities, it would be irresponsible not to recognize the value it provides to this area of academic inquiry. a major theme in crt is that of the counter narrative. according to pulido, “counter narratives are stories told by people of color who are submerged in a racially hierarchical society” (2009). these stories are prevalent in the wider context of rap music as a whole but are told from a more critical, almost academic, approach in progressive hip hop. the widely-held beliefs and “stories” that are contained within a majority-ruled master narrative are often challenged by the counter narratives of subordinate groups. this master narrative tends to give priority to the idea that america functions as a meritocracy and all people are given an equal chance at success in life. rather than acknowledge the systematic forms of oppression (and specifically racism) that occur in the u.s., these widely accepted views “accept social arrangements as a result of the superior intellect and abilities of whites” (pulido, 2009). the pedagogy of progressive hip hop middle tennessee state university 107 freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed the fact that hip hop as an academic field of inquiry has been historically marginalized . . . speaks volumes to just how ‘mis-educated’ our society has become . . . [i]t suggests that paulo friere’s critical pedagogy is now more relevant than ever as a method for eradicating racialized opportunity gaps in achievement and for creating educational spaces that ameliorate the life and death issues that many of our youth face on a daily basis (akom, 2009). according to freire (1970), oppression is a system where both oppressors and oppressed are locked into their respective roles by the forces created by that oppression. because the oppressed–once in a position to do so–tend to only reverse the roles and maintain the existence of oppression, it is important to note that the oppressed must use their new position to join with the oppressors rather than against them. in the status quo, education is practiced in such a way that students are alienated as if they were the oppressed. the system is set up in a manner that encourages teachers to act as–or at least on behalf of–the oppressors to maintain this status quo and hinder real learning by both the teacher and students (freire, 1970). because the counter narratives mentioned above are not given their proper place in the curriculum, rap music has become the text of those who identify with its stories. keeping in the freirian tradition, progressive hip hop artists seek to overcome historical injustices and discover a society in which equality is truly realized. the absence of counter narratives in traditional education leaves progressive hip hop artists like those already mentioned with the job of educating their “students” about these seldom-heard stories. the problem-posing methodology employed by freire (1970) offers youth the opportunity actively to participate in what he calls “critical praxis.” becoming engaged with social issues encountered in their everyday lives, these young people are taught to move beyond victimization and “confront unjust social and economic conditions” (akom, 2009). opportunities to engage in this “critical praxis” are readily available through the grassroots efforts of such progressive hip hop groups as those reviewed here. it is through such outreach that freire’s vision can be carried out. blue scholars frontman, geologic states, “we are all involved in some community work of some kind, and we have different fronts on which we do ideological battles–race, class, the environment” (mudede, 2006). critical hip hop pedagogy critical hip hop pedagogy (chhp) “combines aspects of youth participatory action research (ypar), freirian pedagogy, and crt to challenge racism and other intersections of social difference in order to prepare young people to be prospective teachers inside and outside of urban and suburban schools” (akom, 2009). ypar involves five steps, including planning, taking action, observing, evaluating, and critical reflection. chhp both borrows from, and expands upon, crt. akom (2009), who introduced chhp, explains his approach as follows: scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2012 critical hip hop pedagogy attempts to address deep-rooted ideologies to social inequalities by creating a space in teacher education courses for prospective teachers to re-examine their knowledge of hip hop as it intersects with race, class, gender, and sexual orientation while analyzing and theorizing to what extent hip hop can be used as a tool for social justice in teacher education and beyond. in a course on chhp co-taught by akom at san francisco state university, two main goals were identified: collaboration between hip hop artists who utilize their art form as a vehicle to explore social justice themes while articulating the demands for social justice, and development of a counter-hegemonic public sphere for students to explore norms about race, class, gender, culture, language, and the availability of institutional resources and privilege inside and outside of schools. hip hop as a tool hip hop uses “the growing literature within and outside the academy suggests the presence of a hip hop generation in which youth are utilizing hip hop as a counter discourse in response to the subordination african american and latina/o youth encounter in their daily lives” (pulido, 2009). while pulido still relates hip hop to race and the african-american and latina/o communities, i believe this emergence of a “hip hop generation” crosses boundaries of race, as evinced by the wide acceptance of rap music in popular culture. it is not my intent to discount the uses of hip hop in race pedagogy; rather, i suggest the current academic study of hip hop as a tool for understanding racial inequality can be extended to other areas of social inequality, specifically social class. it has been suggested that hip hop can be described as a way for the oppressed to “resist and challenge the social ideologies that caused and maintained their subordinate position” (land and stovall, 2009). it seems that including class struggle in the academic study of hip hop music would be common sense, yet the large body of scholarship to date concentrates on crt and largely ignores other areas of inequality that can be addressed through hip hop music. researchers in sociology and other disciplines can combine the lyrical content of progressive hip hop with various social contexts–applying these lessons to both groups and individuals–in the study of identity construction and action (roy and dowd, 2010). hip hop as pedagogy as mentioned above, hip hop as a genre has been widely accepted into popular culture. this popular culture, especially music, helps individuals to construct and understand various perspectives regarding inequality and can be used to mobilize efforts to overcome these inequalities (steinberg, 2004). land and stovall (2009) have argued that this wide acceptance of hip hop into popular culture–along with the undertones present in the lyrics (political, social justice and action)–should lead us to consider hip hop and its uses in the the pedagogy of progressive hip hop middle tennessee state university 109 field of education. at the start of this paper, i suggested that hip hop could be used to educate not just its intended audience but reach across boundaries and provide a counter discourse for unintended audiences outside of the subordinate group(s) whose stories are being told. given the absence of a voice these subordinate groups have in the traditional educational system, progressive hip hop may be the only way some become familiar with these counter narratives. music analysis artist introduction while the current academic work regarding hip hop holds great value concerning inequalities based on race, i argue that progressive hip hop can be a pedagogical tool in educating students and teachers about inequalities based on social class, as well. george quibuyen (a.k.a. geologic) is the filipino emcee from the hip hop duo blue scholars. ryan abeo (a.k.a. ra scion), hailing from louisville, kentucky, is the white frontman for the duo common market. the groups’ shared dj is trained jazz pianist and iranian-american alexei saba mohajerjasbi (a.k.a. sabzi). the diverse backgrounds of these individuals help to illustrate how hip hop can transcend racial boundaries and educate persons from all races about social inequalities based on social class. according to sabzi, “the purpose of our music is to be socially relevant to our communities” (mudede, 2006). lyrical themes the research supporting my claim that hip hop pedagogy can be used as an educational tool regarding social class is based upon a lyrical analysis of the artists blue scholars and common market. upon examining their music, i established six major themes repeated throughout the lyrics of both artists. although this list is not all-inclusive, these are the themes most common and most relevant to the academic study of inequalities based on social class: 1. hardships: those obstacles faced by members of a subordinate class 2. encouragement: to engage in action and/or activism 3. social theory: reflections of shared experiences lived by members of a subordinate class 4. inequalities: class struggle, wealth distribution and structures that maintain the status quo 5. political messages: church and state, education, knowledge dissemination, and military 6. social protest: steps to be taken through activism and/or violent protest scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 110 spring 2012 examples of themes hardships from “no rest for the weary” by blue scholars: you better move, hold your head high, soldier it ain’t over yet that’s why we call it a struggle, you’re supposed to sweat. from “second chapter” by blue scholars: now it’s the turnin of the page to the second chapter a tragedy and comedy so cue the blood and the laughter to survivors of economic and natural disasters livin for the right here and not the hereafter. from “bonanza” by common market: the difference in victory and failure is where your mind’s at. encouragement from “opening salvo” by blue scholars: now this here’s for those who choose fights whose fruits might never not ripen until after their life it’s not right how they martyr our leaders and target our children disrespect our sisters then wonder why we militant. from “life and debt” by blue scholars: mom’s tryin to tell us not to protest instead pray for peace but that ain’t the nature of the beast so lady grab a bullhorn and take it to the street yelling power to the people el pueblo unito jamas sera vencido (the people united will never be defeated) til the wealth is spread equal you twenty-first century gabriela silang fierce like lorena with a rifle in her arms. the pedagogy of progressive hip hop middle tennessee state university 111 from “ gol’ dust” by common market: and what’s a legacy worth next to mined metal measure me first, depression? it’s better we work for change, not for pennies, if anything the commodity traded is us for flakes of gold dust. from “every last one” by common market: it’s our intent to re-implement modesty demandin self-respect to be the market’s hottest commodity regulate the wealth and decimate extreme poverty and educate the kids with every dollar from the lottery. social theory from “ north by northwest” by blue scholars: and they say desegregation was a big step forward but integration only covered up a rotten core the surface might’ve changed but the cauldron is still hot now we more politically correct with less real talk. from “re-fresh” by common market: share thought with the downtrodden, intent to tap into the wealth of knowledge my people gain upon the avenue. inequalities from “black patch war” by common market: i plead ignorance to business affairs beyond the field but on the real what we’re dealin with here’s extraordinarily–heavy handed scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 112 spring 2012 look where your property landed now come play monopoly with vigilantes and bandits. from “black patch war” by common market: all i’m askin is a fair market at the auction i put my work on the block, give me my portion. from “gol’ dust” by common market: we crush the precious metal to dust for distribution all you gotta do is breathe to receive the restitution under pressure we become both gems and grown men it’s like a jungle sometimes, wonder why i was thrown in when my instincts seem to do more harm than good it’s difficult to defend against steel armed with wood maybe i was never meant to be a champion i’m standin downstream pannin for ambition to hand in. from “nina sing” by common market: famished on a barren land of aids and malaria one percent could fix it with a tenth of their inheritance freedom buried in the treasure chest of the nefarious. political from “life and debt” by blue scholars: bills are usually late, interest accumulates at a usury rate collection agency waits from paycheck to next one budget like a noose, workin while we sing the proletariat blues on 501-c3 community plantations, non-profit sector propped up to kill the movement for the changes in production relations. the pedagogy of progressive hip hop middle tennessee state university 113 from “blink” by blue scholars: they said talk is cheap, but war is expensive i speak cause it’s free and these words are my weapons don’t think for a second that i will not question us foreign policy, imperial aggression inventing war for the quenching of the thirst for the oil but money don’t trickle down to workers who toil you see blood trickles down from the wounds to the soil and broken antennas with aluminum foil, be standin on televisions transmitting propaganda of millionaire senators and your so-called commander-in-chief i’m telling you the man is a thief in his hands he holds a plan to ban your freedom of speech. from “loyalty” by blue scholars: why they call themselves right, but then act so wrong dollar sign challenge while the unemployment line long no call for the blue collar getting low ball it’s a long climb just to get to petit bourgeois. from “ every last one” by common market: exponentially increase the delegates we politic with activists not asses and elephants rectify and edify a new central intelligence based upon dissemination of knowledge and evidence. social protest from “cornerstone” by blue scholars: and your brain’s just a cage with a mind locked inside it unless scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2012 knowledge itself gives proper perspective to see how the politicians keep the dollars protected my namesake is not confined to scholarly methods to reach the mass never preach the way they teach in class sleep walkin, half-dead spirits leavin fast if you never had your ass beat, bro you can’t speak about non-violent protest and other such mythology watch how the quantity leaps into quality deep beyond the reaches of your babylon economy i speak solemnly, i seek equality my people celebrate life despite poverty. from “gol’ dust” by common market: this battle hymn of the republic will knock for all my soldiers the block, that’s where we focus and plot to overthrow this echelon, send a message to stop takin our vote, this has got to be a joke cause it’s not what we were told. from “black patch war” by common market: to fifth-third, send word of another bank bombin ranks mobbing, over the hill on horseback surround the storehouse, four corners and torch that been in the poorhouse before and i don’t want that. the pedagogy of progressive hip hop middle tennessee state university 115 discussion & conclusion messages of hardships, such as those referenced above in “no rest for the weary” can be used to illustrate the structural inequalities that both cause and maintain one’s place within a subordinate class. the phrase, “the people united will never be defeated” has been placed under the theme “encouragement.” counter narratives such as the one presented here serve not only as encouragement to subordinate class members but also allow those stories to be told to a much wider audience. “life and debt” (blue scholars), in particular, names two women leaders, gabriella silang and lorena barros, and their contributions to class struggle, indicating this genre’s use in the study of gender inequalities, as well. social theory in the style of charles lemert, can be seen in common market’s “re-fresh” when scion mentions the “wealth of knowledge” subordinate class members gain from the street. in the song “nina sing” by common market, the very idea of freedom is called into question when scion talks about the debilitating diseases in the united states and other poorer nations that are largely ignored by those with enough wealth and power to do something about it. political counter narratives are presented more often than other themes and provide an alternative interpretation of political issues; in “blink,” geologic raps about millionaire senators speaking to masses of subordinate class members through their outdated televisions still operated with external antennas complete with aluminum foil just to get reception. finally, themes of social protest–such as that heard in “cornerstone” by blue scholars–give a depiction of violent protest and attempt to explain why such efforts are both undertaken and necessary in the struggle for equality. very few of the lyrics above are limited to race alone; instead, they present a calling to subordinate class members from all racial/ethnic backgrounds to join together and take a pro-active position against the structures that cause and maintain their place in the subordinate class. drawing upon crt, the pedagogy of paulo freire, and chhp, i suggest the development of a new pedagogy that seeks to use hip hop as a means of educating people from all walks of life by exposing them to the progressive lyricism of emcees from all racial backgrounds. this pedagogy would aim to educate “students” about social inequalities as they relate to class struggle and would recognize that the lower class is comprised of people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. relying on the similarities shared by all people in this subordinate class to bring them together for a common mission, it is my vision that such pedagogy would help others to overcome their fear of those who are different and allow them to construct strong bonds that cut across racial boundaries and prejudice. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2012 references akom, a. a. (2009) critical hip hop pedagogy as a form of liberatory praxis, equity & excellence in education, 42: 1, 52 – 66. bennett, andy (1999) hip hop am main: the localization of rap music and hip hop culture, media, culture & society, 21: 1, 77 – 91. eijck, koen van (2001) social differentiation in musical taste patterns, social forces, 79: 3, 1163 – 1185. freire, paulo 1970. pedagogy of the oppressed. new york. herder & herder. land, roderick and stovall, david (2009) hip hop and social justice education: a brief introduction, equity & excellence in education, 42: 1, 1 – 5. mudede, charles. 2006. “we got next: mass line’s multiculti boom bap.” the stranger. june 20. retrieved march 26, 2011 (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/content?oid=37586). pulido, isaura (2009) “music fit for us minorities”: use of hip hop as pedagogy and interpretive framework to negotiate and challenge racism, equity & excellence in education, 42: 1, 67 – 85. roy, william g. and dowd, timothy j. (2010) what is sociological about music?, the annual review of sociology, 36: 183 – 203. steinberg, marc w. (2004) when politics goes pop: on the intersections of popular and political culture and the case of serbian student protests, social movement studies, 3: 1, 3 – 29. granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 35 granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market abul hasnat muhammed salimullah abstract this paper investigates the granger causality test to determine the correlation between interest rates and exchange rates with the composite stock volatility measurement of different companies under the chicago board options and exchange. using the daily sector data for all observed variables from the st. louis fed over the period of 2007-2012, as well as introducing the technique of autoregressive lag model, i have examined whether the current and the previous values of a particular volatility index, interest rate, and exchange rate could have significant granger causality effects to the return behavior of those other indices, interest rates, and exchange rates. a two-way granger causality test was performed within the r studio, and the estimated result makes it essential to understand how the stock volatility indices behave over the contemplated time, especially with the following changes in interest rate and exchange rate, thus forecasting one another. the result further indicates, in most cases, interest rates positively granger cause the stock market volatility indices more than in comparison with the exchange rates within the time period, although both of them are identified as major determinants of stock price volatility. keywords: stock volatility index; granger causality; exchange rate; interest rate jel category: jel: c21, c22 deans’ distinguished essay award recipient 36 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research stock volatility means the relative rate at which the price of a se-curity moves up and down. volatility is found by calculating the annualized standard deviation of a daily change in price. if the price of a stock moves up and down rapidly over a short period of time, we say it has high volatility. on the other hand, if the price almost never changes, we say it has low volatility. in finance, volatility is a measure of the price variation of a financial instrument over time. how far and fast stock prices move can be measured by stock market volatility. several indicators have been developed over the years, such as the s&p 500 volatility index (vix), the nasdaq volatility index (vxn), and the russell 2000 volatility index (rvx), to track the status of broad market volatility and help investors decide when to buy or sell stocks. stock prices rarely move in a straight line. most of the time they move up and down, even sometimes trending higher and lower. interest rate and foreign exchange rate risks are two significant economic and financial factors that affect the common stock value. the interest rate, which reflects the price of money, has an effect on other variables in money and capital markets. the interest rates indirectly affect the valuation of the stock prices, and stock volatility directly creates a shift between the money market and capital market instruments. the “stock oriented” idea of the exchange rate was studied by gul and ekinci (2006). gul and ekinci states that advances in the stock market affect the exchange rate through the liquidity and wealth effects: a rise in the interest rate increases the opportunity cost of holding cash balances and, therefore, creates a negative impact on money demand. this reduction in money demand creates an excess supply of credit and stimulates a decrease in stock prices. a decrease in stock prices reduces the wealth of domestic investors, which lowers their demand for money further. banks then react by lowering interest rates, which dampens capital inflows, lessening the demand for domestic currency, and therefore depreciating domestic currency. hence, this will cause an impact on the country’s exchange rate situation. in a separate study, md-yusuf and rahman (2012) argued that foreign exchange rates are a major source of macroeconomic uncertainty that affects the stock volatility. foreign exchange rates have become highly volatile since the abandonment of the fixed exchange rate system in 1973. the volatility has been considered a risk in the exchange rate, and the risk has certain implications on the economic growth of a country, as the company’s competitiveness within the country is generally affected by the exchange rate changes through their impact on input and output price. when currency appreciates, the sales and profits of exporters will decline and stock prices will drop, due to the fact that exporters lose their internagranger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 37 tional competitiveness. on the other hand, importers’ competitiveness in domestic markets will increase, which would lead to the growth in profit and stock prices. these scenarios would be opposite in the case of currency depreciation. exchange rate volatility influences the value of the stock, since the future cash flows of the firm will change and affect their investment plan on stock or bond. previous findings reveal that exchange rates and stock prices demonstrate a high relationship when returns in asset markets are lower and volatility is higher. this paper deals with the variables, which are the different companies’ stock volatilities, the exchange rates, and the interest rates. the four stock volatilities from the set of companies’ stock volatility are called cboe volatility index® (vix®), cboe nasdaq 100 volatility index, cboe s&p 500 3-month volatility index, cboe eurocurrency etf volatility index. the daily data from the chicago board options exchange (cboe)’s—the largest u.s. options exchange with annual trading volume—are collected for those stock price volatilities. in the case of exchange rates, i went through the rates of a few influential and controlling currencies that are most commonly connected with u.s. business and exchange. these are the u.s./euro foreign exchange rate, the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate, and the u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate. the last two exchange rates that i took are japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate and u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate, and i want to examine a stimulating picture about how the granger causes stock volatility index. for interest rates, i collected the daily rates of the 3-month certificate of deposit: secondary market rate, the 6-month certificate of deposit: secondary market rate, and the 3-month treasury bill: secondary market rate from the st. louis fed as a measure of effective rate. i am using only the daily data so that other comparative measurement of interest rates cannot be used predominantly. ex-ante discussion the performance of the stock market can reflect the overall performance of a country’s economy. when the stock market is doing well, it may imply that the economy is experiencing high growth. it is proven that the granger testing procedure requires one set up and tests two equations. the functional form of the model may be illustrated in the following form: yt = α0 + α1yt-1 + α2yt-2 +β1xt-1 + β2xt-2 + εt xt = γ0 + γ1yt-1 + γ2yt-2 +δ1xt-1 + δ2xt-2 +μt 38 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the first equation is used to test the following null hypothesis. h0: xt does not cause yt(xt ⇏ yt). unrestricted regression: yt = α0 + α1yt-1 + α2yt-2 + β1xt-1 + β2xt-2 + εt restricted regression: yt = α0 + α1yt-1 + α2yt-2 + εt from these regressions, we can calculate the joint f-statistic. if the fstatistic is high enough, then we can reject h0 (the null hypothesis) and conclude that xt causes yt (xt ⇒ yt). the second equation is used to test the null hypothesis. h₀ : yt does not cause xt (yt ⇏ xt) unrestricted regression: xt = γ0 + γ1yt-1 + γ2yt-2 + δ2xt-2 + μt restricted regression: xt = γ0 + δ1xt-1 + δ2xt-2 + μt from these regressions, we may calculate a second f-statistic. if the f-statistic is high enough, then we can reject h0 and conclude that yt does cause xt (yt ⇒ xt). in each equation, the current value of one variable (xt or yt) is a function of the other variable and its own value in previous time periods (‘lagged’ values). the thought process behind the granger test is that, if previous values of yt variable significantly influence current values of variable xt, then one can say that yt causes xt. recall that the purpose of this study is to find out whether the interest rates and the exchange rates granger causes the volatility index and vice versa. if the interest rates or the exchange rates cause changes in the volatility index, then we could expect those changes in the stock volatility index to start granger causes in the interest rate or exchange rate. the regression procedure was designed by including ten variables: four are volatility indices of different measurement, three for representative exchange rates, and three for interest rates. the data series that the model incorporates was from the federal reserve bank of st. louis, namely as fred economic data. i have practiced the common data set ranging from december 2007 to december 2012. the volatility indices are based on the common stock prices of the top publicly traded american companies stock and bond. i used the vix (the implied volatility index on stocks constructed using s&p 500 index options) as our measure of stock market volatility; and the vxncls, also known as the nasdaq 100 (the implied volatility index on domestic and international non-financial securities), based on their market capitalizations, with certain rules capping the influence of the largest components; the evzcls, also known as the euro vix (the implied volatility index on the euro-dollar exchange rate), constructed using the options traded on the currency shares granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 39 euro trust etf, as my measure for exchange rate volatility.1 the cboe eurocurrency etf volatility index (ticker evz) measures the market’s expectation of 30-day volatility of the u.s./euro exchange rate by applying the vix methodology to options on the currency shares euro trust (ticker fxe). literature review a significant number of previous studies conducted in this area for a variety of countries using various techniques have produced varying results. internationalization of stock markets, liberalized capital flows, and huge foreign investment in u.s. equity markets have led stock and foreign exchange markets to become increasingly interdependent and caused several financial and currency crises across the whole world, especially in u.s. during the fiscal year 2008-2009. mishra et al. (2007) pointed out that different emerging markets around the globe have led academicians and practitioners to re-examine the nature of volatility spillovers between stock and foreign exchange markets that have seen large correlated movements resulting in market contamination. one related study conducted by kutty (2010) examined the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates in mexico. the stock index data for kutty’s study, obtained from the dow jones news/retrieval, is provided by dow jones and consists of weekly closing of the bolsa, mexico’s equity index, a market capitalization weighted index of the leading 35-40 stocks. the value of the mexican peso per u.s. dollar starting from the first week of january 1989 to the last week of december 2006 was obtained from the international monetary market. after eliminating some of the incompatible data, a total of 849 data points were generated. the granger causality test shows that stock prices lead exchange rates in the short run, and there is no long run relationship between these two variables. this finding substantiated the results of bahmani-oskooee and sohrabian’s (1992) conclusion, but contradicts the findings of other studies, which reported a long-term relationship between exchange rates and stock prices (kutty, 2010; bahmani-oskooee & sohrabian, 1992). in a paper, dimitrova (2005) studied if there was a link between the stock market and exchange rates that might explain fluctuations in either market. he made the case that, in the short run, an upward trend in the stock market may cause currency depreciation, whereas weak currency may cause a decline in the stock market. to test these assertions, he used a multivariate, open-economy, short run model that allowed for simultane40 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ous equilibrium in the goods, money, foreign exchange, and stock markets in two countries. specifically, this paper focused on the united states and the united kingdom over the period of january 1990 through august 2004. it found support for the hypothesis that a depreciation of the currency may depress the stock market, and the stock market will react with a less than one percent decline to a one percent depreciation of the exchange rate. this also implies that an appreciating exchange rate boosts the stock market. earlier research by neih and lee (2001) examined the dynamic relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for the g7 countries using basic cointegration tests and vector error correction models from 1993 to 1996. this research did not account for dual causality between the variables and their findings suggest that there is no long run relationship between the stock prices and the exchange rates in g7 counties. yet, it has been observed that exchange rates have been used to explain the behavior of stock prices on the assumption of corporate earnings tend to respond to fluctuations in exchange rates. muller and verschoor (2006) examined how multinational firms in the u.s. are affected by exchange rate fluctuations. they believed that currency movements are a major source of macroeconomic instability, which affects a firm’s value, a situation they refer to as exchange rate exposure. they outlined several theoretical reasons why the exchange rate and stock price interaction might be asymmetric. these include the asymmetric impact of hedging on cash flow, firms pricing to market-strategies, asymmetry due to hysteric behavior, investors’ over-reaction and mispricing errors, and nonlinear currency risk exposure. they have demonstrated, moreover, that asymmetries are more pronounced towards large versus small currency fluctuations than over depreciation and appreciation cycles. in a separate research project, the relationship between nifty returns and indian rupee/u.s. dollar exchange rates has been widely examined by agrawal et al. (2010). they found that the correlation between nifty returns and exchange rates were negative. further investigation into the causal relationship between the two variables using the granger causality test highlighted a kind of unidirectional relationship between nifty returns and exchange rates, running from the former toward the latter. muradoglu et al. (2000) investigated the causal relation between market returns and exchange rates, interest rates, inflation, and industrial production for 19 emerging markets from 1976 to 1997. their findings supported that the relation between stock returns and macroeconomic variables was mainly linked to the size of the stock market. kim (2003) granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 41 used monthly data for the period between january 1974 and december 1998 in the united states. the findings supported that stock prices have a positive correlation with industrial production, but a negative relationship with the real exchange rate, interest rate, and inflation. another paper written by zafar, urooj, and durrani (2008) exhibited that relating short term interest rates with stock returns and market volatility established that nominal one month t-bill yield had a significantly positive relation with market variance, but negatively correlated with future stock returns. another study by çifter and ozun (2007) applied the granger causality test to daily closing values of the istanbul stock exchange 100 index and compounded interest rates to examine cthe impact of changes in the interest rates on the stock returns. their results proved interest rate as a granger causality of ise 100 index starting with nine days’ time-scale effect and specified that effects of interest rates on stock return increased with higher time scales. a similar but extensive study by muktadir-al-mukit (2012) on volatility of market index at the dhaka stock exchange (dse) observed that, both in the long run and in the short run, interest rates are ranked first in terms of the impact on the change of market index and also exchange rates have a positive shock where interest rates have a negative shock on the market index. by using the johansen procedure of the cointegration test, muktadir-al-mukit suggested that, in the long run, exchange rates have a positive impact and interest rates have a negative impact on stock prices where the coefficients of all the explanatory variables are found statistically significant. the estimated error correction coefficient indicates that about 7.8 percent deviation of the dse general index from its long run equilibrium level is corrected each period in the short run. the interest rate and the exchange rate have negative impacts on the stock market index in the long run as well as the short run, providing some useful insights into the effects on the stock market index of malaysia, as shown in the research conducted by thang (2009). in order to search for the long run and short run impacts, respectively, he used the standard econometrics time series model as the johansen juselius ( jj) cointegration test, the vector error correction model (vecm), and the granger causality test. the author divulges that interest rates have a negative impact on the stock market index. when the interest rate is high, investors will move their money from the equity market to savings, fixed deposits, and bond markets. by contrast, when the interest rate is low, investors will shift their money into the stock market in order to gain higher profits. 42 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research methodology as previously stated, the methodology i use is the two-way granger causality, which is an indistinct but recognizable application of the joint f-statistic. usually, time series variables are used for this type of test. if a time series is stationary, the test is performed using the level values of two (or more) sets of variables. on the other hand, if the variables are supposed to be non-stationary, then the test that will be used is the augmented dickey-fuller test (the r command adf.test), testing for a unit root (when a series has a unit root it is non-stationary). the null hypothesis is that the series is non-stationary; if the p-value is low enough then we will reject the null hypothesis. on the other hand, if the p-value is higher than 5% then we must accept the null hypothesis for non-stationarity and will try for transforming the series. typically, the first differences of any series will be stationary. the number of lags to be included is usually chosen using the akaike information criterion. any particular lagged value of one of the variables is retained in the regression if it is significant according to a t-test and the other lagged values of the variable jointly add explanatory power to the model according to an f-test. the null hypothesis of no granger causality is retained, if and only if, no lagged values of an explanatory variable have been retained in the regression. in practice, it might be the case that neither variable granger causes the other or that each of the two variables granger causes the other. empirical results and findings after running the standard statistical package r, installing all the relevant packages, and opening all the appropriate libraries such as install. packages(“fimport”) and library(fimport) and writing down the relevant codes to include all of the observed variables and extracting the data set from st. louis fred by using the r command, i got the following basic statistical results. i have also transformed the data set into a stationary data after performing the unit root test. the r-command established all the pertinent results, which is recorded into the following table 1 as the summary statistics. this table also shows the descriptive statistics of the chosen ten variables as a first part of my result. the optimal lag length attaching with the model can also be found from the appropriate r-command. the preliminary analysis for all series demonstrates that interest rates volatilities are highly persistent (according to their standard deviation) but mean reverting. the two volatility indices with the shortest maturity, vxvcls and evzcls, have the lowest level of implied volatility (μ= around granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 43 0.0038 & σ=around 1%), but there is a much higher volatility for the other two option indices, vxncls (μ = 25.93, σ=10.57%) and vixcls (μ = 24.67, σ=10.96 %). a sharp shift took place recently in volatility as the credit crisis unfolded. the mean and standard deviation of the two interest rates was found to be relatively close, but the mean and standard deviation for dtb3 was found to be moderately low. for dcd90, i got μ=0.863 and σ=1.15% and for dtb3 i found μ=0.362 and σ=0.64%. however, all the exchange rate indices have a similar average level and standard deviation compared to the vxvcls, and evzcls. the average value of the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate was found to be negative, possessing in addition a higher standard error then the other two exchange rates. finally, i see that the behavior of the nasdaq 100 and cboe vix volatility indices are quite different than expected, since they are based on some normalization scheme under cboe. table 1: descriptive statistics of daily rates of volatility indices, exchange rates, and interest rates over the period 2007 to 2012, n=1,384* variables (in first differences) description mean std. dev. min. max. skewness kurtosis lag length vixcls cboe volatility index: vix 24.6738 10.9636 11.30 80.86 1.95 4.47 33 vxncls cboe nasdaq 100 volatility index 25.9366 10.5722 12.03 80.64 1.95 4.79 33 vxvcls cboe s&p 500: 3-month volatility index 0.0059 1.4855 -8.46 10.25 0.61 8.53 49 evzcls cboe euro currency etf volatility index 0.0013 0.7414 -7.24 4.15 0.02 14.00 32 dtb3 3-month treasury bill: secondary market rate 0.3627 0.6421 0.00 3.29 2.49 5.48 29 dcd6m 6-month certificate of deposit: secondary market rate 1.0373 1.1594 0.25 5.38 1.68 1.77 1 dcd90 3-month certificate of deposit: secondary market rate 0.8637 1.1583 0.18 5.50 1.93 2.73 1 dexuseu u.s./euro foreign exchange rate 0.0014 0.0103 -0.04 0.06 0.16 2.38 40 dexjpus japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate -0.0128 0.7032 -4.96 3.16 -0.38 5.40 32 dexusuk u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate 0.0036 0.0120 -0.07 0.07 -0.33 4.49 11 *where n is the number of observations in the sample. the following table generates some stimulating results for granger causality. the null hypothesis for this test is that the h0: variable a does 44 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research not cause variable b (a ↛ b). the result from table 2 shows that cboe volatility index: vix has a negative granger causal relationship over the nasdaq 100 volatility index, the euro currency etf volatility index, the u.s./euro foreign exchange rate, the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate, the u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate, the 3-month certificate of deposit, and the 3-month treasury bill. the vix has no correlation with the s&p 500 3-month volatility index and the 6-month certificate of deposit. the cboe nasdaq 100 volatility index shows a positive granger causality with the cboe volatility index, the s&p 500 3-month volatility index, the eurocurrency etf volatility index, and the u.s./euro and japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate, but has a negative causal relationship with the u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate, the 3-month certificate of deposit, the 6-month certificate of deposit, and the 3-month treasury bill. the cboe s&p 500 3-month volatility index has a positive causal relationship with the cboe volatility index, the nasdaq 100 volatility index, the euro currency etf volatility index, the u.s./euro and the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rates, the 3-month certificate of deposit, and the 3-month treasury bill. the cboe euro currency etf volatility index has no causal relationship with the nasdq 100 and the s&p500 3-month volatility index, and positive granger correlation was found with the u.s./euro and the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rates. in the case of the u.s./euro foreign exchange rate, there was some negative granger correlation on interest rates, but i found zero granger correlation with the cboe volatility index. however, i have discovered that the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate has a negative causal relationship to the cboe volatility index, the s&p 500 3-month volatility index, and the euro currency etf volatility index, but a positive correlation with the nasdaq 100 volatility index. the test results of positive or negative granger causality and the result of zero granger causality can be established from their respective lower and higher p-values. accordingly, from table 2 a reader can easily illuminate the test results which are statistically significant and which are not. the u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate has shown no correlation with all the model interest rates and shows a negative granger causality with the s&p 500 and the euro currency etf volatility index. the 3-month certificate of deposit has positive granger causality with different stock volatility indices as well as other measures of interest rates, but it has a negative causal relationship with the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate. the 6-month certificate of deposit, however, does not show any significant granger causes with other stock volatilities and foreign exchange granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 45 rates. nonetheless, it is evident that the 3-month treasury bill shows substantial granger causality with all stock volatilities and foreign exchange rates, and it shows strong correlation with the 3-month certificate of deposit and the 6-month certificate of deposit. these results are also found as statistically significant. table 2: the r packages generated granger causality results of the selected variables va r i a b l e a va r i a b l e b p-value l o n g r u n m u l t i p l i e r * p v l r m * * r e s u l t vixcls vxncls 0.0067 -3.00e-05 0.06335 -1 vixcls vxvcls 0.89722 0 0.35384 0 vixcls evzcls 0 -0.00072 0.00675 -1 vixcls dexuseu 0 -0.00024 0.28607 -1 vixcls dexjpus 0 -0.00011 0.36479 -1 vixcls dexusuk 5.00e-05 2.00e-05 0.16787 1 vixcls dcd90 0.00809 -0.00017 0.0036 -1 vixcls dcd6m 0 0 0.00013 0 vixcls dtb3 0.00763 -3.00e-05 0.00717 -1 vxncls vixcls 0 0.00586 2.00e-05 1 vxncls vxvcls 0 0.00023 0.00036 1 vxncls evzcls 0 0.00871 0.0551 1 vxncls dexuseu 0 0.00652 0 1 vxncls dexjpus 0 0.00405 0 1 vxncls dexusuk 0 -0.00037 0.16567 -1 vxncls dcd90 0 -0.00122 0.1757 -1 vxncls dcd6m 0 4. 00e-05 0.00013 -1 vxncls dtb3 0 -0.00012 0.27698 -1 vxvcls vixcls 0 0.00371 0.06661 1 vxvcls vxncls 0 0.00083 0.02595 1 vxvcls evzcls 0 0.00925 0.13245 1 vxvcls dexuseu 0 0.00549 0.0974 1 vxvcls dexjpus 0 0.00461 0.13015 1 vxvcls dexusuk 0.00013 -0.00024 0.20606 -1 46 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research va r i a b l e a va r i a b l e b p-value l o n g r u n m u l t i p l i e r * p v l r m * * r e s u l t vxvcls dcd90 0 0.00166 0.15264 1 vxvcls dcd6m 0 -2.00e-05 0.08667 -1 vxvcls dtb3 0 0.00023 0.01461 1 evzcls vixcls 4.00e-05 -0.05957 0 -1 evzcls vxcls 0.17281 0.00019 0.23331 0 evzcls v x v c l s 0.45722 3 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 4 5 4 3 9 0 evzcls d e x u s e u 0 0 . 0 3 1 6 3 0 . 2 9 9 2 5 1 evzcls dexjpus 0 0 . 0 1 4 3 4 0.1342 1 evzcls d e x u s u k 0.00825 0 . 0 0 1 1 8 0 . 1 1 2 7 2 -1 evzcls dcd90 0.08417 0 . 0 0 1 3 5 0 . 4 0 4 9 7 0 evzcls d c d 6 m 2 . 0 0 e 0 5 8 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 0 0 4 2 8 -1 evcls dtb3 0.14661 6 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 4 2 8 7 2 0 d ex u s e u vixcls 0 0 . 0 3 1 7 9 0 . 1 6 5 1 1 -1 d ex u s e u v x n c l s 0.83464 0 . 0 0 0 1 2 0 . 3 1 2 2 1 0 d ex u s e u v x v c l s 0.67699 0 . 0 0 0 1 3 0 . 1 6 7 9 7 0 d ex u s e u evzcls 7 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 0 5 1 4 8 0 . 3 3 1 3 2 -1 d ex u s e u dexjpus 2 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 0 1 4 6 9 0 . 0 5 8 6 9 1 d ex u s e u d e x u s u k 0.00144 0 . 0 0 1 2 9 0 . 2 3 4 4 7 -1 d ex u s e u dcd90 0.01199 0 . 0 0 2 8 6 0 . 3 1 4 9 2 -1 d ex u s e u d c d 6 m 1 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 0 0 0 1 6 0 . 0 1 2 1 5 -1 d ex u s e u dtb3 0.88385 3 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 4 7 8 3 7 0 dexjpus v ixcls 2 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 0 0 9 3 9 0.2929 -1 dexjpus v x n c l s 0 0.0016 2 . 0 0 e 0 5 1 dexjpus v x v c l s 0.00033 0 . 0 0 0 2 5 0 . 1 3 1 0 7 -1 dexjpus evzcls 0 0 . 0 2 2 8 7 0.3577 -1 dexjpus d e x u s e u 0.00051 0 . 0 0 7 0 2 0 . 4 2 5 2 6 1 dexjpus d e x u s u k 0.48138 0 . 0 0 1 4 3 0 . 3 0 0 9 9 0 dexjpus dcd90 0.0072 0 . 0 1 3 8 2 1 . 0 0 e 0 5 1 dexjpus d c d 6 m 0.28574 0 . 0 0 0 1 2 0.2116 0 dexjpus dtb3 0 0 . 0 0 1 0 4 0.0649 1 granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 47 va r i a b l e a va r i a b l e b p-value l o n g r u n m u l t i p l i e r * p v l r m * * r e s u l t d e x u s u k vixcls 0.18421 0 . 2 5 3 9 1 0 . 1 2 2 6 5 0 d e x u s u k v x n c l s 0.32476 0 . 0 0 6 5 3 0 . 2 6 0 5 8 0 d e x u s u k v x v c l s 0.01803 0 . 0 0 8 7 0 . 0 2 4 9 6 -1 d e x u s u k evzcls 0.03782 0 . 8 5 4 2 0 -1 d e x u s u k d e x u s e u 0.03003 0 . 5 8 6 8 8 0 . 0 1 1 8 2 -1 d e x u s u k dexjpus 0.67391 0 . 0 7 8 6 6 0 . 4 1 5 5 5 0 d e x u s u k dcd90 0.95942 0 . 0 0 4 8 3 0 . 4 7 9 1 6 0 d e x u s u k dcd6m 0.24114 0 . 0 0 2 2 4 0 . 1 9 1 3 7 0 d e x u s u k dtb3 0.20026 0 . 0 0 8 8 1 0 . 0 6 4 3 0 d c d 9 0 vixcls 0.04011 0 . 0 0 2 3 8 0 . 4 0 7 9 9 1 d c d 9 0 vxncls 0.00939 0 . 0 0 0 3 9 0 . 4 0 6 6 9 1 d c d 9 0 vxvcls 0.00161 0 . 0 0 0 4 2 0 . 1 3 5 7 6 1 d c d 9 0 evzcls 0.01985 0 . 0 2 1 5 0 . 2 7 5 6 1 1 d c d 9 0 dexuseu 0.00546 0 . 0 0 3 0 6 0 . 4 4 2 6 4 1 d c d 9 0 dexjpus 0.00045 0 . 0 5 0 9 9 6 . 0 0 e 0 5 -1 d c d 9 0 dexusuk 0.20261 0 . 0 0 0 8 3 0 . 3 7 6 6 9 0 d c d 9 0 dcd6m 0.00505 3 . 0 0 e 0 5 0 . 4 3 2 8 6 1 d c d 9 0 dtb3 0 0 . 0 0 0 7 4 0 . 1 9 5 4 1 1 d c d 6 m vixcls 0.02154 0 . 7 1 0 6 2 0 . 3 1 9 3 1 d c d 6 m vxncls 0.04641 0 . 0 0 2 3 5 0 . 4 7 5 3 -1 d c d 6 m vxvcls 0.15068 0 . 0 1 9 1 4 0 . 1 2 9 7 8 0 d c d 6 m evzcls 0.00658 1 . 9 8 1 3 5 0 . 1 4 0 3 2 1 d c d 6 m dexuseu 0.00257 0 . 5 2 2 8 0 . 3 2 7 2 8 1 d c d 6 m dexjpus 0.61268 0 . 2 8 0 7 8 0 . 2 7 7 4 8 0 d c d 6 m dexusuk 0.49257 0 . 1 1 9 4 8 0 . 2 6 0 4 6 0 d c d 6 m dcd90 0.54712 0 . 1 9 8 6 5 0 . 3 2 3 7 7 0 d c d 6 m dtb3 0.00061 0 . 0 1 2 5 8 0 . 1 7 7 1 1 -1 d t b 3 vixcls 0 0 . 4 8 3 4 9 0 . 1 4 9 7 6 1 d t b 3 vxncls 0 0 . 0 3 7 8 7 0 . 0 2 4 8 5 1 d t b 3 vxvcls 0 0 . 0 0 9 0 . 1 1 3 0 9 1 48 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research va r i a b l e a va r i a b l e b p-value l o n g r u n m u l t i p l i e r * p v l r m * * r e s u l t d t b 3 evzcls 0 0 . 8 5 3 3 2 0 . 0 0 1 1 d t b 3 dexuseu 0 0 . 4 2 3 3 7 0 . 1 4 7 3 1 1 d t b 3 dexjpus 0 0 . 1 0 9 9 2 0 . 3 6 6 7 2 1 d t b 3 dexusuk 0.00061 0 . 0 5 3 5 6 0 . 0 1 7 2 9 -1 d t b 3 dcd90 0 0 . 1 1 2 5 9 0 . 0 0 3 7 1 d t b 3 dcd6m 0 0 . 0 0 0 2 6 0 . 4 0 3 5 2 1 *long run multiplier is used to find out the specific sign of the relationship **pvlrm is the probability value when the null hypothesis of the long run multiplier is not equal to zero ex-post discussion the results of table 2 produce a flow chart (figure 1) through r command, which incorporates each of the variables with a node; each link exhibits a causal relationship. i can figure out some important depictions from the data. the light color node shows negative granger causality, and the black color node displays as positive granger causality. the 3-month certificate of deposit (dcd90) positively granger causes the cboe volatility index® vix® (vixcls), the s&p 500 3-month volatility index (vxvcls), and the nasdaq 100 volatility index (vxncls). the 3-month treasury bill (dtb3) also shows positive granger causality to vxvcls, vxncls, vixcls, and the euro currency etf volatility index (evzcls), and the opposite direction also produces the same positive effect. the dtb3 has a two-way positive granger causes with vxncls. the dexuseu exchange rate also demonstrates two-way positive granger causality with dtb3. the 6-month certificate of deposit (dcd6m) shows positive granger causality to the cboe volatility index® (vix®) and the euro currency etf volatility index (evzcls). dcd6m does not granger causes vxvcls and vice versa. but, this dcd6m shows negative causality with vxncls and the dtb3 interest rate. the japan/u.s. foreign exchange rate (dexjpus) granger causes vixcls, evzcls index, but it shows negative causal relationship with vxvcls and vxncls. however, the flow chart reveals that vxvcls, evzcls, and vxncls granger cause the u.s./euro foreign exchange rate (dexuseu). yet the reverse is not true. the u.s./u.k. foreign exchange rate (dexusuk) has a negative granger causality on granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 49 vxvcls, vxncls, and evzcls. on the other hand, vxncls and vixcls have a negative granger causality on the dexusuk foreign exchange rate. therefore, i can say that interest rates have a clear causality effect on stock volatility and also upon the exchange rates volatility, but the exchange rates in response to most of the cases could distinguish positive causal effects on stock volatility. what i have found in this study is that in most cases, exchange rates have a negative causal relationship with stock volatility and could not establish granger causality both ways. the findings of this study therefore verify that interest rates have a clear-cut impact on stock volatilities and the exchange rates, although they did create some notable impact on stock volatilities, but it surely does create a substantial granger causality impact on the index volatilities and, in many studies, established proof in favor of this. figure 1: flow 50 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research shortcomings this study has some shortcomings, because i have developed only a few interest rates and exchange rates, and i also could not focus more on the relative acceptabilty among a large number of appropriate exchange rates and interest rates, which may affect stock volatility more substantially. i did not use any structural model for this issue, but i think it will get much more relevance for any further research if all of those structural models regarding conintegration and error correction are introduced. i hope that the researchers in this area can come up with a better result of causality should they take into account different econometric models, such as vector error correction model (vecm) or exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model (egarch), and if they use other possible tests for unit root determination (with exception to the adf test). conclusion this research empirically examines the dynamics between the volatility of some stock returns and the movement of dollar exchange rates and interest rates in terms of the extent of interdependency and causality. daily data from december 2007 to december 2012 for the vaious exchange rates and the major representative interest rates have been used in this paper to investigate the two-way causality in a granger procedure between stock volatility and, among themselves, by using the probability value for the long run multiplier test within a set range of time periods. considering the results, i examined the signs of how each of these variables affects the others within the time frame. the empirical findings from the causality tests therefore show strong statistical evidence by establishing a two-way causal relationship between the two variables (stock volatility and interest rate) which exists only to some extent and, in some cases, demonstrates no relationship among them. hence, the granger causality test was applied to those two variables, which proved unidirectional causality running from interest rates to stock returns and also from exchange rates to stock returns, but in the opposite cases the bi-directional effect was not found to be true. perhaps a different scenario between them may be gotten if the number of interest rates and exchange rates is no longer restricted. acknowledgement i would like to thank dr. ellis a. eff, professor of economics, department of economics and finance, middle tennessee state university, for his inspiration and guidance in the preparation of this article. all errors that may remain are, of course, mine. granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 51 references agrawal, g., srivastav, a. k., & srivastava, a. 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(2008). interest rate volatility and stock return and volatility. european journal of economics, finance, and administrative sciences, 14, 135-140. endnotes 1. the superiority of the information content of implied volatility over historical volatility measure in various markets has been extensively documented (see among others, blair, poon and taylor, 2001; poon and granger, 2003; christensen and prabbala, 1998; jorion, 1995). granger causality of interest rate and exchange rate on stock volatility at chicago options market middle tennessee state university 55 56 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 139 taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed jacquelyn c. hayek abstract within literature and history exists a long-standing tradition of men tyrannizing over women and harsh penalties for any woman who does not conform to society’s expectations. from these trends emerged the taming tradition, almost how-to guidebooks, in which a representative patriarch subdues and reforms an unruly woman. this man, most notably petruchio from william shakespeare’s the taming of the shrew, controls the errant female via her output in physical pleasures, will power, and ability to speak. with the transition into the jacobean era, many changes were taking place; government and society were adapting, and there was widespread debate about customary gender roles. playwright john fletcher responded to the taming trope but told the story directly reversed in his work the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed, where a woman character shows shakespeare’s petruchio—now a widower—how to behave, thereby earning a companionable kind of equality in her marriage to the former woman-tamer. though likely intended as a parody, or even a cruel kind of comedy where the humor comes from the impossibility of the situation, this text complicates the taming tradition by directly reversing the gender roles. despite situating the woman as the tamer over the errant husband, however, fletcher’s play utilizes the customary elements of a taming tale and ultimately finds its happy ending in the protagonists settling back into traditional roles within the gender hierarchy. while contemporary audiences might have found this comedic, the modern feminist can read into this dramatic situation the fomentation of gender discontent. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 140 spring 2016 “he that knows better how to tame a shrew, / now let him speak: ‘tis charity to show.”— petruchio, the taming of the shrew (4.1.146-7), william shakespeare the epigraph above is self-conscious because shakespeare’s text in many ways epitomizes a popular canon of instructive literature on the subject of “how to tame a shrew.” the popularity of the tales, songs, jokes, manuals, and plays belonging to this taming tradition coincided with real, historical concerns about outspoken women and the male-dominated hierarchy. during the jacobean era, debate about women’s role and social status poured onto public stages and reached particular intensity in the 1610s (chetty 93). at this point, playwright john fletcher engaged creatively with the subject by inverting the traditional expectations. in his play the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed (1611), fletcher’s protagonist maria appropriates the repressive techniques from shakespeare’s the taming of the shrew by asserting her mastery through her physical pleasures, her will power, and her shrewd speech. though likely intended as a parody, or even a cruel kind of comedy where the humor comes from the impossibility of the situation, this text complicated the tradition by directly reversing the gender roles in the traditional taming tale. while contemporary audiences probably found this comedic, the modern feminist can read into this dramatic situation the fomentation of gender discontent. in the england of shakespeare and fletcher, the social and political system was built on the foundation of distinctive gender inequality. government and society depended on each person knowing and keeping his or her place. the idealized woman was subservient and controlled. she had virtually no voice. she was to be silent, obedient, and responsive without independent agency while, simultaneously, being receptive to input from male authority, first her father and then her husband, regarding their words, wills, and desires. men were empowered, expected, and encouraged to control their women into compliance. in the taming of the shrew, shakespeare illustrates the core of the shrew-taming tradition—the idea that masculine authority and input must control a woman’s output. following in the footsteps of his great predecessor and courting the public taste, fletcher also engages with the topic of gendered social conformity, as well as the techniques applied to achieve it. with his work, a sequel to shakespeare’s tale audaciously appropriating the bard’s characters, this young playwright followed up on a popular trend and also a public issue: taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 141 fletcher recognises sexism as a significant issue to be addressed and makes clear the complex interaction of conflicting subjectives and power in this play. the emphasis is both on the individual empowerment of the protagonist as well as social transformation—the need to change society as it was currently arranged. (chetty 94) though young and relatively new to the london theater scene, fletcher had the creativity and the daring to take a diametrically opposite approach and to parody the culturally familiar story by telling it with the genders reversed. in his text, fletcher spotlights a female protagonist subduing a man whose mercurial temperament recasts him not as the rightful representative of patriarchy but as the socially distasteful other. this depiction seemingly empowers the woman to tame her “tyrant.” although it is unlikely that fletcher had any larger social or reformist intentions, his text, when read against historical context, reveals and complicates the major tenants of the taming tradition through their explicit inversion. in sixteenth-century england, a woman who was too outspoken or whose public behavior did not match cultural expectations of the “feminine” was labeled a scold or a shrew. women who fell under this category were subjected to cruel, public punishment. the spectacle aspect was meant as a general corrective to restore the dominant ideology of gender hierarchy and “the expectation for women to be chaste, silent, and obedient because through such education ‘the student learns to acquiesce to the prevailing social hierarchies by internalizing the dominant value system and tempering passions that threaten social order’” (qtd. in nesler). seeing the pain and shame of another was a powerful preventative measure, and these public reprisals were harsh for that purpose. fear of anything undermining patriarchal power, described as a “crisis in gender,” was correlated with a noted upsurge of crimes specifically gendered as female in the court records of this period. this phenomenon was also likely the impetus for the invention and application of punishments exclusively designed for women (boose 184). the first step to enforce women’s social conformity was to redefine crime so as to identify—and subsequently penalize—any behavior outside the requisite, submissive mode. under this system, women were brought before civil authorities for “offenses” such as refusing to work as servants, quarreling with neighbors, and scolding or dominating their husbands (underdown 119). a further step was to invent and implement barbaric consequences like the cucking stool and the scold’s bridle (boose 186, 199). the ability scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 142 spring 2016 to assign a charge to these offenses isolated the perpetrator and made the perceived danger seem manageable to masculine authorities. ultimately, all of these countermeasures were brought to bear on the disruptive, unruly woman. the public exposure, punishment, and reclamation of disruptive female “criminals” easily transitioned from the village street and civil courts to the city theatre. shakespeare reacted to this phenomenon with a theatrical comedy depicting how a virulently male patriarch tames an outspoken woman for his personal use and on behalf of society: “the taming of the shrew offers a virtual manual of techniques devised to persuade women of the natural basis of culturally determined differences” (freedman 127). in the relationship between men and women someone had to be dominant, and shakespeare’s message was that the master should be the man. by illustrating step-by-step the process of shaping kate into an idealized version of womanhood, shakespeare upheld one of society’s most fundamental myths, which “privileges men over women, sanctions the exchange between men of their daughters and wives, and equates misogyny with civilization itself ” (freedman 130). men were not simply permitted to rule over women’s utterances and social actions; they were expected to do so. despite its offensive acquisitiveness, petruchio’s “view of the marital relation is sanctioned by his society, and he is quite serious about treating kate as his chattel. his object is to put her in her place as a woman and wife” (paris 342). thus, shakespeare embodied the basic tenets of the taming tradition. by contrast, the fletcher taming text comically suggests “there will be more interest in the situation and more truth, if there is not merely action but interaction, if (to put it simply) the woman fights back” (leech 52). impossibly spirited and clever, maria does not just resist petruchio, she completely turns the tables on him. the tamer tamed “undermines our expectations through a resolute, witty woman and a series of tricks that profoundly challenge our assumptions about jacobean society” (mcmullan xvii). taking on each area of gendered suppression illustrated by shakespeare and supported by early modern patriarchal structure, fletcher’s tamer presents the radical idea that all wives could deserve the kind of equality she laims. though the contemporary audience might have found this comedic, the modern feminist can read into this dramatic situation the fomentation of gender discontent. one area challenged by fletcher’s protagonist is the idea that women are not allowed voice regarding their sexual desires and physical pleasures. a wedding with its rich garments, its sumptuous feasting, and its expectaming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 143 tation of the eventual sexual consummation was intended to delight the senses. society marked this occasion as the transition from maiden to matron and as a rare celebration and pleasure for a woman. in shakespeare’s taming narrative, petruchio denies his reluctant bride these enjoyments: usurping the bride’s traditional delayed entry and robbing her by his outlandish attire of the visual centrality that custom invests in brides synecdochically in the bridal gown, petruchio spectacularizes himself in such a way as to humiliate the bride. . . . [h]e deprives her of the reverence that she is on this one day due. (boose 192) due to petruchio’s clownish antics, no one anticipates kate’s arrival or admires her appearance; after the ceremony, she is dragged away before the feast at her father’s house and is then denied the meat set out at her husband’s home; and, finally, her bridegroom only unsettles and agitates her in bed. no time is wasted in kate’s re-education because, as soon as she enters her husband’s house, her food, sleep, and sexual relations are curtailed and controlled by her self-appointed tamer (shakespeare, shrew 4.1, 4.3). it was customary for a bride to get little sleep on her honeymoon, but kate gets neither rest nor sexual fulfillment. she is shown her desire only as a tease before her “loving” husband takes it away: “petruchio makes kate aware that she is completely in his power and depends on him for the necessities of life, like food and sleep. . . . petruchio is demanding that kate relinquish her own sense of reality and assent to his. . . . realizing that she will never have anything she wants as long as she resists, kate capitulates” (paris 343). her pleasure, even her very sustenance, is demonstrably dependent upon her husband’s input. however, while shakespeare’s kate is alone and completely within petruchio’s power, fletcher’s maria is publicly surrounded by a community of self-asserting, pleasure-seeking women. in fletcher’s text the local wives rally around the new bride who stands for female desire. in an introduction to a new print edition of the play, celia daileader and gary taylor explain that, essentially, the women protest by having fun. so as not to become ‘prisoner[s] to [men’s] pleasure’, they create a sanctuary for their own pleasure. . . . in memory of the ill-dressed, ill-fed katherine, the rebels demand money for fine clothes, gorge on pudding and pork, and drink, and drink, and drink, and drink. (20) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 144 spring 2016 according to the dictates of patriarchy, a woman was to embody maiden modesty and moderation. maria and her comrades rebelliously celebrate indulgence and excess. the sheer number of women involved and the public nature of the event could suggest that this is not an issue of discord in one marriage but a general challenge to the cultural subjection of a woman’s pleasure to that of a man. as a martial group, these women “remain determined to correct the inequities of the past, a past which seems explicitly to include the lessons taught by shakespeare’s consideration of gender issues in the taming” (smith 44). maria and her sister rebels give their bodies expression through riotous merry-making in the upper chamber, which is a quasi-sacred space associated with the subjugation of their bodies by defloration ( johnson 126). as one would expect, the bridal suite was the site of great physical fun on the wedding night, but in fletcher’s play the groom is deliberately excluded. the larger point seems to be that these women do not need a man to have a good time: “locked in and prepared for survival due to their domestic foresight, the women create a transgressive, self-sustaining community independent of men . . . and obtain power over their own households and bodies” (nelser 10, 11). with provisions to delight their physical bodies and a sense of female solidarity, these wives practically assault the men with their exuberant presence. in this scene, fletcher’s women feast themselves, manifesting their oral enjoyments through good food, rather than waiting to be fed like a pet (daileader and taylor 23). in this way maria’s outpouring of desire and pleasure appears to flout gender ideology, but another way that she revolts is by refusing to grant her husband conjugal rights: “the bedchamber into which the women barricade themselves serves as an externalisation of their own bodies, as they protect themselves from the men’s attempts to enter both it and them” (chetty 95). because she is out of his reach and he cannot physically force her to accept his dominance, petruchio is compelled to wrestle with her intellectually and philosophically. despite maria’s open profession that she willingly consented to her marriage with petruchio, he must conform to her standards as a husband before she will grant him conjugal rights (barnhill 270). she will not automatically surrender to his desire or accept input from his sexual advances. this does not mean, however, that maria disregards desire and the pleasure of sexual intimacy. when petruchio implies that if she does not yield he will go and sleep with some other woman, maria rejoins that she will just take another man for a lover, ignoring the sexual double standard (fletcher 1.3.230-36). just because she does not wish to be ruled by him taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 145 does not mean she will deny herself; her desire for independence coexists with her heterosexual desire (daileader and taylor 12). fundamentally, maria does feel desire for her mate, but she masters it until she can enjoy this pleasure without sacrificing her selfhood in the process. the process of her opposition “departs from irrational unruliness traditionally associated with shrews,” depriving not “from passionate imbalance, but instead [arising] from a calculated plan to preserve her identity within marriage” (crocker 411). admonishing her little sister livia on the subject, maria states that a “childish woman that lives a prisoner to her husband’s pleasure has lost her making [i.e. betrayed her creation], and becomes a beast, created for his use, not fellowship” (fletcher 1.2.136-9). maria has too much integrity herself and desires a more substantive marriage, so she exercises patience and self-control. when maria initially refuses to bring petruchio up to her bed, fletcher’s male characters assume that her purpose is to preserve her purity (1.3.107-8). however, far from subscribing to the cult of eternal virginity, maria advocates for the rights of wives, herself in particular, to have a fulfilling sex life (daileader and taylor 21). as maria schemes with livia and her cousin bianca after the wedding, fletcher adapts petruchio’s analogy of hawk training for maria’s speech with considerable innuendo and double entendres (1.2.147-57). despite the veiling metaphor, it is hard to miss the orgasmic nature of her description: the play becomes a celebration of female sexuality, of female pleasure, as maria rejects the lie-back-and-thinkof-england mentality encouraged by the conduct-books in favor of a sex-life—and by extension, a domestic life— that will provide her with what she wants and needs. petruchio, if he wants to consummate the relationship, will have to realize what these requirements are and adjust himself to them. (chetty 94) maria is not interested in her own enjoyment at the expense of petruchio’s. her aim regarding sexual consummation is in favor of mutuality. the masculine worldview may associate love and duty in marriage with how well the wife satisfies her husband sexually, but maria demonstrates the power of withholding sex—a common trope in dramatic comedy—to draw men’s attention to other aspects of the relationship (smith 52). this dynamic is only one stage of her campaign to tame her tyrannical husband. the field where fletcher’s tamer takes her stand is in favor of physical pleasure expescientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 146 spring 2016 riences for women, not dependent on men. losing no time, fletcher’s maria turns the tables on petruchio and the traditional notion of taming by letting loose the output of her pleasures and refusing the input of her husband’s desire. next, maria’s output challenges convention regarding will power. she seizes her opportunity to assert her demands while the marriage is unconsummated, and she claims the higher ground. if he submits, she will have laid the foundation for greater equality. maria’s steps here are by no means random. her actions are strategic since she “has decided to exert her sovereignty, and locks herself in her apartment until petruchio will submit to the terms of her demands” (ferguson vii). for the benefit of the audience, in the very first scene where maria is introduced, fletcher has her a “fundamental objective: to bring about petruchio’s recognition and acceptance of her independent soul, encompassing, as it does, her will and intellectual powers” ( johnson 102). maria is intentional, almost methodical, in how she demonstrates her will power and works against domination by male authority. during her dominion in the upper chamber, petruchio and her father—both recognized male authorities—try to talk maria back into “proper” obedient submission. however, as both representatives of patriarchy urge her to her “duty,” she cleverly elucidates her unique position. seizing the moment of liminality after the wedding ceremony and before the consummation to stage her protest, “maria creates and occupies a threshold between maid and wife, effectively defying patriarchal definition and categorization of women according to their marital status” ( johnson 127). as a married woman, maria is no longer subject to her father, and as her marriage is unconsummated it is not yet legitimate; therefore, she is not subject to her nominal husband (fletcher 1.3.191-8, 208-18). this liminality creates for maria a scenario of power, one from which she is in a position to negotiate. attempting to manipulate maria by an appeal to her emotions, petruchio next speaks in the name of love, more than duty, as he demands her obedience ( johnson 153). he still imposes his will, but he also veils the misogynist ideology with interpersonal rhetoric. however, maria’s rhetoric resists his attempt because, when “petruchio insists that maria owes him obedience because she is a wife, she claims their marital obligations should be mutual” (crocker 413). a shrewd woman, maria not only sees through petruchio’s subtle subjugation, but she also asserts her will rationally. countering will for will and rhetoric for rhetoric, maria simultaneously withstands her husband’s enticement and expose his bad temper. though petruchio can speak fairly, he upholds the gendered ideology that taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 147 allows him to rule her. therefore, he is unprepared for her refusal to obey, and, after being publicly humiliated, petruccio “unleashes a rant debasing women’s bodies and utterly dismissing their minds” ( johnson 120-21). after petruchio recovers from his irritation and embarrassment, he agrees to maria’s demands—expecting to conquer her more directly afterward. petruchio’s assent ends the initial skirmish and brings the women down, but he still has to contend against maria’s will. although she descends from her high ground, maria still refuses to yield to petruchio; whereupon, he resorts again to bullying and threats. in “exposing petruccio’s penchant for violent outbursts maria essentially exposes to what extent petruccio’s authority as husband depends upon physical coercion and how little it has to do with reason” ( johnson 155). he cannot contend with her oppositional will so he defaults in his frustration to the tyranny of physical force; thus, fletcher invited the audience to laugh at petruchio while also potentially exposing a weak point in the taming. since cultural tradition did allow a husband to exercise authority over his wife’s body in force as well as in pleasure, maria has cause to be afraid. however, in her response, “maria makes clear to petruccio that overpowering her body does not amount to enjoying control over her person . . . [it] would [in fact] entail permanently losing the chance of a privileged access to her ‘mind’ and ‘appetite’” ( johnson 138). the intangible of her personhood, her heart and soul, are lost to him if petruchio forcibly compels her to his will. presenting women as composed of more than mere body, maria rejects input from her husband’s will and insists on equal consideration for the output of her will and her words. another contentious area where early modern men tried to exercise control over the female threat were women’s words and speech. returning to historical context, it is ‘striking’ that “the punishments meted out to women are much more frequently targeted at suppressing women’s speech than they are at controlling their sexual transgressions” (boose 184). considering all of the bad jokes and bawdy stories during this era that dealt with the dangers of female sexuality and cuckoldry, this comparison illustrates how seriously the establishment took the threat of outspoken women. in the early modern mindset, the female gendered offenses of speech and sexuality were linked: the talkative woman is frequently imagined as synonymous with the sexually available woman, her open mouth the signifier for invited entrance elsewhere. hence the dictum that associates ‘silent’ with ‘chaste’ and stigmatizes women’s public speech as a scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 148 spring 2016 behavior fraught with cultural signs resonating with a distinctly sexual kind of shame. given these connections . . . control of women’s speech becomes a massively important project. (boose 196) in order to maintain a standard of morality and good social order, the male establishment must, therefore, exercise control over women’s speech. the domestic patriarchy which jacobean society was built on depended on women accepting and functioning in their lower status. the ideal woman accepted the input of male authority in silence. it is no surprise, then, that “the woman with a sharp tongue breaks the social order: she is strictly disorderly. discordant, disruptive, unruly, she threatens to sabotage the domestic harmony which depends upon her general submissiveness” ( jardine 106). as the head of the home, every man was therefore responsible for keeping his wife quietly in order. the character of petruchio, as represented by both shakespeare and fletcher, takes this responsibility very seriously; however, where in shrew petruchio is prepared for trouble by hortensio’s warnings (shakespeare 1.2.45-50), in the tamer tamed petruchio is taken completely by surprise when maria starts talking (fletcher 1.3). petruchio is more upset by her continuing to speak than he was when he heard she was fortified against him for the night. both he and maria’s father, petronius, command her to be silent, and when she does not comply, they get extremely agitated (mcmullan xvi). rhetoric and the power of speech are supposed to be masculine, but maria wields both with precision. the threat is not just the fact that women speak out, but there is danger in what they say. before she has been tamed, kate boldly claims a right to speak her feelings (shakespeare, shrew 4.3.74-82). however, by the end of that scene, she has been so mortified and badgered that she stops resisting and even affirms whatever petruchio states as the truth. this concept of controlling and imposing male perspective on the woman is a consistent tenet of the taming tradition: “the ‘tamer’ imposing on the ‘tamee’ an alternative version of reality” ( johnson 143). on the journey back to her father’s house, kate irrationally agrees with petruchio’s representation of the time, the sky, and everything that they come across (shakespeare, shrew 4.5). her speech is now completely controlled by her tamer. to show off this accomplishment, petruchio publicly showcases kate not only submitting quietly to his will—throwing away her cap—but also acting as a mouthpiece for his philosophy, preaching his doctrine of female subordination to the other wives (paris 344). this is the desired end of the taming taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 149 tradition, to take a formerly disruptive woman and make her a model of the idealized feminine. fletcher inverted not only these techniques but also their outcome in maria’s shrewd speech. initially, she provokes petruchio to speak out in confusion and anger all of his conventionally masochistic notions about duty and gender. what he says sounds like mindless repetition of the prevalent male worldview and leads maria to taunt him (smith ii). his rote parroting and her derisive reply only emphasize how ineffective his words are unless he can enforce them: “making him engage with her solely on the grounds of wit and hear what she has to say, instead of physically coercing her to say what he wants her to say” demonstrates his weakness ( johnson 137). in front of other men in the community, maria refuses to adhere to petruchio’s script, compounding his humiliation. then she disappears into her upper-room sanctuary and refuses to listen until he says what she wants to hear and signs agreement to her demands (fletcher 2.6). there is no power in petruchio’s words to subdue maria. moreover, fletcher continued the taming narrative by having maria appropriate the technique of imposing her version of reality onto petruchio. when he plots to get sympathy by pretending to be ill, maria sends physicians and locks him into his room, spreading word that he is infectious (3.5). later, when petruchio has violently forced his way out, maria complains that he had insisted on being quarantined and would not let her near him out of care and protection for her (4.2). in an aside to the audience, petruchio admits that if he didn’t absolutely know how it really happened, even he might be convinced by her pretty speeches. in a final triumph of words, maria not only subverts petruchio’s culturally supported ideology about gender and marriage, but she also makes him a convert to her philosophy. through his invocation of conventional gendered platitudes, fletcher set up petruchio as the voice of traditional taming and the early modern masculine hierarchy. in a direct reversal of the final scene where shakespeare’s petruchio has kate mouth self-abnegating attitudes about women (5.2), fletcher’s maria has petruchio rehearse before an amazed audience—in the theatre and onstage—his wife’s subversive doctrine (smith 54). the woman-taming spirit is broken. none of petruchio’s employed techniques have conquered maria. weary and resigned, “petruchio finally relinquishes the cultural fantasy of masculine authority,” disavowing the “tyrannical power of marital sovereignty, [and] he achieves accord with maria” (crocker 417). he has admittedly taken in maria’s spoken output and will pass it on as a lesson to other men. so long as petruchio was a threat, maria had to resist and counterscientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 150 spring 2016 mand him. once the fear of his domination is removed, maria can become affectionate, receptive, and “feminine” again: only “when maria is convinced that petruchio has finally given up his belief in his power to tame her does she relent and accept him as a de facto husband” (leech 53). rather than completing a revolutionary proto-feminist triumph by having maria rule over petruchio, fletcher re-establishes patriarchy. critics and scholars, including george ferguson, gordon mcmullan, and molly smith, debate and disagree about the meaning of maria’s ultimate submission to petruchio after she believes that he has been tamed. whatever the reason, it is unsurprising that the comedy ends with an arguably happy marriage and restored gender hierarchy. petruchio, as shakespeare’s representative of the traditional taming trope, changes roles in fletcher’s work. yet at the end of his supposed taming, and the conclusion of fletcher’s play, petruchio emerges still married and still master in ways consistent with conventional patriarchy. his pleasures may have been checked and postponed, but they were never truly reformed in the manner observed in taming texts where a nonconforming woman was the subject. in the midst of widespread cultural debate about traditional gender roles, playwright john fletcher joined the conversation about taming by directly reversing the standard story in the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed. in fletcher’s imagined scenario a woman shows a man how to behave, thereby earning a companionable kind of equality in her marriage. this play does not appear to be a serious stance regarding the relative power and position of the sexes, but rather, as a comedy, it aims to make the audience laugh, perhaps callously, at women’s inability to actually get the upper hand, rather than to question the masculine status quo. however, whether intentional or otherwise, fletcher’s play suggests the possible fomentation of sociohistorical fissures in gender relations that could be tied to the early stirrings of feminist discontent. taming trope turnabout: john fletcher’s the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed middle tennessee state university 151 works cited barnhill, sandra corder. “the shrew and the scornful lady in stuart comedy.” the development of the shrew in british comedy to 1642. diss. texas tech university, lubbock, tx, 1977. 248-308. proquest dissertations and theses. web. 5 oct 2012. boose, lynda e. “scolding brides and bridling scolds: taming the woman’s unruly member.” shakespeare quarterly 42.2 (1991): 179-213. jstor. web. 1 oct. 2012. brooks, dennis s. “‘to show her scorn her own image’: the varieties of education in the taming of the shrew.” rocky mountain review of language and literature 48.1 (1994): 7-32. jstor. web. 28 nov. 2012. chetty, rajendra. “fletcher’s the tamer tamed: a rediscovered jacobean text. swan theatre, stratford-upon-avon, 8 july 2003.” shakespeare in southern africa 15 (2003): 91-96. jstor. web. 1 oct. 2012. crocker, holly a. “the tamer as shrewd in john fletcher’s the woman’s prize: or, the tamer tam’d.” studies in english literature, 1500-1900 51.2 (2011): 409-26. jstor. web. 1 oct. 2012. daileader, celia r., and gary taylor. “introduction.” the tamer tamed or, the woman’s prize. revels student editions. ed. celia r. daileader and gary taylor. new york: manchester up, 2006. 1-41. print. ferguson, george burnham. introduction. the woman’s prize, or the tamer tamed, by john fletcher: a critical edition. diss. university of illinois, urbana, 1962. iv-xxxvi. proquest dissertations and theses. web. 1 oct. 2012. fletcher, john. “the woman’s prize.” english renaissance drama: norton anthology. ed. david bevington, lars engle, katharine eisaman maus, and eric rasmussen. new york: norton, 2002. 1215-96. print. freedman, barbara. “taming difference and the taming of the shrew: feminism, psychoanalysis, theater.” staging the gaze: postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and shakespearean comedy. ithaca, ny: cornell up, 1991. 114-153. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 152 spring 2016 jardine, lisa. “shrewd of shrewish? when the disorderly woman has her head.” still harping on daughters: women and drama in the age of shakespeare. new york: columbia up, 1989. 103-140. print. johnson, sarah e. “‘a spirit to resist’ and female eloquence in the tamer tamed.” women and the soul-body dichotomy in jacobean drama. diss. mcmaster university, hamilton, ontario, canada, 2010. 102-163. proquest dissertations and theses. web. 1 oct. 2012. leech, clifford. the john fletcher plays. cambridge, ma: harvard up, 1962. print. mcmullan, gordon. introduction. the royal shakespeare company production of the tamer tamed, john fletcher. london: nick hern books, 2003. xiii-xvii. print. nesler, miranda garno. “performative education and educational disruption: the taming of the shrew and the tamer tamed.” this rough magic 3.1 (2012): 1-22. web. 5 oct 2012. paris, bernard j. “petruchio’s taming of kate—a horneyan perspective: commentary on roger sealy’s ‘the psychology of the shrew and shrew taming.’” american journal of psychoanalysis 54.4 (1994): 339-44. interlibrary loan. pdf. shakespeare, william. the taming of the shrew: texts and contexts. ed. frances e. dolan. boston: bedford/st. martin’s, 1996. print. smith, molly easo. “john fletcher’s response to the gender debate: the woman’s prize and the taming of the shrew.” papers on language & literature 31.1 (1995): 38-60. academic search premier. web. 5 oct. 2012. underdown, d.e. “the taming of the scold: the enforcement of patriarchal authority in early modern england.” order and disorder in early modern england. ed. anthony fletcher and john stevenson. new york: cambridge up, 1985. 116-136. print. discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory middle tennessee state university 47 discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory kayla mcnabb abstract though poe has commonly been remembered for his contributions to the detective, horror, and science-fiction genres, we should consider how his innovation extended into other areas. this includes his critical works, such as his essay “the philosophy of composition.” despite poe’s classical training and the trends in composition instruction before and during his educational career, the theory of composition argued for in his critical essays is more analogous to the process theory established by compositionsts over 100 years later than the teaching methods of his time, suggesting that poe’s concept of composition was very progressive. to truly understand poe’s environment, we must examine the tradition that informed early nineteenth-century educational systems as well as poe’s own academic experience. in order to discover the connections between poe’s critical methodologies and those of later composition theorists, we must compare the preexisting notions in the field to the developments seen in composition theory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. second place winner of the scholars’ day best presentation (liberal arts/graduate category) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2013 edgar allan poe’s name has become synonymous with the detective story, the gothic, and the single effect1; however, these are not the only notable contributions poe made during his career. as were a number of his contemporaries, poe was interested in both writing fiction and reviewing the writings of others. this diverse engagement with others’ works led to one of poe’s less discussed contributions: his philosophies about composition and the writing process. despite poe’s classical training and the trends in composition instruction before and during his educational career, the theory of composition argued in his essays is more analogous to the process theory established by compositionists over 100 years later than the teaching methods of his time, suggesting that poe’s concept of composition was well ahead of its time. the atmosphere surrounding the teaching of composition changed drastically over the two hundred years preceding poe’s life. early schools in america resembled those found in britain and europe. a seventeenth-century minister, john brinsley, put forth his plans for a grammar school in virginia in the 1660s and published a consolation for our grammar schools (1662), which outlined these plans.2 while writing about brinsley’s plans, elizabeth a. wright and s. michael halloran state, “brinsley’s views were typical of formal english education in the early seventeenth century. writing english was closely connected with study of the classical languages, and with oral pertated [sic] material and printed texts, and recitation both catechetical and disputational were standard classroom activities.”3 this preference for instruction in classical languages continued in britain and america into the eighteenth century. in their essay, “from rhetoric to composition,” linda ferreira-buckley and winifred bryan horner discuss the eighteenth-century grammar school system that was popular in the british isles. these schools had been religiously based and focused primarily on teaching students to read and write in latin.4 students continued to study ancient languages as they moved into their secondary education, studying “greek and rhetoric while continuing to improve their proficiency in latin by writing verse.”5 while this method of instruction was wide-spread during the eighteenth century, wright and halloran comment that “[d]uring the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, […] the sovereignty of the classical languages 1 edgar allan poe, “the philosophy of composition,” in essays and reviews, ed. g. r. thompson (new york: the library of america, 1984), 13-14. the single effect is an emotion or feeling that the author wishes the audience to experience. it is decided upon at the onset of writing and is considered by the author as he or she makes each decision about the piece. this effect is conveyed through the choice of setting, tone, incidents, and characters. 2 elizabeth a. wright and s. michael halloran, “from rhetoric to composition: teaching writing in america to 1900,” in a short history of writing instruction: from ancient greece to modern america, ed. james j. murphy (mahwah, nj: hermagoras, 2001), 214. 3 wright, “from rhetoric to composition,” 216. 4 linda ferreira-buckley and winifred bryan horner, “writing instruction in great britain: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” in a short history of writing instruction: from ancient greece to modern america, ed. james j. murphy (mahwah, nj: hermagoras, 2001), 189. 5 ibid., 189. discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory middle tennessee state university 49 was increasingly challenged, and writing instruction in english evolved in response to social, political, religious, and economic developments.”6 despite this general shift, some schools wanted to maintain the old methods of instruction while many embraced english as appropriate for academic writing, and the instruction of composition in english gained ground. these radical changes in education occurred in both england and america and exposed students to both classical teaching pedagogies and composition in english and other modern languages. these varied methods of instruction greatly affected edgar allan poe. his exposure to classical training as well as writing in english informed his concepts of literature and composition. as a young boy, poe moved to england with his foster family, the allans, and was exposed to the british education system. poe’s family was in scotland and england for several months before his foster father, john allan, enrolled him at the misses dubourg’s boarding school in 1816.7 at the boarding school, poe was learning “english grammar and composition” using the works of joseph addison or oliver goldsmith as models for writing prose and the models of john milton or james thomson for writing verse.8 notwithstanding the level of education poe was receiving at the misses dubourg’s, allan sent poe to a “better and more expensive school” outside of london, run by the reverend john bransby in late 1817 or early 1818.9 at this school, poe continued to receive aspects of classical education10, learning latin in addition to modern languages such as french and other subjects including literature, history, and dance.11 despite john allan’s financial hardships, as he was forced to move his family back to richmond in 1820, he continued to invest in poe’s education.12 upon their return to richmond, allan arranged for poe to study under joseph h. clark. at clark’s school, poe continued his study of greek and latin as well as mathematics, science, and elocution. poe did well in school and excelled at elocution, even winning a citywide contest. in 1823, john allan sent poe to study at william burke’s school where his academic success continued. because of his previous mastery of many of the classics, poe was allowed to pursue independent study at burke’s school and continued to complete assignments early in order to devote time to “desultory reading and creative writing.”13 in 1825, allan received a large inheritance from his late uncle and purchased a new home in 6 ibid., 173-174. 7 arthur hobson quinn, edgar allan poe, a critical biography (new york: d. appleton-century co., 1941), 67-69. 8 kevin j. hayes, edgar allan poe (chippenham, u.k.: reaktion, 2009), 36-37. 9 quinn, edgar allan poe, 69-71. 10 kevin j. hayes, edgar allan poe in context (new york: cambridge university press, 2013), 221222. a classical education included learning to read and recite latin and greek. poe read ancient texts from “ovid, caesar, virgil, cicero, and horace in latin” and “xenophon and homer in greek.” 11 ibid., 71-73. 12 ibid., 79-80. 13 hayes, edgar allan poe, 37-39. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2013 downtown richmond; as a result, poe left burke’s school. at this time, poe was sixteen years old and considered prepared for the university.14 in 1826, poe began attending the university of virginia. the school was rather new but was already considered “among the finest institutions of higher learning in the nation.”15 its founder, thomas jefferson, had established a progressive curriculum, which allowed students to pursue their interests by creating individualized plans of study. poe continued to study modern and ancient languages and wanted to continue his study of mathematics, but he could only take two courses per term because allan would not pay for a third. he also pursued learning outside of the classroom by becoming part of the jefferson society, a group that met to discuss literature.16 poe was only able to remain at the university of virginia for one year. he had not been given adequate money for school books or supplies and had taken to gambling to supplement the small amount of money supplied by allan. after poe’s first year at the university, allan came to collect him but paid very few of his debts before returning with him to richmond,17 effectively ending poe’s education until 1830, when he was appointed at west point after a short time in the army.18 as a military institution, west point expected its cadets to endure a great deal of physical training and develop discipline in addition to progressing through their standard curriculum. after poe passed an entrance exam testing his abilities to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic, he participated in encampment and spent two months focusing on military instruction before being allowed to move on to academic courses.19 during his time at west point, poe continued his studies of mathematics and french but was stifled in his more fanciful pursuits. the university rules disallowed cadets from possessing novels, poems, or books that were not directly related to their studies.20 as poe had a growing interest in writing his own poetry and pursuing self-study, these restrictions made it difficult for him to follow the rules even as he did well in his coursework. his records from the school show that “he stood third in french and seventeenth in mathematics in a class of eighty-seven.”21 between the limitations being placed on poe academically and his foster father choosing to remarry after the death of his foster mother, poe began neglecting his military duties and decided to resign from west point to pursue his writing aspirations. allan would not support this course of action, and poe was court-martialed and removed 14 ibid., 39. 15 ibid., 39. 16 ibid., 39-42. 17 quinn, edgar allan poe, 108-112. 18 ibid., 166. 19 quinn, edgar allan poe, 169. 20 ibid., 169. 21 ibid., 171. discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory middle tennessee state university 51 from service for his “disobedience of orders” and “gross neglect of duty.”22 despite this inauspicious end, poe was a superior student throughout his academic career. poe’s experiences in the english and american educational systems certainly affected his perception of writing in addition to his feelings about poetry and prose, but they did not dictate his future approaches. he wanted to discuss the writing of others and found an outlet for that in his reviews. poe read and reviewed dozens of works by various authors, and as he developed as an author and proto-theorist, he wanted to present his own theories about composing poetry and prose. he was able to present these ideas in critical essays that were published in graham’s magazine, southern literary magazine, and sartain’s union magazine from 1846-1850. these publications included “the philosophy of composition,” “the rationale of verse,” and “the poetic principle.” poe’s theory culminated in his “philosophy of composition,” but it began as poe reviewed the works of other writers and assessed their literary value. poe’s critical reviews positioned him to comment on the composition style of authors such as charles dickens, thomas moore, and nathaniel hawthorne, among others. although, at the time, many readers were skeptical about poe’s practices as a literary critic, some later scholars, such as emerson r. marks, have argued for a reevaluation of poe in this field. in his article, “poe as literary theorist: a reappraisal,” marks argues that “poe is generally credited with having propounded a poetic ontology more thoroughly defined by coleridge a generation earlier and an analytical method destined to be elaborated by the new critics a century later.”23 because poe drew from both his own education and his critical musings, aspects of his criticism reflect established ideas about composition of poetry and prose as well as progressive ideas about critical theory and composition. his time as a literary critic allowed poe to refine his theories about composition and build up to his seminal work on the subject. poe finally discusses his concepts of composition explicitly in his essay, “the philosophy of composition.” in this essay, poe uses his composition of “the raven” to present his methodologies, and the reader can see the influence of his classical training and years of experience in the magazine business. poe presents his preference for “unity” and “beauty” as well as his “single effect,” which was used as a tool to convey both. poe’s focus on unity in his works was influenced both by his studies of the classics and contemporary sources such as “british periodicals, the criticism of augustus wilhelm schlegel, and the criticism of coleridge.”24 in addition to poe’s discussion of the single effect, unity, and beauty, “the philosophy of composition” returns to a concept of planning a story backwards, from the end to the beginning, to ensure the correct causality, an idea he first presented in his second 22 ibid., 173-174. 23 emerson r. marks, “poe as literary theorist: a reappraisal,” american literature 33, no. 3 (november 1961): 296. 24 beverly r voloshin, “the essays and ‘marginalia’: poe’s literary theory,” in a companion to poe studies, ed. eric w. carlson (westport, ct: greenwood, 1996), 277. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2013 review of hawthorne’s tales.25 poe discusses all of these aspects of “the raven” in the context of rationally planning out the work before commencing the act of compositing. though poe’s experience with the classics influenced how he viewed works, the way he presented his process of composing was very forward-thinking. it was not particularly influential in the united states, but as commented in dennis pahl’s article, “de-composing poe’s ‘philosophy,’” “the french symbolist poets (baudelaire, mallarmé, and valéry), as great admirers of poe, found in the essay a strong confirmation of their own aesthetic method—a method emphasizing a kind of poetic ‘suggestiveness’ that would range ‘beyond the limits of direct speech.’”26 while the french were considering poe’s theories, he was being largely over-looked in america. despite poe’s contributions, the field of composition continued to develop without his influence. from the mid-nineteenth century, when poe was writing, through the first half of the twentieth century, composition instruction and theory in america underwent broad changes. beginning in the 1860s, grammar became more universally acknowledged as necessary and worth teaching. robert j. connors cites several factors that contributed to this shift. in his book, composition-rhetoric: backgrounds, theory, and pedagogy, connors starts with the perception that formal grammar, which primarily constituted learning grammar in ancient languages, was “sterile and impractical,” the new-found focus on teaching rhetoric and eloquence through written communication, and the cultural shift toward awareness of correct speaking all contributed to the changing values in education.27 because this change occurred after poe’s time, his works do not seem preoccupied with grammar. although poe was not involved in this movement, “a few theorists saw that rhetoric and grammar would be melded in the developing discipline of composition” and began to work toward the establishment of the field.28 as these pedagogical changes from the late nineteenth century took hold in the universities, professors experienced excessive workloads as they attempted to review each student’s written work for mechanical correctness.29 after establishing programs to teach composition and encountering these heavy workloads, some programs followed harvard’s lead, concluding that “composition belongs in secondary schools.”30 in john c. brereton’s book the origins of composition studies in the american college 18751925: a documentary history, he discusses this time of constant change. during the first few decades of the twentieth century, newly-developed textbooks helped composition instructors as they guided students to produce controlled, predetermined compositions. it 25 voloshin, “the essays and ‘marginalia,’” 286. 26 dennis pahl, “de-composing poe’s philosophy,” texas studies in literature and language 38.1 (sping 1996) n.p. 27 robert j. connors, composition-rhetoric: backgrounds, theory, and pedagogy (pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 1997), 127. 28 connors, composition-rhetoric, 127. 29 ibid., 140. 30 john c. brereton, the origins of composition studies in the american college 1875-1925: a documentary history (pittsburgh: u of pittsburgh p, 1995), discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory middle tennessee state university 53 was not until the mid-twentieth century, however, that compositionists became particularly interested in how students write, why they write, or what they want to write about. john r. hayes and linda s. flower researched how students write, and their work became the study of process theory. the research of hayes and flower, which ultimately resulted in the process theory model, was progressive and included the use of “think-aloud protocols” to document what each writer did as he or she approached a given writing task and as he or she completed it. think aloud protocols include training the test subjects to verbalize every aspect of their cognitive process while writing.31 after collecting and coding their data, hayes and flower determined that there were three primary component processes in the writing process: planning, translating, and reviewing.32 hayes and flower subdivided these primary processes into their sub-processes and further researched them. after five years of research, flower and hayes published “a cognitive process theory of writing,” in which they present the four key points that serve as the basis for their cognitive process theory. they found that “writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing”; “the processes of writing are hierarchically organized, with component processes embedded within other components”; “writing is a goal-directed process”; and “writers create their own goals in two key ways: by generating goals and supporting sub-goals which embody purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating their own top-level goals in light of what they have learned by writing.”33 flower and hayes’s findings about the writing process have been and are very influential in composition instruction. despite their great influence, though, flower and hayes were not the first to muse about how writers go about writing. edgar allan poe addressed some of these same questions in his essay, “the philosophy of composition,” over 100 years before flower and hayes’s 1981 article. while poe’s “the philosophy of composition” did hearken back to the works of coleridge and many of the scottish aestheticians who influenced his early schooling with his discussions of beauty and unity, his methodologies for investigating his writing process is much more similar to that of the twentieth century. 34 like hayes and flower, poe muses about how others write. in his “philosophy,” he states, “i have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would—that is to say who could— detail, step by step, the process by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion.”35 poe’s “philosophy” is his attempt to exhibit this step-by-step journey 31 john r. hayes and linda s. flower, “identifying the organization of writing processes,” in cognitive processes in writing, eds. lee w. gregg and erwin r. steinberg (hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, 1980) 4-5. 32 hayes and flower, “identifying the organizaiton,” 12. 33 linda s. flower and john r. hayes, “a cognitive process theory of writing,” college composition and communication 32 (december 1981): 366-381. 34 james m. hutchisson, poe (jackson, ms: university press of mississippi,2005), 66. 35 poe, “the philosophy of composition,” 14. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 54 spring 2013 through the writing process in which he uses “the raven” as his example. he discusses his planning throughout the essay and contends that every work of literature must be planned all the way through before writing starts. on this point, poe comments, “nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with a pen.”36 as a part of poe’s planning, he also settles on an effect that will inform all of the choices he makes while completing the work. these choices include his choice of a melancholy tone because it “is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones,” his choice of a raven because it was “equally capable of speech [as compared to his first consideration of a parrot], and infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone,” and his choice of an enclosed setting because he saw it as “absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident.”37 in both the choice of the raven and the choice of the enclosed chamber, poe reviewed his first choices, a parrot and a forest or open field respectively, and decided to revise them during his planning process based on his desire to maintain his intended effect. poe goes on to consider the audience of the work as well as the proper length for his poem in his planning. all of poe’s choices as outlined in his “philosophy” greatly resemble the basis of process theory as proposed by flower and hayes: poe presents his procedure for planning, translating, and reviewing and the components of each of those processes; he proposes that certain decisions need to be executed first, such as deciding tone or effect; he sets goals throughout his planning, primarily focusing on bringing his single effect to fruition; and he reevaluates the importance of his decisions based on his goals. in opposition to many of the ideas promoted during poe’s extensive education, he developed his own thoughts about the writing process that would not be fully embraced or expanded upon until the mid-twentieth century. poe has been recognized for his contributions to literature and is beginning to be better recognized for his contributions to literary theory, but poe’s early commentary on composition theory has been largely overlooked. the educational environment that poe experienced was rigid and primarily focused on classical ideals of education, so his musings about the writing process and his foray into data collection about his own writing process, which resembles the think aloud protocols used by flower and hayes, is that much more informative and relevant for the history of composition research. 36 ibid., 13. 37 ibid., 17-21. discovering poe as a compositionist: edgar allan poe’s “the philosophy of composition” and process theory middle tennessee state university 55 bibliography brereton, john c., ed. the origins of composition studies in the american college, 1875-1925: a documentary history. pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 1995. connors, robert j. composition-rhetoric: backgrounds, theory, and pedagogy. pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 1997. ferreira-buckley, linda, and winifred bryan horner. “writing instruction in great britain: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” in a short history of writing instruction: from ancient greece to modern america, edited by james j. murphy, 173-212.  mahwah, nj: hermagoras, 2001. flower, linda, and john r. hayes. “a cognitive process theory of writing.”  college composition and communication 32 (december 1981): 365-387. hayes, john r. and linda s. flower. “identifying the organization of writing processes.” in cognitive processes in writing, edited by lee w. gregg and erwin r. steinberg, 3-30. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, 1980. hayes, kevin j. edgar allan poe. chippenham, u.k.: reaktion, 2009. ---. edgar allan poe in context. new york: cambridge university press, 2013. hutchisson, james m. poe. jackson, ms: university press of mississippi, 2005. marks, emerson r. “poe as literary theorist: a reappraisal.” american literature 33, no. 3 (november 1961): 296-306. pahl, dennis. “de-composing poe’s ‘philosophy.’” texas studies in literature and language 38, no. 1 (spring 1996): 1-25. general onefile. 20 nov. 2012. document number: galea89971716. poe, edgar allan. “the philosophy of composition.” in essays and reviews, edited by g. r. thompson, 1325. new york: the library of america, 1984. quinn, arthur hobson. edgar allan poe, a critical biography. new york: d. appleton-century co., 1941. voloshin, beverly r. “the essays and ‘marginalia’: poe’s literary theory.” in a companion to poe studies, edited by eric w. carlson, 276-295. westport, ct: greenwood, 1996. wright, elizabethada a., and s. michael halloran. “from rhetoric to composition: the teaching of writing in america to 1900.” in a short history of writing instruction: from ancient greece to modern america, edited by james j. murphy, 213-246.  mahwah, nj: hermagoras, 2001. ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 1 ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior joseph meyer abstract with the end of the cold war, conflict in the international system increasingly manifested within states rather than among them. the collapse of the soviet union led to the creation of 15 independent states, many with diminished state power and simmering inter-ethnic tensions. scholarly research in the post-cold war era has focused on the determinants of ethnic conflict, including ethnic demography. in this study, i examine the relationship among three measures of ethnic demography—ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and dominance—and conflict behavior in states of the former soviet union. results illustrated a negative relationship between fractionalization and polarization and conflict behavior, representing a break from traditional theory regarding demographics and ethnic conflict. as such, i advocate a constructivist approach to ethnic conflict, focusing on the fluid nature of ethnic identity. as ethnic identity changes over time, it may exacerbate or mitigate the chances of ethnic conflict, regardless of what demographic indicators may be present. this demonstrates a need to expand our understanding of how identities and narratives change over time. author’s note: this version of the essay is excerpted from a longer version, condensed to meet the page-length requirements of scientia et humanitas. a case study was eliminated to suit this journal ’s needs. deans’ distinguished essay award undergraduate recipient 2 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research i. introduction the fall of the union of soviet socialist republics in december 1991 was a shock to the world. it was unthinkable that one of the world’s superpowers would collapse so peacefully. the ussr was a state of arbitrary construction, built out of the ashes of the once mighty russian empire. sheer force kept the ussr’s many ethnic groups under control. when it collapsed in 1991, 15 new states were born, each with its own set of problems, and many with large minority populations of russians. many of the new states struggled to create stability, leading to civil disorder and conflict between ethnic and political forces vying for control. during the cold war, ethnic conflicts were seen through the lens of the great ideological war between the free world led by the united states, and the soviet bloc. the united states and soviet union took sides in civil wars not because they were interested in ethnic fairness or homogeneity, but because the cold war was a zero sum game. by arming one ethnic group against another, the superpowers could gain an ally in the effort to gain the upper hand in what seemed like a never-ending struggle for global domination. the end of the cold war forced reconsideration of this paradigm, prompting scholars to search for new explanations of ethnic conflict. with the fall of the soviet union, many ethnic disputes held in check by moscow soon began to escalate, with some developing into all-out civil war. spanning from a few months to several years, most of the violence was ended in the late 1990s, but the conflicts have not been resolved. these “frozen” conflicts continue to plague the former soviet union, occasionally erupting into interstate war, such as the 2008 august war between russia and georgia. as the international community turns its attention to the rising tide of intrastate conflict, it is important for us to understand the factors that lead ethnic disputes to cascade from political bickering to violent conflict, especially as ethnic conflicts begin to cross borders leading to interstate conflict. the study of ethnic conflict is a relatively new phenomenon in international relations. the current theoretical framework is far from complete, with many gaps in the theory related to factors leading to both the onset and resolution of ethnic conflict. this study examines the impact of ethnic demography on the likelihood of ethnic conflict by exploring the relationship among ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and dominance-and-conflict behavior in the states of the former soviet union. ii. the study of ethnic demography and conflict interest in the study of ethnic conflict rapidly increased after the end of the cold war. during the cold war, the importance of ethnic conflict was downplayed because most conflict was subsumed in the bipolar paradigm of the cold war world. with the fall of the ussr and the rise of ethnic tensions in regions previously locked in place by ideology, researchers looked to develop systematic explanations for the origins of ethnic divisions and conflict. although the analogy of a “lid” coming off has been used to describe the outbreak ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 3 of ethnic conflict, it is largely inadequate as it does not explain why conflict has occurred among some ethnic groups but not among others (brown, 1993, 6). three main lenses of ethnic conflict there are three broad, conceptual paradigms that seek to explain ethnic conflict, which i will examine as they pertain to the former soviet union. the first and most basic of the conceptual paradigms is primordialism, which states that ethnic conflicts occur because of ancient group identity pertaining to biological and geographic factors (horowitz, 57, 1985). primordialism holds that the concept of kinship will inevitably create cleavages in complex societies, leading to competition between ethnic groups. primordialism asserts that ethnic identity is static and does not change over time. many researchers have rejected this view in the post-cold war era following the rise of constructivism (lake & rothchild, 1996, 41-42). some have suggested that the peace europe has experienced as a result of the european union supports the idea that ethnic tensions can be eased over time and are not innate aspects of human nature. the next concept used to explain ethnic conflict is instrumentalism, which views the ethnic group as a means to an end. groups are mobilized to achieve political goals other than simple ethnic dominance. proponents of this view point out that simple ethnic differences are not enough to constitute conditions for war and that other factors must be present in the development of violent conflict. (smith, 2003, 10-11) it has been noted that wars fought over power and resources are portrayed as ethnic conflicts because of the utility of mobilizing ethnic groups on opposing sides of the conflict (tishkov, 1997, 200-206). the third major view of ethnic conflict comes from constructivism. this theory holds that ethnic conflicts may result from a combination of constructed traditions and identities as well as instrumental factors cited by tishkov. proponents of this view cite the rwandan genocide as an example, noting that hutu-tutsi animosities were created during the belgian colonial period rather than being inherent to the ethnic groups (mamdani, 76103, 2003). other researchers have focused on the security concerns of ethnic groups in the postcold war world. after the fall of the colonial powers in the 1960s and 1970s as well as the collapse of the cold war paradigm in the late 1980s, many sovereign authorities became too weak to prevent conflict between ethnic groups. thus, ethnic groups began preparing their own security strategies creating an escalation dynamic between neighboring ethnic groups. additionally, the breakup or weakening of states may create a situation that favors an offensive strategy rather than defensive. that is, ethnic groups may perceive an immediate threat to their continued existence and lash out at neighboring groups to secure their position (brown, 1993, 6-8). while no single theory dominates the field, recent studies have begun to take a more constructivist stance on ethnic conflict. modern research seeks to explain determinant factors in ethnic conflict by examining the environment in which the conflict occurred. the study of the relationship between ethnic identity and conflict has shifted to view 4 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research interaction as key, rather than the concept of the group. most researchers view “groupness” as a “contextually fluctuating conceptual variable” (brubaker, 2004, 38). this perspective incorporates many factors from both the instrumental and constructive paradigms of ethnic conflict, recognizing that patterns of ethnic conflict can fluctuate based on a number of variables, rather than simply focusing on the “ancient hatreds” emphasized by primordialism (coakley, 265-268, 2009). in recent years, efforts have been made to combine various schools of thought on ethnic conflict, incorporating models of both ethnic diversity and power relations to explain the outbreak of violence. this approach is sensitive to both instrumental political factors as well as socially constructed concepts, such as historical narratives. in the publication associated with one of the datasets used in this study, cederman, wimmer, and min conclude that ethnic rebellion against the state is a function ethnic representation and inclusion in the political process, ethnic mobilization capacity, and previous history with conflict (cederman, wimmer, & min, 2010, 2). measures of ethnic demography seek to capture the distribution of power among ethnic groups by examining the impact of numerical parity and superiority. research on fractionalization, polarization, and dominance a significant amount of research focuses on the dynamic effects of demographics on conflict and state development. recognizing that the conceptual foundations do not explain every instance of ethnic conflict, researchers have collected empirical evidence in a search for relationships between specific variables and the outbreak and course of ethnic conflict. the inspiration for this study comes from the work stefano costalli and francesco niccolo moro, who examined the effects of ethnicity on the course of the bosnian civil war. using disaggregated data from each municipality in bosnia and herzegovina, the researchers performed a quantitative analysis, comparing indices of ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and dominance to the number of casualties in each municipality. their research found that the ethnic distribution of the population had a major impact on the severity of violence. particularly, increased ethnic polarization was connected to more intense violence at the outset of conflict. the authors emphasized the importance of spatial and temporal analysis in discovering the dynamic effects of ethnic demography on the development of violent conflict. they found that the impact of ethnic demography on conflict behavior changes over the course of a conflict. violence was more intense upon the onset of conflict in fractionalized and polarized regions. however the impact on ethnic demography on the nature of conflict decreased as the conflict continued. additionally, they concluded that ethnic groups seek to gain both internal homogenization and external consolidation (to constitute larger areas that are more easily defensible), supporting the focus on security concerns emphasized by brown (costalli & moro, 2012, 801-815). the researchers montalvo and reynal-querol examine the explanatory power of polarization and fractionalization in the context of economic development (2003). their study indicates that for low values of religious polarization, the relationship with the religious fragmentation index is positive and nearly linear; conversely when polarization ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 5 values were high, they found that the relationship with the fragmentation index was near zero (2003, 203). their research showed that polarization, rather than fragmentation, has a noticeable negative effect on economic development (measured through gdp per capita and gdp growth). these findings emphasize the importance of looking at several different measures of ethnic diversity to further illuminate the true effect of diversity on a particular dependent variable. in 2005, montalvo and reynal-querol address the explanatory power of fractionalization and polarization, noting that, “even though ethnic fractionalization seems to be a powerful explanatory variable for economic growth, it is not significant in the explanation of civil wars and other kinds of conflicts” (2005, 798). polarization indices are more sensitive to the distribution of power in a society based on ethnic demography, particularly pertaining to concept of majority rule (2005, 798). the authors suggest a stronger correlation between polarization and conflict than fractionalization and conflict, with 9 of the 10 most polarized countries in their study experiencing civil war, while only 4 of the 10 most fractionalized countries experienced civil war (2005, 802). my study features both fractionalization and polarization as independent variables. the inclusion of both measures of ethnic demography serve to illuminate the nuanced effects of population distribution on ethnic conflict in the former soviet union. some states in the region have high levels of polarization and fractionalization, while others are more homogenous. the use of both variables also adds to the explanatory power of the methods that i have chosen by measuring both local level and more national levels of rebellion. ethnic dominance (asymmetry), the presence of a numerically dominant ethnic group and one or more small minorities with limited numbers and access to resources, is the final measure of ethnic diversity in my study (costalli & moro, 2012, 804). previous research has found that ethnic dominance can reduce the occurrence and cost of ethnic violence due to a factor of deterrence; conflict would be too costly for the weaker party to attack the dominant party (welch, 1998, 7). costalli and moro find support for the deterrence argument in their study, observing that ethnic conflict is low in regions of dominance because “there is no real opportunity” for smaller groups to act, as they cannot “reasonably expect to subvert the status quo” (costalli & moro, 2012, 804). the work of costalli and moro, which examined the outbreak and severity of violence in bosnian war on a provinceto-province basis, will serve as a model for my project. the former soviet union will parallel bosnia and herzegovina, with each of the 14 republics mirroring the province-to-province measurement model in the costalli-moro study. because researchers have only begun to focus on this type of conflict since the end of the cold war, much work remains to be done regarding the origins of ethnic conflict. clearly there is much disagreement about which measure of ethnic demography is most related to the outbreak of ethnic conflict. these differences suggest that many situational factors may play a role in the mobilization of ethnic groups for war. the research up to this point in time has reflected this, focusing primarily on ethnic mobilization and institutions. much more research needs to be done in the field of constructed factors such as ethnic identity and 6 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research threat perception in order to further develop our understanding of the escalation of ethnic tension into violent conflict. iii. research design the objective of this project is to develop our understanding of the demographic factors that contribute to the outbreak of ethnic conflict. the cases examined in the study are 14 of the states that comprised the former soviet union from 1992 to 2002. russia has been excluded due to its size and varying levels of ethnic diversity, which make it difficult to measure ethnic demography on a national level. additionally, a dummy control variable indicating whether or not a country shares a land boundary with russia is included in the multivariate analysis, eliminating russia from possible cases. my study will examine likelihood of violence for 27 minority ethnic groups across 14 cases comprise the former soviet union for the years 1992-2002. the challenge of ethnic conflict is of particular concern to the multi-ethnic states of this region, where ethnic conflicts were suppressed for decades by the soviet union. as these governments continue the stateand nation-building process, they will confront ethnic tensions that challenge the integrity of the state and the stability of the region as a whole. each of these states features varying populations and ethnic makeup, creating sufficient demographic variation needed to examine the relationship between ethnic demography and conflict behavior. specifically, my study focuses on the relationship between ethnic fractionalization, ethnic polarization, and ethnic dominance. ethnic fractionalization represents the probability that two randomly selected people in a country will not belong to the same ethnic group (alesina et al., 2003, 158). ethnic polarization represents that probability that two individuals belong to different groups when one of them belongs to group x have weight equal to the relative size of the group in the given territory (costalli & moro, 2012, 803). ethnic dominance represents a situation in which at least 75% of the population of a country belongs to a particular ethnic group or when the largest group includes at least 70% of the population and the second largest group does not exceed 20% (costalli & moro, 2012, 804). ethnic conflict, as defined by minorities at risk, shall be considered any open hostility between minority ethnic groups, as well as any violent act against the internationally recognized government of the country in question (minorities at risk project, 2007, 19-21). hypotheses considering previous literature on the subject, both in the global perspective as well as research specific to the former soviet union, i have developed the following hypotheses for the project: ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 7 h1: increased ethnic fractionalization will result in increased likelihood of communal violence and decreased likelihood of rebellion. h2: increased ethnic polarization will result in increased likelihood of communal conflict and rebellion. h3: the presence of ethnic dominance within a country will result in decreased likelihood of communal conflict and rebellion. discussion of the variables the measures of ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and dominance derive from the ethnic power relations dataset compiled by cederman, min, and wimmer (2009). while polarization and dominance data will be derived from the entire population of the country, fractionalization data is calculated only from politically relevant ethnic groups as determined by cederman et al. the fractionalization and polarization indices reach higher levels as the value of the index nears 1.00. data on conflict is compiled from the minorities at risk project variables measuring rebellion (reb) and annual communal conflict (comco) for each ethnic group within a state defined as “at risk” by the minorities at risk project. the minorities at risk project defines “at-risk minorities” as an “ethnopolitical non-state communal group that collectively suffers, or benefits from, systematic discriminatory treatments vis-à-vis other groups in a society and/or collectively mobilizes in defense or promotion of its self-defined interests” (2007, 5). in this instance, it was not useful to combine the two conflict variables into a unified violence variable. the two variables measure different types of violence, and theory suggests that ethnic demography may have a different effect on each type of violence. thus, violence is disaggregated for all three hypotheses. zurcher suggests that fractionalization can increase communal conflict among local ethnic minorities, but serves to reduce rebellion against the government because of the difficulty associated with amassing enough power to achieve victory in a highly fractionalized environment (2007, 224). the minorities at risk variables have notable limitations in regards to my study. communal conflict data for 2000-2002 is missing in all cases. additionally, the occurrence of conflict itself is quite rare, meaning that the mar dataset contains numerous “0” values across all cases. this has resulted in relatively low mean communal conflict and rebellion scores for the dataset, which can be seen in table 1 below. table 1: minorities at risk conflict behavior coding code communal conflict (comco) rebellion (reb) 0 none manifest none reported 1 acts of harrassment political banditry 2 political agitation campaigns of terrorism 8 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 3 sporadic violent attacks local rebellion 4 anti-group demonstrations small-scale guerilla activity 5 communal rioting intermediate guerilla activity 6 communal warfare large-scale guerilla activity 7 n/a protracted civil war 99 no basis for judgment no basis for judgment the minorities at risk variables used in this study are coded as for each group annually. control variables several control variables are included in the analysis in order to identify possible alternative explanations of the outbreak of ethnic violence. a dummy variable was created for russian border, with a value of 1 indicating that the state in question shares a border with the russian federation. this variable was included in order to identify the impact of the powerful influence of the russian federation in post-soviet space. of the six states with a population of at least 500,000 expatriate russians; all but uzbekistan and kyrgyzstan share a border with russia. of these six, the three states with the largest expatriate russian population (viz., ukraine, kazakhstan, and belarus) all share long borders with russia. thus, the inclusion of the russian border variable serves to gauge some of the impact of the presence of a large population of russians. additionally, a lagged gdp per capita variable was included using world bank data. recent literature has suggested a link between conflict and gdp (fearon & laitin, 2003, 86). it should be noted that the world bank data is country-wide and is not spatially disaggregated to identify poorer regions within each country. however, the gdp per capita still serves as an effective control variable in that it identifies a potential factor that could exacerbate conflict resulting from the struggle for limited capital and resources. descriptive statistics initial analysis of the data shows negligible change over time in all three demographic variables, meaning that the primary comparison in my study will be case-to-case, rather than single case across time. however, both violence variables from minorities at risk show notable change over time. both the rebellion and communal conflict variables showed minimums of 0 for each case. the maximum value of rebellion across the entire former soviet union was 7, while the maximum value of communal conflict was 5. for all cases, the mean rebellion value was .359 while the mean for communal conflict was .354. the mean fractionalization index across all cases was .389, a relatively low level of ethnic fractionalization, with a standard deviation of .155. the minimum value for fractionalization was armenia, at .004, indicating the unique homogeneity of armenian society. the maximum fractionalization value was kazakhstan, at .622. the mean polarization index across all cases was notably higher, at .565 with a standard deviation of .224. the minimum polarization value was that of armenia as well, with .070. the maximum value for polarization was latvia, at .856. of the 14 former soviet republics examined, ethnic dominance was present ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 9 in 8 states. armenia again showed the highest level of ethnic dominance, with over 97% of the population being ethnic armenian. all descriptive statistics can be seen in appendix i. iv. multivariate analysis empirical analysis illustrates that a relationship exists between ethnic demography and the likelihood of violence. analysis showed statistically significant relationships between the independent and dependent variables except in the case of rebellion and ethnic dominance. fractionalization table 2: effect of fractionalization on the probability of violence in former soviet states, 1992-2002 simulated probabilities generated using logistic regression post estimation command clarify (tomz, wittenburg, & king, 2003). dr. karen petersen assisted with the estimation of simulated probabilities. max fractionalization, max gdp, no russian border mean fractionalization, mean gdp, no russian border minimum fractionalization, minimum gdp, russian border simulated probabilty of rebellion 0 .10 .99 simulated probability of communal conflict .03 .43 .91 a very strong negative relationship existed between fractionalization and rebellion; when fractionalization values reached their maximum, likelihood of rebellion dropped to a 0% chance. rebellion was least likely in situations in which fractionalization was at its maximum, states did not border the russian federation, and lagged gdp per capita was at its maximum. these results provides evidence in support of zurcher’s analysis of ethnic conflict in the former soviet union, which focuses on the difficulty of establishing a viable rebel movement in a highly fractionalized society (zurcher, 2007). interestingly, fractionalization is also negatively correlated with communal conflict. some theorists have suggested fractionalized societies will experience more conflict due to increased contact and friction among multiple ethnic groups (humphreys & weinstein, 2006). however, others have noted that increased fractionalization makes the prospect of mobilizing along ethnic lines much more difficult (zurcher, 2007). the data illustrate that communal conflict was least likely, with a probability of about 3%, when fractionalization was at its maximum, the state did not border the russian federation, and lagged gdp per capita was at its maximum. in the evaluation hypothesis 1, results show a negative relationship between fractionalization and violence, meaning that i cannot completely reject the null hypothesis. hypothesis h1 was partially supported by the data. 10 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research polarization table 3: effect of polarization on the probability of violence in former soviet states, 1992-2002 max polarization, max gdp, no russian border mean polarization, mean gdp, no russian border minimum polarization, minimum gdp, russian border simulated probability of rebellion 0 .08 .99 simulated probability of communal conflict .05 .44 .88 much like fractionalization, polarization showed a strong negative correlation with violence. this finding is contrary to the existing body of theory regarding ethnic conflict. traditionally, polarization has been viewed as one of the soundest indicators of likely ethnic conflict (montalvo & reynal-querol, 2005, 2007). polarized societies are considered more prone to conflict because opposing forces have a clearly defined opponent in struggle for power and resources. high levels of polarization indicate that ethnic groups within a society are larger and more capable of mobilizing sufficient force to engage in systematic violence. in the former soviet union, of the top five most polarized states, only moldova (the fifth), experienced major violent conflict during the time period of this study. the other highly polarized states (viz., latvia, kazakhstan, estonia, and kyrgyzstan) all had little to no violence whatsoever. interestingly, latvia, kazakhstan, and estonia share borders with russia and have large populations of expatriate russians. results show that bordering russia increases the probability of violence, but in these cases, no violence occurred. again, i cannot reject the null hypothesis in this situation. violence was least likely, at a probability of 0%, when polarization values reached maximum, states did not border russia, and lagged gdp per capita reached its maximum. dominance table 4: effect of dominance on the probability of violence in former soviet states, 1992-2002 max dominance, max gdp, no russian border mean dominance, mean gdp, no russian border minimum dominance, minimum gdp, russian border simulated probability of rebellion not significant not significant not significant simulated probability of communal conflict .73 .43 .06 for the independent variable dominance, results were statistically significant only for the dependent variable communal conflict. in this case, dominance was positively correlated with violence, meaning that i cannot reject the null hypothesis. violence was most likely when dominance was present, the state bordered the russian federation, and lagged gdp per capita was at its minimum. ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 11 it is important to note that the type of violence correlated with dominance was communal conflict, rather than rebellion. this conforms to the bulk of theoretical work on ethnic conflicts, which indicates that conflict is more likely to occur in situations in which an ethnic group has the potential to achieve dominance. ethnic groups perform a costbenefit analysis when planning political or military actions. if strong dominance is already present, a minority group may reason that rebellion is too risky and has little chance of success. v. alternative explanations the results of the multivariate analysis in this study do not conform to the existing body of research regarding ethnic demography and the outbreak of violence. several factors may contribute to this departure from expected results, some of which are discussed below. states bordering the russian federation with large russian populations in the former soviet union, several of the most polarized societies involve polarization between the ethnic majority and a russian expatriate minority. this is the case with estonia, latvia, belarus, ukraine, and kazakhstan. despite a long history of colonization at the hands of the russian center, whether during the imperial era or the soviet union, animosity between ethnic russians and the local populations has remained low. my statistical analysis showed that ethnic violence was most likely in states that share a border with russia; however, these states did not feature violence. relations between russians and local ethnic groups in these states can be broken into two groups. the first group includes states in which the majority ethnic group developed an inclusive national identity that counteracted animosity between the majority and russian populations. the second group involves states in which the dominant ethnic group is historically or culturally tied to russia in some way. the baltic states belong to the first group and are examined in more detail below, followed by the east slavic states and kazakhstan, which belong to the second group. the baltic states the baltic states of latvia, lithuania, and estonia have achieved domestic stability and economic success in the post-soviet era. of these states, latvia and estonia have large populations of russians who make up approximately 25% of the total population. despite a history of animosity between russians and the baltic ethnic groups, including the soviet occupation of these territories prior to world war ii, little to no violence has occurred between groups since the fall of the soviet union. latvia experienced low levels of communal conflict in the late 1990’s while estonia experienced no measurable violence during the time period of this study. disputes have arisen with the russian federation regarding baltic history during the soviet era and the status of the russian language in the baltic countries, but neither of these has escalated into widespread violence. latvia and estonia worked to create democratic institutions after the fall of the soviet union, establishing market economies and quickly taking measures to integrate with 12 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research europe. as noted by clemens (2010), the baltic states worked to construct a civic national identity after the fall of the ussr that allowed for the incorporation of the large russian expatriate populations into the political process. the establishment of inclusive political institutions supported by civic national identities allowed the baltic states to alleviate ethnic tensions early on, paving the way for a peaceful era of development after the fall of the ussr. the east slavic states & kazakhstan the states of belarus, ukraine, and kazakhstan all retained large russian populations after the fall of the soviet union. unlike the baltic states, these three states share much in common with russia in addition to have large russian populations. russian is an official language in both belarus and kazakhstan, and in ukraine over half of the population is fluent in russian. the ukrainian and belarusian languages are of the east slavic language group with russian, and the languages bear many similarities. kazakh, although a turkic language, is written in cyrillic shared by russian and the other east slavic languages. much like the baltic states, the belarusians, ukrainians, and kazakhs all fell under russian dominance during the imperial period and remained so until the fall of the soviet union. however, the interaction between russians and the local population in these countries took a slightly different course. russians share much more in common with belarusians and ukrainians than any other groups in the former ussr. these cultural groups developed from a common ancestor, kievan rus, and often intermingled throughout the history of the eastern slavic peoples. a shared script, cyrillic, as well as the shared faith of orthodox christianity have created a lasting bond between the cultures. russian, ukrainian, and belarusian remain mutually intelligible languages, allowing for increased inter-cultural linkages not possible between groups of different languages. similarly, the russian and kazakh cultures have blended due to a long history of peaceful contact. thousands of russians migrated to kazakhstan during the imperial era. during the soviet period, over 40% of the population of the kazakh soviet socialist republic was ethnically russian. after the fall of the ussr, many russians in kazakhstan returned to russia to seek economic opportunities, but a significant russian minority remained. the exodus of large amounts of russians after the fall of the ussr eased tensions between russians and kazakhs, as kazakhs no longer feared russian pre-eminence in politics (smagulova, 2006, 306). despite contestation over language policies and perceived economic discrimination during the early years of kazakh independence, relations between russians and kazakhs have remained peaceful. similarly to the east slavic republics, there is much language blending in kazakhstan. many kazakhs are fluent in russian and many government agencies and businesses continue to use russian in day-to-day affairs. the high amount of contact between russian and kazakh language in culture has resulted in a mutually benign attitude regarding ethnic affairs in the post-soviet era (smagulova, 2006, 311). ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 13 states bordering the russian federation without large russian populations the probability analysis in this study indicated that conflict is more likely in states that share a border with the russian federation. however, the group of states i have just examined all exhibited minimal conflict during the period of the study. what, then, is driving the results of the statistical analysis? two states bordering russia, georgia and azerbaijan, experienced severe violence during the time period of this study in both communal conflict and rebellion. in fact, both states showed the maximum values for both variables across all cases; georgia reached a communal conflict level of 5 and a rebellion level of 7, while azerbaijan reached a communal conflict level of 3 and a rebellion level of 7. georgia, which suffered from a civil war from 1992-1994 and simmering ethnic tensions between the separatist abkhazians and the georgian government for the remainder of the decade, showed medium levels of fractionalization and polarization ( jibladze, 2007, 45-48). this high level of violence with relatively unspectacular levels of fractionalization mirrors the results of the costalli-moro study, which found “the most violence areas show medium levels of fractionalization…once the war has started, violence tends to be particularly harsh where relatively large groups face each other in a situation of power parity” (2012, 810). russia actively supported abkhazian separatists in the conflict, escalating the conflict and assuring de facto abkhazian independence from georgia. in azerbaijan, ethnic conflict developed as a result of a large exclave of ethnic armenians in nagorno-karabakh declaring their intention to join their region with armenia during the fall of the soviet union. the internal conflict soon developed into an inter-state war as the soviet union crumbled, with armenia supporting separatist nagorno-karabakh against the azerbaijani government. russia supported both sides at various times during the conflict, maintaining the old soviet strategy of “divide and rule.” after six years of fighting from 1988-1994, a russian-brokered peace agreement was signed, giving nagornokarabakh de facto independence from azerbaijan (melander, 2001, 48-53). azerbaijan, as a very homogeneous state, showed very low levels of fractionalization and polarization. however, with the largest minority, armenians, all grouped in one region near the border with armenia, conflict became much more likely. the nagorno-karabakhans had a much higher chance of success in achieving their political goals through violence than groups in a more fractionalized society might have. in both georgia and azerbaijan, minority ethnic groups, although not large enough to create a polarized situation in the society, benefited from advantageous geography and were thus able to engage in violence with lower risk to themselves. for the abkhazians and armenians, close proximity to neighboring allies was a major factory in the cost-benefit analysis in determining which course of action to take in achieving their political goals. states not bordering the russian federation of the seven former soviet republic not bordering the russian federation, only moldova and tajikistan experienced major ethnic conflict. moldova, nestled between ukraine and romania, experienced significant violent conflict in the transnistrian war 14 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research of 1992 and lingering clashes for the next 5 years, reaching a maximum average of 4 in the minorities at risk rebellion variable. moldova showed a medium fractionalization score of .514, again illustrating a connection between violence and low to medium levels of fractionalization. the type of violence in moldova was exclusively classified as rebellion by mar. minorities at risk data indicated no communal conflict between ethnic groups in moldova. this reflects the relative geographic separation of ethnic groups within moldova. the data used in this study for conflict does not capture the nuances of the ethnic situation in moldova because it is aggregated at the national level. while moldova as a whole has a majority of 70% moldovan ethnicity, the separatist pridnestrovian moldavian republic (transnistria) has a population of 32% moldovans, 30% russians, and 28.8% ukrainians. transnistria is in the extreme east of moldova, bordering ukraine. it is separated from the rest of moldova by the dniester river. in this instance, we can again see the pattern of ethnic separatist entities benefiting from geography in their quest to achieve political goals. similarly to abkhazia and nagorno-karabakh, transnistria benefited from a sympathetic neighboring power (ukraine), and was also unofficially supported by the russian 14th army (ozhiganov, 1997, 197). despite not sharing a border with russia, moldova was host to a large contingent of russian army soldiers. the russian 14th guards army had been stationed in moldova during the soviet era and had yet to be withdrawn at the outbreak of the transnistrian war in 1992, only six months after the fall of the ussr. many local transnistrian russians continued to serve in the army after the fall of the soviet union, despite the fact that they were now technically moldovan citizens serving in the army of the russian federation (ozhiganov, 1991, 179). tajikistan is an interesting case because of the circumstances under which its civil war (1992-1997) took place. although the tajik civil war was fought along regional lines, minorities at risk has considered the participants to be largely of the same ethnic group, “tajik.” the opposition to the tajik government during the conflict was a mixed group of regional alliances, islamists, and liberal reformers, representing not a single ethnic but rather a large swathe of political groups all united in their opposition to the ruling tajik coalition. thus, despite a high death toll in the conflict (over 75,000), only at the end of the conflict does the presence of rebellion appear in the minorities at risk dataset, with a countywide average value of 2.5 for 1998. communal conflict was present in tajikistan throughout the time period of this study, illustrating the relationship between ethnic dominance and communal conflict, as the tajik majority consisted of upwards of 80% of the total population. common themes a closer look at the specific scenarios in which conflict developed in the former soviet union reveals much about the current theoretical approach to ethnic conflict. the most polarized societies—the baltic states, ukraine, and kazakhstan—all experienced little to no violent conflict during their first decade of post-soviet existence. some of these peaceful states, including kazakhstan, latvia, and estonia, were also some of the region’s most fractionalized states. although the existing body of theory regarding the relationship between ethnic conflict and demographic data predicts a negative relationship between fractionalization and rebellion, a negative relationship between polarization and conflict was not expected. similarly, previous studies have suggested that fractionalization, while making conditions more difficult for ethnic rebellion, would result in increased likelihood of communal conflict among minority ethnic groups. my analysis of the former soviet union has shown that this is not always the case. also counter to my hypothesis was the positive relationship between dominance and violence. azerbaijan, tajikistan, and ukraine (to a lesser extent) all experienced communal conflict in the presence of ethnic dominance. as noted by zurcher, ethnic dominance increases the propensity for violence only in situations “when a group is potentially capable of assuming a dominant position” (2007, 223). in each of the nine cases in my study that featured ethnic dominance, the likelihood of a minority ethnic group to achieve a dominant position was low. consequently, we must look to alternative explanations for the positive relationship between dominance and communal conflict. a possible explanation for this may be found in the struggle for resources among minority ethnic groups. outright rebellion may be considered too risky in the face of overwhelming numerical odds, with the prospect of carving out an autonomous ethnic entity unlikely. however, the struggle for limited resources and political capital among minority ethnic groups may lead to communal conflict. when considering the economic factors related to ethnic violence, conflict was more likely when lagged gdp per capita was at its minimum, a result that fits into the larger framework of research linking low economic growth to conflict. the significant of this correlation should not be overstated though. as zurcher (2007) notes, “the poor central asian republics…avoided violence, with the exception of tajikistan.” the most severe violence in the former soviet space occurred in moldova, georgia and azerbaijan, states with neither the highest nor the lowest gdp per capita during the time period in question. while it is true that tajikistan, in fact, had the lowest gdp per capita during the time period and that this certainly exasperated tensions between the opposition and the government, one case is not enough to illustrate a strong trend. additionally, national gdp per capita does not capture the distribution of income levels within a country, which is of particular importance to large and diverse states. thus, we can conclude that the relationship between gdp per capita and ethnic violence needs further explanation. vi. conclusion: toward a constructivist view of ethnic conflict this study has illuminated several key facets of ethnic conflict in the former soviet union. in accordance with traditional notions about the relationship between ethnic demography and conflict behavior, the study found that highly fractionalized societies were less likely to experience violent rebellion. however, my analysis also showed that polarization was negatively correlated with violence, representing a break from conventional wisdom regarding the effects of polarization on conflict behavior. additionally, the presence of ethnic ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior middle tennessee state university 15 dominance showed no statistically significant relationship with ethnic rebellion. however, dominance was positively correlated with communal conflict, again contrary to existing notions of demographic dominance and ethnic conflict. previous studies have indicated that the potential to achieve dominance may lead to conflict, but that if dominance is already present in a given region, conflict is less likely. as the results of this study depart from the previous examinations of ethnic conflict, i advocate further emphasis on the constructivist lens of ethnic conflict. the constructivist approach’s emphasis on changing narratives can help to explain the inconsistency between my project and previous studies. ethnic conflict cannot be explained or predicted based simply on demography, opportunity, and “ancient hatreds.” although these factors are important to understanding the decision making calculus of political elites in an ethnic group, they do not tell the entire story of an ethnic group’s interactions with other ethnic minorities as well as the state. in order to understand conflict, we must attempt to develop a framework that includes the shaping of narratives and lenses through which ethnic groups view other actors. ethnic groups are defined not only by their shared characteristics such as language and religion, but also by their interactions with other groups. these interactions serve to construct a historical narrative that develops over time in a particular direction, with the occasional occurrence of critical junctures that may trend relations between groups in a different direction. central to constructivist understandings of conflict is the internalization of norms, the process in which social situations become embedded in a society’s collective consciousness (finnemore & sikkink, 1998, 904-906). this process illustrates that ethnic identity is not static, but is constructed by the development of these norms. “frozen” ethnic conflicts, such as the conflict in moldova regarding the status of transnistria, or the conflict between abkhazians and georgians, serve as powerful norm-builders. while conflicts in and of themselves often shape the way groups behave, the unresolved nature of ethnic conflicts across the soviet union provides an even more powerful identity-shaping narrative. elite members of ethnic groups can use these lasting disputes in order to shape the identity of the ethnic group. a rational-choice decision calculus occurs when ethnic elites make decisions about the future of relations between an ethnic group and external actors. the decisions made at these critical junctures can serve as an important starting point to frame future relations between ethnic groups. for example, in latvia the leaders of an ethnic group chose a peaceful path to achieve their political goals and demographic challenges such as ethnic polarization were ameliorated. conversely, in the case of georgia we can see that the violent path may also yield results in the pursuit of ethnic political goals. there can be no doubt that the decisions of ethnic elites at these critical junctures are shaped by the history of social interactions between their own groups and non co-ethnics. in states such as latvia and ukraine, a history of solving disputes peacefully, narratives emphasizing a civic national history rather than an ethnic history, and cultural similarities between ethnic groups all contributed to a peaceful first decade of post-soviet existence. in georgia and azerbaijan, a history of tension and simmering violence dating well into the soviet period scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2015 resulted in major violent conflicts almost immediately after the state apparatus of the soviet union began to collapse. the work of costalli and moro, not to mention that of zurcher, indicates that ethnic demography can tell us much more about how conflict will develop in the early stages of violence rather than the overall likelihood of conflict occurring in the first place. both studies found that fractionalized areas will experience more widespread violence upon the onset of violence and that highly polarized areas will experience the most severe violence as groups attempt to achieve ethnic dominance. the results of my study indicate that although demographic data may be useful at the onset of violence, such data is not always useful in predicting the likelihood of violence beginning in the first place. i have illustrated that in cases where demographic data points in the direction of conflict, constructed narratives of peace and inclusion can avert serious conflict. as conflict continues, researchers found that ethnic demography begins to lose its impact on the course of the conflict, with ethnic parties beginning to take the broader strategic concerns of war into consideration. in the search for predictive power in terms of ethnic conflict, we must look to the historical narratives and grievances of ethnic groups as well as the rational choice of ethnic leaders and the social and demographic factors that play into this decision-making calculus. as international attention shifts from the declining trend of interstate war to the continuing rise of intrastate conflict, a more holistic approach to ethnic conflict can be developed, based on a the constructivist notion that identities are not static but are in fact fluid. this changing nature of identity can provide qualitative insight to quantitative data on ethnic demography. only by considering the role of narrative construction in conjunction with more concrete factors such as demography and economics can we begin to develop an accurate view of ethnic conflict. postscript: the events of euromaidan in 2014 and the subsequent russian annexation of crimea and intervention in eastern ukraine clearly demonstrate a “critical juncture” as described in my conclusion. whereas ethnic identity in ukraine may not have been as salient in the lives of ukrainians prior to the events of maidan, the revolution and subsequent russian intervention drastically changed relations between those ukrainians who feel more attachment to ukraine and those who feel a sense of belonging to a greater russian civilization. even after maidan, polarization in and of itself was not enough to cause the escalation of violence we are seeing today, it was only after russian intervention that we began to see signs of an intensifying conflict. the events of the past year will continue to impact the construction of ethnic narratives in ukraine for decades to come. middle tennessee state university 17 ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its influence on conflict behavior 18 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research appendix i descriptive statistics for the states of the former soviet union 1992-2002 country fractionalization mean polarization mean dominance communal conflict min communal conflict max communal conflict mean rebellion min rebellion max rebellion mean armenia 0.041365027 0.07040393 yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 azerbaijan 0.18844706 0.21120107 yes 0 3 1.333 0 7 1.636 belarus 0.37249506 0.5596216 yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 estonia 0.47281295 0.795771 no 0 0 0 0 0 0 georgia 0.500422 0.6566305 no 0 5 .611 0 7 1.65909 kazakhstan 0.621789 0.83860326 no 0 0 0 0 0 0 kyrgyzstan 0.54403 0.72705686 no 0 0 0 0 1 .04545 latvia 0.571463 0.85611165 no 0 3 .555 0 0 0 lithuania 0.294317 0.43733317 yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 moldova 0.514713 0.7220134 no 0 0 0 0 5 1.4545 tajikistan 0.336205 0.5806718 yes 0 3 1.055 0 5 .227272 turkmenistan 0.27369994 0.3531711 yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 ukraine 0.364689 0.61159766 yes 0 2 1.407 0 0 0 uzbekistan 0.35294998 0.4920519 yes 0 0 0 0 0 0 mean .389 .565 8 yes; 6 no 0.354 0.359 standard deviation .155 .224 0.521 0.644 ethnic conflict in the former soviet union: ethnic demography and its 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(2014) state that of the reported 422,000 flowering plants that have been reported around the world, over 50,000 are used medicinally. further, mussarat et al. (2014) suggest that 80% of the population of developing countries and 60% of the world population rely on traditional medicine, and over 4.5 billion people within developing countries rely on medicinal plants for their health maintenance. this data presented by mussarat et al. (2014) displays the wide-reaching breadth of indigenous medicine for traditional health practices and has great implications for the number of psychiatric issues that can be addressed with the phytochemical constituents of these botanicals. particularly, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders have been indicated by the literature to benefit largely from the supplementation of herbs and nutraceuticals. chen and hui (2012) note schizophrenia to be a severe psychiatric disorder that negatively impacts a wide-range of cognitive functions such as executive functioning, memory and attention (p. 1166-72). schizophrenia is characterized by negative symptoms (such as emotional blunting and apathy), positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), and mild to severe impairment of cognition. the ideal treatment would eliminate these negative, positive, and cognitive symptoms. this is important to note, as brown and roffman (2014) state that while antipsychotic medications can often aid in reducing positive symptoms, these pharmaceuticals produce little to no response in regard to negative symptoms and cognitive impairment (p. 611-22). in so far as the etiology of schizophrenia is concerned, it is generally accepted that it is multifactorial, with a particular combination of environmental circumstances and biological predisposition playing the major role. mirsky and duncan (1986) note, however, that there is much disagreement with respect to the weighting of environmental to biological factors in the etiology of schizophrenia (p. 291-319). mayer et al. (2011) suggest that researchers are still not positive as to a precise prognosis for those dealing with schizophrenia, but there are certain factors posited negatively to affect prognosis, such as: lack of social support, indolent onset, poor insight and presence of negative symptoms (p. 140-41). while there are many typical and atypical antipsychotic medications for the treatment of schizophrenia, doruk, uzun, and ozsahin (2008) report that many patients show little to no response to these interventions—necessitating an urgent the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 97 need for alternative treatments of high efficacy and few adverse effects (p. 223-27). additionally, research has shown that in individuals with schizophrenia, consumption of essential amino acids, vitamins, and nutritional building blocks to raise levels of neuroprotective chemicals such as endogenous glutathione (by way of precursors like n-acetylcysteine and alpha lipoic acid) can decrease cortical inflammation and help maximize the body’s innate compensatory homeostatic healing mechanisms to deal more effectively with states of psychosis. various studies have displayed a repertoire of supplements, stand-alone or adjunct with traditional pharmaceutical approaches, to be as effective as pharmaceutical treatment, and have fewer side-effects, and some have even been found to make reparations to vital physiological and psychological operations—and be ceased—without relapse or necessitation of alternative interventions. literature review omega 3 fatty acids omega-3 fatty acids, or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas), are amassing significant attention in the literature on alternative avenues for the treatment of psychotic disorders. omega-3 pufas supply a wide range of neurochemical activities via their modulation of the reuptake, degradation, synthesis and receptor binding actions of noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. omega-3s also possess anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects in addition to their significant activity in increasing neurogenesis and cell membrane fluidity. according to one study led by amminger (2015), it has been found that intervention with omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of pathogenesis with respect to psychotic disorders as well as a reduced risk of psychiatric morbidity. this study noted that the individuals in the omega-3 group no longer displayed severe functional impairment, nor did they experience dramatic psychotic symptoms upon a 6.7 year follow-up of this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (amminger, schäfer, schlögelhofer, klier, & mcgorry, 2015). research indicates that many developed countries, such as america, are deficient in essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids. those suffering from mental illness are exceptionally deficient in omega-3s. research also posits the brains of schizophrenic persons to have profound abnormalities in myelin sheaths and oligodendrocytes, and suggests that omega-3 fatty acids are essential for the reparation and maintenance of these. the eicosapentaenoic acid (epa) found in omega-3s is noted to aid in the maintenance of a balanced mood and improving blood circulation. two grams of epa adjunct with one’s normal antipsychotic regimen 98 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research effectively decreased overall symptoms of schizophrenia in those suffering (ibrahim & el-sayed, 2013). curcumin and glycine curcumin, a common household spice, is a polyphenol with an active medicinal component being turmeric, or curcuma longa. studies show that it possesses significant antidepressant properties in both rodents and humans without adverse effects. a 6 week placebo-controlled study found that chronic supplementation of curcumin (1,000 mg daily) produced significant antidepressant behavioral responses in depressed participants as measured by reduction of 17-item hamilton depression rating scale and montgomery-asberg depression rating scale scores. furthermore, this same study found curcumin to decrease levels of inflammatory cytokines interleukin 1β and tumor necrosis factor α level, and it was found to increase brain-derived neurotropic factor (bdnf) levels in plasma concentrations while decreasing concentrations of salivary cortisol as compared to placebo (lopresti, maes, maker, hood, & drummond, 2014). another study, carried out by hishikawa et al. (2012), examined three patients with alzheimer’s disease (ad) and found curcumin to facilitate the recovery of cognitive decline and psychological symptoms of dementia (bpsd). after 12 weeks of treatment there was a significant decrease in the acuity of symptoms and the burden on caregivers. within one year of treatment with curcumin, participants with ad began to recognize their families once again (p. 499-504). curcumin has been found to exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. additionally, it is known to act as a neuroprotective agent in neurological disorders and can cross the blood-brain barrier with significant bioavailability. multiple studies have found it effective in the amelioration of motor symptoms in parkinson’s disease as well (mythri & bharath, 2012). furthermore, in addition to its neuroprotective properties, it has been found to modulate oxidativestress induced apoptosis and neuroinflammation (rinwa, kumar, & garg, 2013). lastly, a study found that curcumin extract was able to significantly restore depleted glutathione levels and recover oxidative damage after 72hour sleep deprivation in mice (kumar & singh, 2008). curcumin extract was found to lessen some of the serious side effects associated with use of neuroleptics to schizophrenic patients (trebatická & ďuračková, 2015). curcumin was able to reverse oxidative damage induced by haloperidol. chronic administration of haloperidol was found to decrease the turnover of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine, which was dose-dependently reversed through utilization of curcumin. the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 99 the results of this study suggest curcumin as a potential aid in orofacial dyskinesia, a hyperkinetic disorder of high-incidence and unfortunate irreversibility during the treatment of schizophrenia with haloperidol (bishnoi, chopra, & kulkarni, 2008). high doses of glycine, an endogenously produced amino acid, have been found effective at 30 grams per day to reduce social withdrawal, emotional flatness, and states of apathy in schizophrenia—these being symptoms usually unresponsive to traditional antipsychotic medication. additionally, clinical trials revealed that glycine given at 60 grams per day could be administered to schizophrenic patients with no adverse effects, as well as a twofold increase of glycine levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (csf) (ibrahim & el-sayed, 2013). b vitamins the b vitamins folic acid, b12, and b6 play a pertinent role in neuronal function. deficiencies in these have been indicated in increased risk of psychiatric disease and dementia (mitchell, conus, & kaput, 2014). deficiencies in cobalamin, an important nutrient that is not synthesized endogenously and supplied in non-vegetarian diets, has been reported with a range of psychiatric disorders, and a case-report found dietary cobalamin deficiency to present solely as a schizoaffective disorder without neurological manifestations (dhananjaya, manjunatha, manjunatha, & kumar, 2015). the most common of psychiatric symptoms found to be reported in the literature on vitamin b12 deficiencies are depression, mania, impaired cognition, dementia, delirium, psychotic symptoms, ocd, and states of confusion. vitamin b12 deficiency is indicated to be causative of subacute combined degeneration (scd) where there is a demyelination of the lateral and dorsal spinal cord. symptoms of scd manifest in the way of psychosis, dementia, and severe depression. nevertheless, these symptoms can be prevented with b12 supplementation (naik & dsouza, 2015). even further, deficiencies in b12 have been linked to a proliferation of vascular risk factors and increase homocysteine and the load of cognitive decline in neuropsychiatric illnesses (issac, soundarya, christopher, & chandra, 2015). b vitamins and a broad-spectrum multivitamin were also found to significantly improve levels of stress and anxiety associated with natural disasters while achieving a large effect size in the study (kaplan, rucklidge, romijn, & dolph, 2015). vitamin b6 was found to reduce extrapyramidal side-effects of typical antipsychotics. the same study found n-acetylcysteine (nac) to be effective against the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, as well as akathisia and abnormal movements in schizophrenia (himmerich & erbguth, 2014). 100 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research n-acetylcysteine (nac) nac has proven to hold a significant role in the aid of pathophysiological processes associated with psychiatric and neurological disorders. a systemic review by deepmala et al. (2015) has found favorable evidence regarding nac supplementation for disorders such as autism, alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, depression, ocd tendencies, and schizophrenia. nac’s action of lowering levels of glutamate is indicated to be a key factor in its role of the amelioration of ocd and various grooming disorders (racz, sweet, & sohoni, 2015). another study found that in individuals with chronic schizophrenia (sz), adjunctive nac—when compared to placebo—has therapeutic potential for overall functioning and a decrease in positive symptoms of schizophrenia (rapado-castro et al., 2015). several lines of research and empirical evidence have indicated that a large component of the pathogenesis of schizophrenia is a deficit in brain glutathione (gsh) levels by result of impaired gsh synthesis. a study supplemented individuals suffering from schizophrenia with a gsh precursor, nac, which significantly reduced clinical severity and negative symptoms. this same study concluded that polyphenol, curcumin, and the flavonoid quercetin were able significantly to increase levels of gsh and, in turn, reduce the overall clinical severity of schizoaffective disorders (lavoie et al., 2009). vitamin d (vd) and iron seven research studies examining patients with psychosis all indicated insufficient levels of vitamin d (vd). a mini-analyses of these studies found that there was a medium-level effect size for vd in schizophrenia as opposed to the healthy controls, in addition to a trend for overall lower vd levels in comparison to other forms of psychosis (belvederi et al., 2013). a study examining a finnish cohort group of over 9,000 people examined supplementation of vitamin d at levels of 2,000 iu per day in the first year of life and noted a 77% decrease in the risk of developing schizophrenia in males compared to those receiving less than 2,000 iu per day. it is hypothesized by the researchers that vitamin d supplementation early in life is pertinent in pro-differentiating signals in the critical periods of brain development, as well as recovery from brain damage after injury (brown & roffman, 2014). there are many other vitamin and mineral deficiencies that are posited to play a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. research has suggested maternal iron-deficiency to induce fetal hypoxia as a result of the high oxygen demand on the part of the growing fetus. the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 101 fetal hypoxia has a plethora of research showing consistent implications as a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia; specifically, it may predispose the child to an expression of schizophrenia in adulthood (ibrahim & el-sayed, 2013). s-adenosyl methionine (sam-e) an increasingly common over-the-counter supplement as an aid for the treatment of depression, sam-e, was found (over a randomly-assigned, 8 week, placebo-controlled, and double-blind fashion study) significantly to reduce symptoms of psychosis such as aggressive behavior. strous et al. (2009) report that sam-e’s predominant function is as a methyl group donor for catecholamines, membrane phospholipids, fatty acids, choline carnitine, creatinine, nucleic acids, and porphyrins. a crucial function of sam-e, as noted by strous et al. (2009), is myelination of certain phospholipids to promote fluidity and microviscosity of cell membranes. furthermore, it was posited that the metabolism of sam-e is crucial for the maintenance of myelin—myelin being essential for facilitating efficient signal conduction between neurons, among many other physiological roles. as for sam-e’s relationship to schizophrenia, strous et al. (2009) hypothesized that by way of its methyl donor activity, sam-e would affect catechol-o-methyltransferase (comt) enzyme expression, in turn diminishing aggressive behavior in individuals with schizophrenia who possess the low activity comt polymorphism—possession of which is noted to be somewhat common. sam-e was found to improve overall quality of life, and in females the research has shown it to improve depressive symptoms as well (strous et al., 2009). bacopa monniera the herbal extract of bacopa monniera was found to have significant neuroleptic effects with a reduction of dopamine concentration in the frontal cortex. there was a significant reduction of conditioned avoidance response and reduction of amphetamine-induced stereotype. the results of this study reveal that bacopa monniera may hold significant potential for the amelioration of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (jash & chowdary, 2014). the herb ficus platyphylla (fp) was shown to have neuroleptic-like properties and significantly reduce locomotor activity. the study was able to reverse an apomorphine-induced prepulse inhibition deficit and hyperactivity by utilizing a co-administration of clozapine or fp. even further, fp was able to inhibit the retrieval of a conditioned avoidance reaction in individuals with schizophrenia (chindo et al, 2015). 102 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ginkgo biloba (egb) ginkgo biloba (egb) extract has been suggested to possess anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms of action. furthermore, egb has been shown to increase cerebral blood flow and possess antiplatelet effects that have been attributed to terpene and flavone lactones as well (diamond & bailey, 2013). egb is indicated by the literature to be a significant adjunct aid to the pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia, as its primary pharmacodynamics component is an antioxidant. egb is believed to provide a favorable adjunctive treatment for schizophrenia with clozapine, as it significantly decreases the negative symptoms of individuals with schizophrenia. the researchers suggest this may be due to the antioxidant action of egb or the effect it holds on the serotonergic pathway. even further, egb administration displayed the capability of normalizing levels of serotonin in the brain (doruk, uzun, & ozsahin, 2008). another study examining the adjunctive impact of egb treatment with a prescription antipsychotic found a statistically significant moderate improvement with respect to the total and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. the research selection criteria involved 466 cases on ginkgo with 362 cases on placebo—utilizing the scale for the assessment of negative symptoms (sans), the scale for the assessment of positive symptoms (saps), the brief psychiatric rating scale (bprs) to measure the positive, negative and total symptoms. this same study explored the role of antioxidants in schizophrenia’s pathogenesis, indicating oxidative damage may hold a causative role in the progression of schizophrenia (singh, singh, & chan, 2010). traditional chinese medicine (cm) in 2011, research found that concomitant use of antipsychotics and traditional chinese medicine (cm) in patients with schizophrenia held a significantly higher chance of improved outcomes than those who solely used prescription antipsychotics—61.1% in the adjunctive treatment group with cm versus 34.3% improvement rates in those only utilizing antipsychotics, indicating a potential herb-drug interaction (z. zhang et al., 2011). a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial looking to improve cognitive impairments in patients with schizophrenia found that treatments were generally well tolerated, with no reported unwanted side-effects (z. chen et al., 2008). (−)–stepholidine (spd) the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 103 an active ingredient of the chinese herb stephania, known as (−)–stepholidine (spd), is the first compound found to hold a dual function as a dopamine d1 receptor agonist and a d2 antagonist (fu et al., 2007). this has led to an increase in research being done on the potential antipsychotic properties of spd. one study investigating these properties in two animal models for schizophrenia found antipsychotic-like effects in the prepulse inhibition paradigm and in the paw test. additionally, the paw test suggested spd to be of atypical character with a relatively small potency for inducing extrapyramidal side-effects (ellenbroek, zhang, & jin, 2006). it is suggested that schizophrenia is associated with excessive stimulation of striatal d2 dopamine receptors, too little stimulation of the medial prefrontal cortex d1 dopamine receptors, and neuronal apoptosis. with that said, research has found spd to hold anti-apoptotic mechanisms in addition to its functions with respect to the d1 and d2 receptors, making it a promising candidate to hold therapeutic action against schizophrenia (l. zhang, zhou, & xiang, 2005). in the way of adjunct treatment, coadministration of spd with a typical antipsychotic drug was found significantly to enhance the therapeutic effects as well as markedly reduce conditions induced by typical antipsychotics such as tardive dyskinesia. spd as a stand-alone treatment displayed therapeutic value without significant extrapyramidal side-effects, and it was able to reduce the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. this was confirmed utilizing animal models of schizophrenia wherein spd improved cognitive function, social interaction, and inhibited hyperactivity in schizophrenic animals (mo, guo, & yang, 2007). yokukansan (tj-54) the medicinal herb yokukansan (tj-54) was found by miyaoka et al. (2013) to induce displays of highly significant improvement with respect to all measures of psychotic symptomology in the patients involved in the clinical research. miyaoka et al. (2013) state that the hooks of tj-54 contain indol and oxyindole alkaloids that protect against glutamate-induced neuronal death. angelica radix, another component of tj-54, is known for the effects it has on particular serotonin receptors. considering that previous research has displayed schizophrenia to commonly present dysfunction of serotonin, glutamate, and dopamine receptors, tj-54 seems to have the pharmacological properties necessary to be a viable treatment option for individuals with schizophrenia. the research by miyaoka et al. (2013) showed that tj-54 was very well-tolerated by the patients, and there were no observed adverse effects. this study concluded that tj-54 seems to be 104 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research an efficacious alternative treatment for very-late-onset schizophrenia and related forms of psychosis (miyaoka et al., 2013b). a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial examining the effects of tj-54 on treatment-resistant schizophrenia found the tj-54 group to display statistically significant improvements in the panss excitement/hostility measures, with no significant side-effects reported (miyaoka et al., 2013a). orengedoku another study, adding to tj-54 the medicinal supplement orengedoku, resulted in the same efficacy as the atypical antipsychotic aripiprazole in the management of aggressiveness and impulsions to aggressive behavior, as well as improvement of tardive dystonia (by 80%). with reductions in irritability, impulsivity, and aggression, these two supplements taken together may be a combination worth exploring further. the individual in whom the aggressive impulses were measured had been on olanzapine, which was unsuccessful in abating his anger and even induced somnolence, unlike the combination of tj-54 and orengedoku, which improved his symptoms (okamoto et al., 2013). lonchocarpus cyanescens (lc) a medicinal plant known as lonchocarpus cyanescens (lc) has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of psychotic disorders, and the research on its antipsychotic-like efficacy explored why this may be such a potentially vital addition in the amelioration of psychotic disorders. a preliminary phytochemical screening of lc suggested the presence of constituents with anti-psychotic properties, such as: alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, cyanogenetic glycosides, flavonoids, steroids, saponins, anthraquinones, and tannins. ethanolic and aqueous extracts of lc were able to suppress stereotyped behavior induced by amphetamines in rats and further produced a significant reduction in spontaneous motor activity in the open field test. the research is indicative of lc containing phytochemically-active antipsychotic constituents that may be efficacious in the management of varying forms of psychoses (sonibare, umukoro, & shonibare, 2012). discussion there is no blanket strategy for therapeutic approaches to schizophrenia, but a significant number of studies have indicated the clinical potential of adjunctive therapies with antipsychotics (or stand-alone) utilizing supplementation of antioxidants, b vitamins, anti-inflammatory, and neurothe role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 105 protective nutrients, as well as dietary-restrictive practices (arroll, wilder & neil, 2014). it is very important to note that due to lack of regulation by the fda, using herbal and nutraceutical supplementation can have contraindications with any preexisting treatment regimen one may be prescribed. furthermore, using these supplements in place of one’s prescribed treatment regimen without consulting one’s doctor can be very dangerous and is not recommended. while much of the research regarding the aforementioned supplements indicates there may be less risk associated with their use when compared to traditional antipsychotics, one should still consult their mental health practitioner or doctor before making any adjustments to one’s treatment protocol. moreover, dosages for a majority of herbal supplements have not been standardized, so one should proceed with caution and only after speaking with a mental health professional. these herbs and nutraceuticals can play a vital role for many people in recovery from and the staving off mental illness, especially considering the high rate of nutritional deficiencies in the population at large. research by fryar-williams and strobel (2015) indicates that schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders are significantly correlated with nutritional and biochemical biomarkers identified as deficiencies in vitamins d, b6, and folate, as well as oxidative stress. brown and roffman (2014) note that specific vitamin levels at various critical periods of prenatal development play a very crucial role in determining whether or not an individual will develop schizophrenia. doruk et al. (2008) hypothesize that excessive free radicals and their consequent damage play a significant role in the symptomology of schizophrenia. doruk et al. (2008) also suggest that these highly destructive and active free radicals are products of the excess metabolism for the neurotransmitter dopamine and can cause membrane damage in addition to overall cognitive dysfunction. disturbances in amino acid metabolism have been implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia as well. recently, however, some research is beginning to view schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder, being a product of our experiences that took place in the first years of our life, our prime developmental period (ibrahim & el-sayed, 2013). russinova, wewiorski, and cash (2002) examined the use of alternative health practices in individuals with severe mental illness and noted that herbs and nutritional supplements were the second highest methods used in the treatment of schizophrenia—the first being spiritual practice—when compared to yoga, guided imagery, chiropractic, and massage therapy. it is important to highlight the results of this research by russinova et al. (2002), as supplementation and pharma106 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research ceuticals are not the end-all approach to the amelioration of the symptoms of schizophrenia—psychosocial and spiritual domains of treatment have displayed much clinical significance. a study by mohr, brandt, borras, gilliéron, & huguelet (2006) revealed that spiritual practice was able to instill hope, meaning and purpose in 71% of 115 individuals suffering from schizophrenia. even further, spirituality decreased psychotic and general symptoms in 54% of the sample size, increased social integration in 28%, and decreased the risk of suicide attempts in 33% of the individuals in this study. going back to the research by russinova et al. (2002), herbs and nutraceuticals were able to provide a wide array of significant improvements in those with schizophrenia, such as increased energy levels, enhanced overall perception of health, and reduced levels of pain. furthermore, these supplements were generally found useful in increasing emotional stability and alleviating anxiety, in addition to decreasing social isolation and being causative of a perceived overall increase in sense of well-being. stepping aside from the herbs and nutraceuticals empirically suggested to be therapeutic candidates for schizophrenia and other psychiatric illness, there are thousands of potential herbal remedies that have yet to be discovered and properly researched. the amazon and the people therein utilize many psychoactive plants to alleviate the symptoms of—and potentially cure—a variety of psychiatric conditions. research carried out by mckenna, ruiz, hoye, roth, and shoemaker (2010) examined 128 amazonian ethnobotanical compounds that were collected in the loreto province of iquitos, peru. from these 128 plant species, 228 fractions were screened using 31 radioreceptor assays and a subset were screened utilizing functional assays at adrenergic, muscarinic, and serotonin receptors. mckenna et al. (2010) found that 40% of the botanical samples possessed potential therapeutic cns activity for the diminution of cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia and dementia via significant inhibition of radioligand binding activity and both antagonistic and agonistic functions with respect to muscarinic, adrenergic, and serotonergic receptors in vitro. this study is only skimming the surface with respect to potentially clinically significant herbal compounds. more extensive research with these compounds, and all other botanicals with promising cns activity, needs to be carried forth to expand our ethnomedicinal catalogue and possibly discover novel phytochemical properties with therapeutic and clinical potential. similar to the promising botanicals within the amazon, mussarat et al. (2014) examined the traditional uses of plants of the dera ismail khan district in north-west pakistan, indicating this area to be one the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 107 of the country’s richest in terms of biodiversity while simultaneously having had very few ethnobotanical studies carried out within its parameters. going forward, there should come a time where it is widely acknowledged that the current pharmacologic treatment repertoire is simply lacking in pertinent areas where treatments are increasingly necessitated by growing rates of chronic illness and other health crises. these unexplored lands rich in biodiversity, but neglected by empirical research, should be preserved and explored in the reasonable hope that the unexamined botanical species therein may fill the void of viable treatment options made manifestly apparent by the growing rates of those suffering without cure the earth is by no means lacking in medicine; however, funding for ethnobotanical research is a different story. 108 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research references amminger, g. p., schäfer, m. r., schlögelhofer, m., klier, c. m., & mcgorry, p. d. 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(2015). towards stage specific treatments: effects of duration of illness on therapeutic response to adjunctive treatment with n-acetyl cysteine in schizophrenia. progress in neuropsychopharmacology & biological psychiatry, 57, 69-75. rinwa, p., kumar, a., & garg, s. (2013). suppression of neuroinflammatory and apoptotic signaling cascade by curcumin alone and in combination with piperine in rat model of olfactory bulbectomy induced depression. plos one, 8(4), 61052 russinova, z., wewiorski, n. j., & cash, d. (2002). use of alternative health care practices by persons with serious mental illness: perceived benefits. american journal of public health, 92(10), 16001603. singh, v., singh, s. p., & chan, k. (2010). review and meta-analysis of usage of ginkgo as an adjunct therapy in chronic schizophrenia. international journal of neuropsychopharmacology, 13(2), 257-271. sonibare, m. a., umukoro, s., & shonibare, e. t. (2012). antipsychotic property of aqueous and ethanolic extracts of lonchocarpus cyanescens (schumach and thonn.) benth. (fabaceae) in rodents. journal of natural medicines, 66(1), 127-132. strous, r. d., ritsner, m. s., adler, s., ratner, y., maayan, r., kotler m., … weizman, a. (2009). improvement of aggressive behavior and quality of life impairment following s-adenosyl-methionine (same) augmentation in schizophrenia. european neuropsychopharmacology, 19(1), 14–22. trebatická, j., & ďuračková, z. (2015). psychiatric disorders and olyphenols: can they be helpful in therapy? oxidative medicine and cellular longevity, 248529. the role of herbal and nutraceutical supplementation middle tennessee state university 113 zhang, l., zhou, r., & xiang, g. (2005). stepholidine protects against h2o2 neurotoxicity in rat cortical neurons by activation of akt. neuroscience letters, 383(3), 328-332. zhang, z.-j., tan, q.-r., tong, y., wang, x.-y., wang, h.-h., ho, l.-m., … wong, v. t. (2011). an epidemiological study of concomitant use of chinese medicine and antipsychotics in schizophrenic patients: implication for herb-drug interaction. plos one, 6(2), e17239. 114 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research middle tennessee state university 23 interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand thammasat university, bangkok, thailand islam in thailand anna yacovone abstract an interfaith dialogue can be loosely defined as a discussion among people from different religious backgrounds who work together in order to achieve a common objective. the appeal behind this peace-building tactic is that such dialogues can be flexible in terms of its purpose and how it is implemented. in addition, because conflicts are often complex and have multiple influencing factors, interfaith dialogues are useful because they provide a multidimensional outlook. one conflict i learned extensively about while studying abroad at thammasat university in bangkok, thailand is occurring in the country’s southern provinces. although religious discord may have been a catalyst in this conflict, other political, socioeconomic and cultural factors also play a significant role. unfortunately, because of the media’s portrayal, many believe the problem stems from differences between the thai buddhists and malay muslims in this region. however, the origins of this conflict delve much deeper and even date back to when part of the pattani kingdom, a former state of malaysia, was annexed under thai rule. as a result, harsh assimilation laws have been passed in order for the malay people to become thai, thus causing friction that has lasted over a century. though southern thailand has seen cycles of civil unrest and instability, the last decade has experienced the worst acts of violence since the country gained five of the pattani states. this paper will explore more thoroughly interfaith dialogues and discuss how such a tactic can be applied to the situation in southern thailand. along with providing a brief historical overview of interfaith dialogues, there will also be a discussion on a mock interfaith dialogue i hosted in an academic setting at thammasat university. afterwards, this paper will look at the presence of interfaith dialogues in thailand since this country’s seemingly tolerant outlook juxtaposes with the reality of what is occurring in the southern provinces. lastly, this paper will address the historical progression of this conflict and then provide nine recommendations if an interfaith dialogue is held in regards to this crisis. 24 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand over the past century, the world has seen what gerhold becker (2006) calls a resurfacing of religion. this powerful shift has challenged what many political theorists have hypothesized about a modern and democratic state requiring secularism (becker, 2006). although most countries in the west prefer to divide religion and politics in order to protect individuals’ rights, religion continues to play a major role in many countries’ governments that strive to be modern and democratic states. one evident example would include several countries in the middle east that fuse government with religion. however, whether a country is considered secular or has an imposed state religion, religion’s influence may be unprecedented because, as many argue, it ultimately satisfies humanity’s need for a divine purpose (becker, 2006). whether this purpose is fulfilled, religious and cultural differences have nonetheless caused clashes for thousands of years. unfortunately, such conflicts have also hallmarked the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the perpetual conflict in the middle east to what this paper will analyze: the conflict in the southern provinces of thailand. fortunately, a promising and increasingly popular method to help combat clashes and ease tensions is the concept of interfaith dialogues. interfaith–or the coming together of people from various religious backgrounds–officially began with the parliament of the world’s religions in 1893. this paper will, however, examine how interfaith dialogue serves more as an umbrella term for any and all discussions related to bridging religious and cultural gaps and instilling harmony. this analysis will also provide a more detailed definition of interfaith dialogues and include a brief historical background. next, the purpose of interfaith dialogues will be discussed, along with a summary of the various types. this paper will then further cite an example of an informal and small-scaled version of an interfaith dialogue hosted by the researcher in an academic classroom. following this will be a discussion on how interfaith dialogues can still be used as a tool in solving conflicts, despite some limitations. next, there will be a historical overview on the present conflict in thailand’s southern provinces in order to provide necessary background for this analysis’s proposal. lastly, the overall current role interfaith dialogues play in thailand will be included, followed by nine recommendations on using interfaith dialogues for thailand’s southern provinces experiencing the conflict. definition and purpose of interfaith dialogues the definition of an interfaith dialogue is a discussion among people from various religious backgrounds who work together in order to achieve a common objective (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). because religious ideology among groups of people can differ substantially, interfaith dialogues are implemented in order to create a safe haven for open, thoughtful and stimulating conversation among groups of people who, in other circumstances, may disagree or not show respect (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). in essence, interfaith dialogues strive peacefully to interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 25 advance relationships and interactions with people from different religious groups, and thus foster a coexisting society that does not tolerate prejudice (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). interfaith dialogues achieve this by hosting a free-flowing exchange of ideas in a supportive setting. consequently, they can reduce misunderstandings, break stereotypes, and, as bagir (2007) cites, “rehumanize” parties involved in complex and volatile disputes. various t ypes, structures, and objectives of interfaith dialogues the phrase interfaith dialogue is more of an umbrella term because there are many ways to carry out a dialogue, and reasons for holding one can vary (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). for example, they can include formal panels, workshops, or conferences held by, or composed of, government or religious leaders (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). conversely, it can even include informal meetings with religious group members, non-religious group members, and civilians of any social or economic status. the number present at a dialogue can be as few as two people having a conversation. interfaith dialogues can even take place in an academic setting, such as hosting one at a university in a classroom or public forum. the purpose and content of the dialogue varies as well. for some dialogues, the objective is to focus on secular issues typically political or social in nature, such as healthcare or education (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004). there have been dialogues in the past focused on broad topics, such as peace-building in particular regions of the world, and on specific issues, such as hiv/aids awareness or environmental issues like global warming. interfaith dialogues are used for a variety of issues chiefly because their collaborative nature provides a multidimensional outlook on major world issues (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). this analysis focuses on utilizing interfaith dialogues in order to tackle a complex conflict with a variety of factors that are social, political, and religious in nature. historical background of interfaith dialogues although there has always been interreligious dialogue throughout the ages, the most official interfaith dialogue on a global scale and in modern times was during the world columbian exposition in 1893 set in chicago, illinois (brodeur, 2005; seagar, 1993). during this exposition–which commemorated columbus’s discovery of the americas in 1492– several organized parliaments covered different topics (seagar, 1993). the most famous was the parliament of religions, in which delegates from various religions–though most were only from different christian denominations–met to deliver papers and hold panels on the time’s current religious issues (seager, 1993). admittedly, by today’s standards this conference would be considered heavily biased with very few representatives from religions hailing from the east and absolutely no representation of islam (seagar, 1993). however, this event in terms of interfaith dialogue on a global scale is still considered by 26 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research many religious scholars as a monumental achievement hallmarking the turn of the twentieth century (brodeur, 2005; seager, 1993). during the 1970s and 1980s, according to bagir (2007), there were increased numbers of interfaith dialogues. however, these dialogues were initially imposed by governments in order to influence religious leaders into agreeing upon political agendas, like family planning (bargir, 2007). then in the 1990s, a shift occurred in which the majority of interfaith dialogues were organized by nongovernmental agencies (bagir, 2007). interestingly enough, as the world saw a rise to interfaith dialogues, religious conflicts increased (bagir, 2007). another historical moment for interfaith dialogues was the second meeting of the world’s parliament (brodeur, 2005, young, 2005). again, it took place in chicago and was held in order to hold a global panel of interfaith discussions as well as pay tribute to the centennial of the first parliament (brodeur, 2005; young, 2005). in contrast to the previous parliament, the 1993 assmebly produced a document called “a global ethic,” which highlights major themes various religious officials agreed were pertinent in terms of religion’s role in modern society (young, 2005). such themes included self-accountability, absolute disregard for violence as a problem-solving tactic, selflessness, equality, and many more. (young, 2005). these revolutionary moments have acted as catalysts for several other major and more religiously inclusive world parliament meetings, some of which were held in locations such as cape town, south africa in 1999 or barcelona, spain in 2004 (young, 2005). according to brodeur (2005), the technology revolution has also played a systematic and integral part to the rise of interfaith dialogues hosted by nonprofit organizations. because of the “network culture” that has been linked to the information systems on the internet, organizations in modern society can communicate faster and coordinate more interfaith movements (brodeur, 2005). a small-scaled example of an interfaith dialogue the researcher of this report held a mock interfaith dialogue in april, 2011 in order to further educate students at thammasat university about not only the current conflict in thailand’s southern provinces, but also the concept of interfaith dialogues. the setting for this dialogue was a classroom, and the course was entitled “islam in thailand,” taught by dr. jaran maluleem. the researcher proposed that by hosting her own simulated dialogue, she could not only teach others about the purpose and benefits of interfaith but also gain personal insight and experience. the setup of this dialogue was to analyze two other major religions, christianity and buddhism, in the context of an academic class, which was mainly studying the religion islam. the dialogue was divided into three parts: first, an overview of defining religion and outlining the importance and implications of religions; second, a summary of christianity and buddhism; third, a discussion on interfaith dialogues and how they can be applied to the southern provinces of thailand. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 27 part i of the mock interfaith dialogue in order to explain why it is critical to study religions before analyzing conflicts associating with religious discord, the researcher gave a broad definition of religion. the definition she gave was consistent with that of young (2005), who states that religion is loosely and collectively defined as providing people with a purpose and rationale for the present life and an account for the afterlife, or next phase. it typically includes general guidelines for behavior and can be related to the actuality and presence of angels, demons, spirits, or even spiritual ancestors (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). next, the researcher discussed how there are different methods of studying religion, such as examining religions historically, socially, analytically, etc., followed by a discussion on why people are religious. as mentioned earlier, the researcher discussed how religion satisfies mankind’s needs (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). to elaborate, religion provides a sense of “ultimacy” in which individuals’ psychological needs for identity and purpose are met since religion gives them a reason that transcends him or her to the next phase after this present life (young, 2005). additionally, religion fulfills basic social needs in which strong relationships and groups are formed, thus granting an added layer of belongingness (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). the next topic in the mock-dialogue was a more in-depth review of why religion should be studied. the researcher’s reasons included the strong influence religion has over social, economic, political and even artistic spheres, all of which overlap and consequently complicate any and almost all conflicts associated with religious discordance (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). aside from religions having an overwhelming impact on the world, the researcher also stated how religion is important for individual growth (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). next, the way in which religions perceive themselves and one another was addressed in order to give a perspective on how islam, christianity, and buddhism relate. the first definition that was discussed was exclusivism, which is when member of a religious group ultimately views themselves as the only religion accurate and worthwhile to follow (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). on the other hand, inclusivism is where an individual believes that either there is an absolute truth amongst the religions that has yet to be formed or that in essence, all religions in the end adhere to one purpose (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). lastly, pluralism is the concept of acknowledging that though religions may differ, respecting one another is key to establishing a peaceful and cooperative society (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). part ii of the mock interfaith dialogue the second part of the presentation included a historical overview of christianity and buddhism as well as a general summary of both religions’ basic principles. this included discussing how christianity focuses on the birth, life, and death of jesus of nazareth and how this religion is an extension of judaism, yet for christians, jesus of nazareth is the prophesized messiah and the ultimate sacrifice to god for humanity’s sins (hopfe & 28 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research woodward, 2007; young, 2005). in this discussion, there was mention of the major beliefs of christianity. however, because there are over 34,000 denominations, the researcher emphasized how christianity is difficult historically to analyze, especially given the time limit of this particular dialogue (young, 2005). next, the major tenets of buddhism were summarized, along with a historical overview of its founder, prince siddhartha. the researcher mentioned the four noble truths, the difference between the two branches–theravada and mahayana–and the significance of the eightfold path (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). part iii of the mock interfaith dialogue the third portion of the mock dialogue included what was mentioned earlier in this analysis: the definition, purpose, and background behind interfaith dialogues. lastly, the researcher gave recommendations for thailand when implementing interfaith dialogues, those of which will be discussed later in this analysis. demographics and feedback the audience of those at the mock dialogue included six exchange students studying abroad at thammasat university–three of which were from california in the united states, two from japan and one from china. the other audience members present were three local thai students, along with the professor of the class, dr. jaran maluleem. oral feedback from the class included compliments and a growing interest in interfaith dialogues. two students in particular noted that they had never heard of this type of conflict-solving strategy before but appreciated how it strives for tolerance and religious pluralism. conclusion of the mock interfaith dialogue one objective of this small-scale version of an interfaith dialogue was to demonstrate how complex and arduous religions can be, much like the conflicts that involve religious differences. the mock dialogue demonstrated this by discussing two major religions, buddhism and christianity, and how there are many different ways to analyze religions. this dialogue, for example, mainly examined these religions’ historical backgrounds. another objective was to educate the class about how there are many types of interfaith dialogues. one such type the researcher tried to demonstrate was an informal method–but in an academic setting. acknowledging that there are many types of interfaith dialogues is important because a dialogue’s context and setting can affect what is being discussed, who is guiding the dialogue, the participants’ comfort level and the participants’ willingness openly to join in the discussion. if any of these components are negatively affected, then an interfaith dialogue will most likely not yield a successful outcome. interfaith dialogues’ limitations though interfaith dialogues serve as a peaceful means for solving conflicts, there are still three major limitations this analysis will address. first, despite popular belief, interfaith interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 29 dialogues cannot instantaneously resolve conflicts or function as a panacea (bagir, 2007). as many social and political theorists will explain, most conflicts, including the one in thailand’s southern provinces, are multidimensional and often times deal with more than a simple religious disagreement. because religion, culture and politics heavily intertwine with one another, using interfaith dialogue as a way to handle only the religious aspect of the conflict will not lead to long term success (bagir, 2007). interfaith dialogue can instead be utilized as a public tool to start engaging people in discussions and inspiring change, especially at a grassroots level (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005). the next limitation of interfaith dialogue stems from the first. one major barrier that interfaith dialogues cannot directly change is the political structures or governmental policies that can oftentimes sustain conflicts (bagir, 2007). though interfaith dialogues can undoubtedly ignite social movements or bring about grassroots organization within a society, they do not typically encourage political leaders to direct a structural change (bagir, 2007). lastly, one limitation that must not go unnoted is interfaith dialogues’ difficulty–or perhaps inability–to measure success. though interfaith dialogues are capable of empowering people, there has been little concrete evidence to suggest they are infallible or an absolute impetus for change or a resolution for modern conflicts (bagir, 2007). however, as bagir (2007) suggests, perhaps the lack of regularity of interfaith dialogues, along with other factors, may be the root cause as to why this type of peace-building method has not been widely acclaimed or cited as a standard problem-solving strategy. factors such as a lack of regularity will be discussed further in the recommendations section of this analysis. role of interfaith dialogues in thailand internationally because thailand has a seemingly pluralist society that tolerates all religions, the country has been active in hosting countless interfaith dialogues. thailand participates annually in the asia-europe meeting’s (asem) interfaith dialogue, and in 2008, the nation even co-hosted the fourth annual meeting (asia, 2008). to show further support of interfaith dialogues and religious tolerance, bangkok hosted asem’s interfaith cultural youth camp in february, 2009 (asia, 2009). the allure of thailand possessing an overall pluralist society has even drawn other countries to host interfaith dialogues in order to hash out their own political conflicts. for example, religious officials from india and pakistan met in october, 2010 in bangkok to host an interfaith dialogue discussing peace-building strategies in that particular region (interfaith, 2010).1 another example is when in 2010, a japanese, buddhist-based nonprofit organization soka gakkai international (sgi) also hosted its interfaith dialogue in bangkok (soka, 2010). the purpose of this nonprofit is to build stronger connections with buddhists across the world, and according to their website, the dialogue included 1 see figure 1. 30 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research thirty members representing christianity or buddhism and concentrated on issues such as the responsibility religion has in light of the current economic situation happening globally (soka, 2010). figure 1. indian and pakistani religious representatives at an interfaith dialogue discussing peace-building tactics (“interfaith,” 2010). nationally within thailand, the presence of interfaith dialogues is varied and can be seen on a public or private scale. though it is difficult accurately to ascertain when interfaith dialogues launched in thailand, they at least began to increase in the 1990s with the rise of nongovernmental organizations increasing (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005). these dialogues hosted by ngos, such as the thousand stars foundation or the international network of engaged buddhists, are considered to be the most common type of interfaith dialogue in thailand (sukrung, 2010). as with the nature of interfaith dialogues, these types cover an array of topics. for instance, in 2006, leaders representing buddhism, islam and christianity met in bangkok in response to the political upheaval and protests against thailand’s former prime minister, thaksin shinawatra (uca news, 2006). another example of thailand hosting different types of dialogue occurred in 2009 when religious leaders from burma, thailand and sri lanka met in bangkok to talk about and promote more peaceful strategies in this particular area of the world (sopaka, 2009)2. 2 see figure 2. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 31 figure 2. religious leaders from myanmar, sri lanka and thailand meeting in thailand to discuss religious tolerance and practical methods to strive for peace in the surround region (sopaka, 2009). interfaith dialogues occur even on a private scale in thailand, during which churches, mosques, and temples regularly schedule meetings with the religious community in order to sustain peace within thailand’s pluralist society. for example, the president of bangkok’s foundation of islamic centre of thailand, dr. pakorn priyakorn, stresses the importance of interfaith dialogues and claims “it is an absolute must” (p. priyakorn, personal communication, april 22, 2010). though these examples may indicate that interfaith dialogue is a successful method for reducing conflicts and building peaceful societies, there is still room for improvement. according to the bangkok post, the public and those not regularly affiliated with religious organizations have little access to these dialogues, and the media does not assertively report their presence (sukrung, 2010). historical background of thailand’s southern provinces before one can address resolution building methods in the south of thailand, it is important first to explain how the current conflict began and how it has progressed. on a surface level, the conflict is thought to be a religious clash between the malay muslims and the thai buddhists (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). however, that notion is premature and does not address several other critical factors that must be considered. the conflict in the south is one social, political, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious in nature (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). although the media produces the view that the conflict surrounds only two religious groups, it ultimately comes down to pressure placed on an ethnic minority, past assimilation policies imposed by the thai government, and a long history between thailand and malaysia’s borders (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). 32 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 3. map of thailand ’s southern provinces. before the anglo-siamese treaty, the kingdom of pattani consisted of satun, songkhla, pattani (the capital at the time), yala, narathiwat, perus, kedah, perak, kelantan, and trengganu. to explain further, in 1909, thailand signed a treaty with great britain called the anglo-siamese treaty (yusuf, 2006). this agreement allowed thailand to control five new malaysian provinces that were once under the pattani kingdom: yala, pattani, narathiwat, songkhla, and satun (yusuf, 2006)3. since this critical point of redefining demarcation lines between countries, and thus affecting cultural groups and ethnicities, there have been countless uprisings over the past century from the ethnic malays against the thai government (bajunid, 2006). the revolts increased during the 1930s and 1940s when the thai government, headed by general luang pibulsonggram and field marshall sarit thanarat, tried to enact strict assimilation laws that infringed upon the ethnically malay-muslim identity (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). such laws included unfair and apparent targeting tactics, such as switching the language of the religious school–pondoks–from malay or arabic to thai (bajunid, 2006), which resulted in unrest. however, the thai evolution towards a democratic state in the 1970s and 1980s, produced general calm (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). unfortunately, when former prime minister thaksin shinawatra came to power, tensions began to resurge at the turn of the twenty-first century due to implementing laws that again targeted the malay-muslim ethnicity (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the zenith of unrest was during 2004, which included the krue se mosque and takbai events (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the thai government subsequently initiated the national reconciliation commission in 2005 to investigate these incidents, yet unfortunately, the report remains futile and few of the suggestions made have been considered (yusuf, 2006). additionally, with the recent political outbreak in 2006, the thai 3 see figure 3. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 33 government remained distracted from properly addressing how to solve the uprisings and violence. because of the thai government’s enacted martial law and strong presence of military power in the south, tensions still remain strong between the insurgents and the opposing side. according to omar bajunid (2006), since 2004, there have been “over 3,000 violent events” and countless tragic deaths related to the conflict in southern thailand. lastly, it is important to note that the nature of this conflict is highly complex and consists of years of governmental policies and political turmoil, and the account here is merely a brief historical description. the main concept to underscore is that the issue lies within the people’s ethnicity in addition to their religion. several factors of the malaymuslim identity challenge the thai nation, and these factors primarily include the people’s language and religion (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the language is first a challenge because most of the citizens in the south are ethnically malay and in turn speak malay, not thai (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). consequently, this ethnicity cannot assimilate fully or effortlessly into thai society, which is considered to be united by the thai language. next, the islamic religion factor, as mentioned earlier, can at times indirectly challenge the constitutional-democratic thai state. for example, because the insurgents practice islam, their allegiance to political leaders is a sensitive matter since their allegiance is always first toward allah. being asked to alter certain modes of their belief system in order for the ethnic malays to assimilate into thai society almost always causes tension (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). nevertheless, the key concept to focus on is the “ethno-linguistic” feature of this conflict, and not just the religious aspect. recommendations for thailand’s southern provinces according to becker (2003), in order to practice fairness within a society and thus keep the peace, the ruling powers are required to give the public a voice. interfaith dialogues can achieve this necessity because they simply grant individuals the option to speak their opinion in a safe and nurturing forum of free-thinking discussion. in turn, interfaith dialogues can empower individuals, shape movements, and create the change that people in southern thailand want to see (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). however, in order for interfaith dialogues to work, especially in the context of thailand’s southern provinces, this analysis suggests nine specific recommendations that will be addressed below.4 recommendation one first, when considering who should be present at an interfaith dialogue that addresses the crisis in the south, the answer is simple: everyone (bagir, 2007). although religious leaders and government officials are typically the ones present, it would be beneficial to include a vast range of participants because this situation includes an array of people 4 it is important to acknowledge that although interfaith dialogues are naturally associated with solving religious conflicts, as previously mentioned, in this instance, where using interfaith dialogues would be a tool to reduce conflict in the south, the situation is entirely religious in nature. as mentioned previously, this conflict is politically, socially, and religiously rooted. therefore, interfaith dialogues would be used to address all factors, not just the face-value “buddhism vs. muslim” aspect. 34 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research spanning generations. this includes everyone from all socioeconomic backgrounds and, as bagir (2007) suggests, those with all types of jobs, such as the fishermen, police, and others. this recommendation is critical because it provides a voice not only to those in power presiding over the decisions on the matter; this recommendation hints that those directly affected by and included in the conflict must be involved. recommendation two building on the first recommendation, the ideal location for hosting an interfaith dialogue would not be in thailand’s political capital, bangkok. given the significant distance from the south, in order to include all of those affected by the conflict, it would be logical to host it in a central location. again, the objective is to make sure all parties are equally given an opportunity to speak of their grievances, build relationships, and reduce tension. recommendation three a substantial number of those present at an interfaith dialogue should be from the south. again, it is a matter of providing opportunities to build peace with the parties that are feuding. therefore, not having a considerable number would be futile. along with this, there should be an even number of ethnic thais and malays in order to keep representation balanced. however, it is important to note that there should undoubtedly be representatives from the national thai government so that those parties, too, can learn from firsthand accounts about the conflict and determine what political measures need to be considered. recommendation four. when hosting an interfaith dialogue, each party needs to have a clear objective of what it would like to accomplish (garfinkel, 2004). without outlining a clear purpose for each meeting, there is the risk of not effectively addressing major concerns or issues at hand as well as instilling confusion if each member is not comfortably on the same page (garfinkel, 2004). recommendation five this recommendation calls for each party to possess a deep and most sincere level of honesty (maluleem, 2005). if any member has ulterior motives or deceptive plans at an interfaith dialogue, there is a great possibility for one party to instill more distrust, suspicion, negativity, and animosity. this may cause a greater divide between those feuding in the south, which is the antithetical purpose of an interfaith dialogue. the aim is to move forward through peaceful means and not regress. recommendation six because the subject matter that would be addressed at these particular interfaith dialogues would be sensitive in nature, it is crucial for each member to possess strong levels of maturity. each member should be able to handle hard facts and criticism so that they may learn and grow from the interfaith dialogues (maluleem, 2005). interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 35 recommendation seven since one of the intentions of an interfaith dialogue is, bagir (2007) states, to “rehumanize” individuals, it is critical for each participant to be able to express empathy. both sides in the conflict of southern thailand have lost friends and family members in gruesome ways. therefore, as bagir (2007) suggests, members should not only concentrate on the differences but also–most importantly–on the similarities. by trying to envision the other point of view, members of opposing sides may even build friendships based on the fact that both parties have endured major losses. recommendation eight though it takes careful planning to host an interfaith dialogue that consists of a large number and vast range of people, dialogues should still be held consistently (bagir, 2007). the goal is to build meaningful relationships, which can only be done over time and by continuously peeling back layers. the more often dialogues are held, the more people can tend to new relationships, educate others, and thus instill progress. recommendation nine as with any organization, after each meeting there should be an evaluation of the progress that has been made or a prospective given on what needs to improve for the next dialogue (garfinkel, 2004). though it is difficult to measure the direct success or outcome of interfaith dialogues, there are still ways to gauge whether participants felt the dialogue was positive and worthwhile. religious groups or neutral parties, such as nongovernmental organizations focused on human rights protection, could distribute brief surveys or even conduct interviews in order to attain qualitative feedback. whichever way deems fit, it is crucial to see that progress is being made and that the people involved are regularly given a say in the decision making processes. conclusion as with all conflicts, there are never quick or simple solutions. the path towards a peaceful resolution requires time, energy, patience, and cooperation. along this path, there are methods that unconditionally discourage violence and endorse only peace and civil discussion. one such popular approach is called interfaith dialogues. although this paper addresses how interfaith dialogues have some limitations, as long as these dialogues are carried out justly and adhere to the recommendations suggested in this analysis, they can provide those involved in a conflict with a public voice. as for the conflict in thailand’s southern provinces, this is an issue layered with over a century’s worth of disputes, brutality, and injustice. however, though interfaith dialogues cannot structurally change many of the politically organized factors associated with this conflict, they can at least use the power of discussion to implement social and civic change. as becker (2006) states: 36 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “[t]he democratic state can only expect loyalty to its institutions when citizens have good reason to believe that their participation in public debate defining society’s fundamental principles is possible and encouraged” (p. 264). interfaith dialogues can then satisfy this necessity by allowing people from all corners of the conflict to come together in the middle and work towards ending the violence and instilling peace in the southern region of thailand. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 37 references asia-europe meeting. (2008, june 3). calendar of events: asem activities. retrieved from http://www. aseminfoboard.org/calendar/activities/?id=220 asia-europe meeting. (2009, feb. 6). calendar of events: asem activities. retrieved from http://www. aseminfoboard.org/calendar/activities/?id=253 bagir, z.a. (2007). interfaith action for peace and security: challenges and opportunities.paper presented at 3rdasia pacific regional interfaith dialogue. waitangi, new zealand. bajunid, omar (2006). the malaysian factor in the prospects for peace in southern thailand. in i. yusuf & l. p. schmidt (eds.), understanding conflict and approaching peace in southern thailand (191-239). bangkok, thailand: konrad-adenauer-stiftung. becker, g. (2006). divided loyalties: the moral basis of peace in a multicultural world of conflict and humiliation. in i. yusuf & l. p. schmidt (eds.), understanding conflict and approaching peace in southern thailand (240-280). bangkok, thailand: konrad-adenauer-stiftung. bishop, d.h. 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(2005). the world ’s religions: worldviews and contemporary issues. upper saddle, nj: pearson prentice hall. yusuf, i. (2003). religious diversity in a buddhist majority country: the case of islam in thailand. international journal of buddhist thought and culture, 3. 131-143. yusuf, i. (2006). understanding conflict and approaching peace in southern thailand, (ed.). bangkok, thailand: konrad-adenauer-stiftung. the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry middle tennessee state university 175 the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry fadia mereani abstract the hints of american romanticism in wallace stevens’s poetry can be traced to edgar allan poe and his poetic vision. to show the extent of stevens’s appreciation of poe, the first part of the paper will examine some of stevens’s letters sent to a number of his acquaintances to show his exposure to poe’s writings and provide a historical and biographical account of the influence of edgar allan poe on stevens. the second part of the paper will focus particularly on the poetic ideas, concepts, and characteristics they have shared in their poetry and poetic theories. the last part of the paper will examine how poe’s idea of the death of a beautiful woman, one of the main themes these poets have shared, has been discussed in stevens’s “sunday morning.” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 176 spring 2013 although wallace stevens is a modernist, his poetry carries some traces of american romanticism. one of the possible reasons behind these romantic traces in stevens’s poetry is his admiration and appreciation of edgar allan poe as a writer and a poet. in addition to the gothic and romantic traces found in some of stevens’s poems, he shows his admiration of poe by adopting poe’s understanding of the meanings of poetry and imagination and by using some of the poetic principles and themes of poe’s poetry in his own. to show the extent of stevens’s appreciation of poe, the first part of this study examines some letters that stevens sent to a number of his acquaintances to show his exposure to poe’s writings and provide a historical and biographical account of the influence of edgar allan poe on stevens. the second part of this project focuses particularly on the poetic ideas, concepts, and characteristics the two poets shared in their poetry and poetic theories. the study concludes with an examination of how stevens discussed poe’s idea of the death of a beautiful woman, one of the main themes these poets have shared, in his “sunday morning.” edgar allan poe in wallace stevens’s life wallace stevens mentions poe in four different letters. in the first letter, dated january 17, 1909 and addressed to elsie moll, who was later to be his wife, stevens tells her of an invitation he has received from his friend lamb to attend a celebration of poe: “there is a celebration of poe in the air. he lived at fordham heights you know, for a period and the people up there have gone in for a tremendous ceremony of friday, i believe, of this week. my friend lamb sent me an engraved invitation as big as a bill-board” (“l 144” 122). stevens, in these few lines, shows the enthusiasm of a fan eager to see poe celebrated and honored. j. donald blount explains that the reference to lamb is to albert r. lamb who “received the m.d. degree from columbia’s college of physicians and surgeons in 1907, after which he served there as an intern and later as a member of the faculty for many years” (89 n. 160). thus, the invitation from lamb, as a friend and an academician himself, indicates that they might have discussed poe before. in other words, it proves that lamb had previously known of stevens’s interest in poe and wanted to bring the celebration to his attention. the same letter also provides another proof of stevens’s enthusiasm and interest in poe. like a devoted fan, stevens interrupted the flow of his letter to elsie to express his excitement to know that poe had offered to give a lecture in reading, pennsylvania, stevens’s hometown, and that the letter in which he had sent his offer was on sale: “by the way, did i ever tell you that poe once wrote to somebody in reading offering to lecture there and that the original letter is on sale at richmond’s now? the committee was unwilling to pay what he asked, so that he never came” (122). the reference to the letter on sale implies that stevens was following poe’s news everywhere. it might also indicate his desire to collect it for himself. the same kind of lurking desire mixed with great regret could be detected in stevens’s comment on the committee. the fact that poe had never been able to give the lecture in reading because of the committee’s unwillingness to pay his price seems the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry middle tennessee state university 177 to upset stevens and to arouse his resentment. this tone proves his understanding of poe’s financial difficulties as one of the early american professional authors. the juxtaposition of the reference to the letter on sale, which shows the audience’s current appreciation of poe, coupled with the committee’s unwillingness to pay for his lecture when he was alive, denotes stevens’s mild aggravation with an audience who did not appreciate writers in time for the writers to benefit from that appreciation. however, it celebrates the renewed interest in poe’s writing and explains the reasons behind his success. in fact, in the following passage from the same letter, stevens explains the change in the audience’s taste and the shift of interest in poe’s works that led to “the revival of poe,” to use stevens’s words: … nowadays, when so many people no longer believe in supernatural things, they find a substitute in the stranger and more freakish phenomena of the mind – hallucinations, mysteries and the like. hence the revival of poe. – poe illustrates, too, the effect of stimulus. when i complain of the “bareness” – i have in mind, very often, the effect of order and regularity, the effect of moving in a groove. we all cry for life. it is not to be found in railroading to an office and then railroading back. – i do not say the life we cry for is, as a question of merit, good or bad. – but it is obviously more exciting to be poe than to be a lesser “esquire.” (122-23) stevens’s desire to “be poe” reveals more than his mere admiration of his works. poe provides for stevens an escape from the boring routine of life. he gives him a glimpse of the inner workings of the mind and an explanation, if impossible and grotesque, of some of the mysteries of life. being poe also reveals the secret of a successful writing profession. the secret lies not only in providing the audience the means of escape from their lives but also in always providing them with multi-dimensional perspectives with which they can renew their view of these lives. the psychological and supernatural dimensions of poe’s work, stevens realizes, add a spirit to the everyday ordinary life. as these dimensions helped stevens fight “the bareness” of his life and break the monotony that resulted from “order and regularity,” they help the audience break loose from the grip of boredom and monotonous ordinariness. the new perspectives on life and its mysteries presented in poe’s works also help the audience see their lives differently. joan richardson observes that in “this sunday letter” stevens “defined what he felt about the supernatural in accounting for poe’s success” (early 319). this understanding of the mechanics of poe’s success accounts for the influence of poe’s poetic theories on stevens’s works. the second letter in which stevens mentions poe is again addressed to elsie moll and dated january 21, 1909, a few days after the first letter. in this letter, the reference to poe also comes in the context of the influence of reading on stevens’s life and the different perspective it provides. stevens tells elsie how his life is altered by the mere act of reading. his affinity for reading was what made him stay up all night to “read poe and hawthorne and all the things one ought to read” though he had never done so before (“l 146” 125). considering poe in the top of the list of “things one ought to read” shows the extent of poe’s influence on stevens’s reading experience. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 178 spring 2013 the third letter proves that poe was an integral part of stevens’s reading experience. in this letter, addressed to josé rodrigues feo and dated may 23, 1947, stevens criticizes the public opinion that changes constantly. he says, “in the long run, as poe said in one of his essays which nobody reads, the generous man comes to be regarded as the stingy man; the beautiful woman comes to be regarded as an old witch; the scholar becomes the ignoramus” (“l 606” 558). first, this reference to poe’s essays shows that stevens read not only poe’s fictional works but also his non-fictional essays, which in turn shows that stevens was familiar with poe’s poetic theories. secondly, the reference to poe in relation to the shifting public opinion explains stevens’s relationship with his audience. in his study edgar allan poe, wallace stevens, and the poetics of american privacy, louis a. renza explores how poe and stevens guarded their private lives from their audience. he states that both poe and stevens shared an understanding of what it means to go private and “internally stage [some of their works] wholly to resist codifying appropriations” (xiii). the last reference to poe in the last letter addressed to barbara church and dated august 4, 1952, also discusses stevens’s relationship with people. stevens could not describe how his need and resentment for people coexisted in him at the same time. he believes that poe, on the other hand, was able to keep that relationship balanced because he “liked to analyze his feelings in crowds,” creating in this way a private space in public (“l 839” 759). renza’s study proves, as do the 1947 and 1952 letters, that poe’s influence on stevens affects both his style of writing and his perception of his role as a writer and as a public figure. poe’s influence on stevens’s poetic principles several critics have made the connection between poe’s writings in general and poetical theory, in particular, and stevens’s writings. first, in respect to his concept of imagination, stevens shares poe’s definition of imagination and the capabilities of the imaginative power. elizabeth phillips describes wallace stevens as “another celebrant of the freedom of the imagination” (6). both poe and stevens, phillips explains, admit the role of imagination in poetry and consider it the main component of the poetic creation (6). however, phillips also illustrates how both poe and stevens understand the limitation of imagination in its dependence on the reality of things and on a variation of the world as people know it. phillips states that stevens “agreed with poe that the imagination depends on what exists, and is free only to work collaterally with elements of the known world” (6). in her article, “the black bird of edgar allan poe and wallace stevens’ thirteen blackbirds,” paulina ambrozy shows the similarities and differences between stevens’s and poe’s concepts of imagination. she explains that although both poets place a great emphasis on the imagination to understand and give meaning to the world, they approach the relationship between “the real and the imagined world” differently (280). ambrozy states that whereas poe focuses on the imagined world as the ultimate source of meaning, stevens still relies on the real world to give him multiple perspectives for his poetry (280). in addition to the distinction between the real and imagined world, poe and stevens make a distinction between the surface and deep meanings of a poem. joan the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry middle tennessee state university 179 richardson explains that stevens’s distinction between a poem’s surface and deep meanings is “the single most important stylistic feature of stevens’s life and work” (early 66). richardson bases stevens’s distinction on what she describes as “the american dissociation of sensibility” found in early american literature and in “the nineteenth-century works of edgar allan poe and nathaniel hawthorne” (early 66). the dissociation of sensibility used by stevens and poe allows them to hide their ideas, thoughts, and feelings under the surface of the poem. richardson also points out that the reason some american writers have resorted to the dissociation of sensibility is their belief that “actions resulting from true thoughts and feelings were punished by the spiritual rhetoric of an overbearing sense of sin and guilt” (early 66). hiding thoughts and feelings beneath the surface of a poem saves the poets from that sense of sin and guilt. it also enables them to hide their private lives in the layers of meanings of a poem. another characteristic stevens shared with poe is his understanding of the purity of poetry. poe’s influence on french symbolism is extended to stevens’s perception of poetry as a pure art that uses symbolism and illusion as artistic means of expression that keep poetry pure. in other words, illusions and symbols are purely used for art’s sake and are not didactic in nature. milton j. bates makes that connection between poe and the french symbolists on one hand and poe and stevens on the other when he describes “stevens’s supreme fiction… as a form of willful illusion… [that] belongs to a tradition of literary illusions that includes some of poe’s poems, huysmans’ à rebours, villiers de l’isle-adam’s axël, tennyson’s ‘the lady of shalott,’ and mallarmé’s prose poem ‘le nénuphar blanc’” (201). edward ragg also makes a similar connection between stevens and the french symbolists in their reading of poe’s “poetic principle.” he states that stevens follows “the french symbolist reading of poe’s ‘the poetic principle’” in respect to what makes poetry “pure” (52). ragg explains that the purity of poetry in poe’s “poetic principle” is derived from a focus on the musicality of words rather than on their semantic or pragmatic meanings or on their relationships to the real. thus, poetry becomes “pure” when the poet focuses on the creation of sounds that superficially lack semantic meaning to create the effect of musicality and make poetry “autonomous” and “abstract” (52). ragg’s emphasis on the abstractedness of poetry for both poe and stevens is an emphasis on their “aversion to the notion of poetry possessing a didactic role” (52). the musicality of poetry is, in fact, one of the main characteristics that stevens shares with poe. joan richardson also notices that poe’s influence on stevens’s writings manifests itself in his concern with “the sound of words” (later 181). richardson points out that stevens’s understanding of the significance of the sound of words in poetry might be based on poe’s eureka, “a text that he did not name but that he also seemed to recall” (later 181). the connection richardson makes between poe’s eureka and stevens’s theory of the sound of words is based on poe’s depiction of “pascal’s thought experiment of conjuring the movement of one stone on the sea floor that affects the universe with the waves it generates was translated into the effect that every word uttered has the power of transforming the shape of all things” (later 181). thus, the careful attention to the sound of words in poetry scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 180 spring 2013 has the inherent power to transform life and meaning. however, richardson believes that, unlike mallarmé and the french symbolists in their understanding of poe’s musicality, an understanding that connects this musicality to the aesthetics of the art-for-art’ssake theory, stevens’s understanding of the poetic musicality comes from his desire “to reproduce as closely as he could the way he heard, the way he felt, moving about in constant physical disequilibrium” (early 501). stevens’s understanding of musicality aspires to raise the standards of art and to give poetry and poets a high and transcendent position in life. the death of a beautiful woman on a “sunday morning” in “the philosophy of composition,” poe presents “the death… of a beautiful woman” as “the most poetical topic in the world” (756). stevens also frequently uses the theme of death in his poems. richardson points out that “it was the most constant theme of the poems he had written” in his early life and would continue to captivate him in his later works (early 490). however, richardson also points out that stevens’s treatment of death reveals a personality and a character that differ from poe’s (early 490). poe’s treatment of death might suggest “a perverse predilection, the sign of morbid personality,” while stevens “was not being defensive or disingenuous when he expressed that he was concerned with death as an object of thought” (early 490). stevens’s treatment of death goes far beyond the effect of death on human relationships to discussing death as a contrast and sometimes as an answer to human life. one of the poems in which stevens discusses the theme of death is “sunday morning.” stevens introduces the theme of the death of a beautiful woman to question the meaning of death as a major component of the religious and social systems that constrain the female figure presented at the beginning of the poem. poe employs the theme of the death of a beautiful woman in “the raven,” for instance, to show the deep love and grief the speaker of the poem feels because of the loss of his beloved. however, stevens introduces it in “sunday morning” to make a more solid argument about the importance of the death of a beautiful woman when the speaker of the poem suggests it to the beautiful woman as an answer to the ontological and theological questions that she has been reflecting upon at the beginning of the poem. in this way, stevens makes the beautiful woman in the poem the very embodiment of the theme stevens shares with poe. “sunday morning” is a meditative poem contemplating the meaning of life against the backdrop of dominant social and religious systems. the poem can be divided into two major sections: the reflective part that poses the questions about life and religion and the transformative part that attempts to answer the questions of the first part. the speaker of the poem is a woman who is still sitting in her “sunny chair” on a sunday morning (2). instead of going to the church, she sits there overcome by questions about her beliefs in life and about the death of jesus in the crucifixion (9-15). some kind of epiphany dawns on her in the second section when her thoughts and speculations are transformed to a different world by the answer “death is the mother of beauty” (63). in this other world, all the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry middle tennessee state university 181 the religious boundaries of her current world are broken and all the worries and fears of change are dismissed. in the first four stanzas of “sunday morning,” the woman seems to be happy and content in her own world of beauty enjoying the luscious pleasures of life. however, her thoughts and speculations about her religious beliefs have turned these pleasures of life, “the pungent oranges and bright, green wings,” into “things in some procession of the dead” (9-10). the death of jesus, a symbol of ultimate beauty and power, has turned everything beautiful into everything that is lifeless. this juxtaposition of the death of the permanent symbol of divinity and beauty has made her question her mortality and the temporariness of the pleasure she is enjoying. her quest in life and her pilgrimage “to silent palestine, / dominion of the blood and sepulchre,” she realizes, is a journey to her own grave and not only to the grave of jesus (14-15). in these questions that darkened her day, the woman speculates the very nature of life and death. in “the raven,” poe makes the raven a sign of death. when the speaker first hears the sound of the tapping of the raven at his door, he dismisses it as “nothing more” than a mere visitor (5-6). the raven replies in answer for all of the speaker’s questions about the death of his beloved “nevermore” (48). stevens also introduces birds as signs of desolation and death in the fourth stanza of “sunday morning.” the birds in this stanza “are gone, and their warm fields / return no more;” they tell the woman that the idea of paradise or heaven is not the answer to her questions about her life and death (49-50). paradise with all of the signs of life it suggests, including the birds, would not provide the woman with the answer to her questions about death. stevens introduces the theme of the death of a beautiful woman exactly in the stanza that marks the middle of the poem as the answer to her questions. the poem consists of 120 lines, and the speaker suggests death in the stanza that marks the middle of the poem: she says, “but in contentment i still feel the need of some imperishable bliss.” death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires… (61-65) unlike poe’s narrator, who sees that “nevermore” is the answer to all questions about death, stevens makes death itself a sign of birth and the creation of life and beauty. death is a mother, a begetter of the beauty in the world. it is the embodiment of the beautiful woman because it is “the mother of beauty.” stevens strips the idea of death of all religious connotations associated with it because of the death of jesus. death, juxtaposed with the begetter of life, reminds the woman and the reader that life in its fluctuating state is to be worshipped and appreciated. death is the mother of beauty because death is also the teacher that forces the woman to open her eyes. it dissipates the darkness that fell on her mind at the beginning of the poem and replaces it with the kind of friendly darkness “the pigeons” sink into “on extended wings” (118-20). embracing the beauty of death as the ultimate answer of life would help the woman see life for what it really is, a place of worship. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 182 spring 2013 although the death of the beautiful woman is treated differently in “sunday morning,” poe’s influence is still present in the poem. the difference in the treatment might be the result of stevens being a modernist poet. in other words, stevens is showing his concern with the questions of the religious and social dilemmas of his age. however, the presence of the theme of the death of a beautiful woman suggests that stevens has retained some of the romantic elements and subject matter of poe’s poetry. although this discussion of “sunday morning” is mainly thematic in nature, it would be worthwhile to study the stylistic techniques stevens might have shared with poe in the poem. and although this study is focused on “sunday morning” as an example of the poems in which poe’s influence on stevens can be detected, there is reason to believe that further examination of other poems by stevens would reveal the extent of poe’s influence on his poetic vision. the influence of edgar allan poe on wallace stevens’s poetry middle tennessee state university 183 works cited ambroży, paulina. “the black bird of edgar allan poe and wallace stevens’ thirteen blackbirds.” studia anglica posnaniensia: an international review of english studies (sap). 39 (2003): 279-87. mla international bibliography. web. 10 february 2012. bates, milton j. wallace stevens: a mythology of self. berkeley: university of california press, 1985. print. blount, j. donald, ed. the contemplated spouse: the letters of wallace stevens to elsie. columbia: u of south carolina, 2006. print. phillips, elizabeth. edgar allan poe: an american imagination. port washington, n.y.: kennikat press, 1979. print. poe, edgar allan. “the philosophy of composition.” the norton anthology of american literature. ed. nina baym. shorter 5th ed.752-60. print. ---. “the raven.” the norton anthology of american literature. ed. nina baym. shorter 5th ed.701-4. print. ragg, edward. wallace stevens and the aesthetics of abstraction. cambridge, n.y.: cambridge up, 2010. print. renza, louis a. edgar allan poe, wallace stevens, and the poetics of american privacy. baton rouge : louisiana state university press, 2002. print. richardson, joan. wallace stevens: the early years 1879 – 1923. new york: beech tree books, 1986. print. ---. wallace stevens: the later years 1923 – 1955. new york: beech tree books, 1986. print. stevens, wallace. “letter 144.” letters of wallace stevens. ed. holly stevens. new york: alfred a. knope, 1966. 121-23. print. ---. “letter 146.” letters of wallace stevens. ed. holly stevens. new york: alfred a. knope, 1966. 125-26. print. ---. “letter 606.” letters of wallace stevens. ed. holly stevens. new york: alfred a. knope, 1966. 557-58. print. ---. “letter 839” letters of wallace stevens. ed. holly stevens. new york: alfred a. knope, 1966. 758-59. print. ---. “sunday morning.” the norton anthology of american literature. ed. nina baym. shorter 5th ed.189294. print. transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 57 transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology jamie sutton abstract since the beginning of america’s “war on terror,” the permissible targets and methods of warfare within islamic theology continue to be the subject of much discourse among a global audience. an examination of sources illuminates rich traditions of regulation applying to warfare in islamic jurisprudence. these traditions range from distinction of legitimate targets to the proportionality of destruction, and taken as a totality, they represent a demonstration of concern for the principles of just war theory many decades before a codified western tradition of such began. this essay offers a concise introduction to the classical regulations on warfare within islamic jurisprudence along with their place in the modern context. while not an exhaustive effort, the paper offers an understanding of what these islamic limitations on violence are and how they are circumvented in the modern context by extremists. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 58 spring 2013 “fight in the cause of allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for allah loveth not transgressors.” qur’an 2:190 when discussing islamic theology in a modern context, the issue of violence and the justifications as to when and how it may be applied will inevitably be the subject of several questions. the world stage for discussion is dominated by the revolutions of the arab spring, the american wars and interventions in the middle east, the continued legacy of islamic revivalism, and the operations of groups of so-called “islamic radicals” or “muslim fundamentalists.” observers outside the religion of islam have a deep, and understandable, concern over the rhetoric and process of religious justification undertaken by a certain strain of islam that has proven itself both willing and able to commit acts of violence. likewise, within the muslim community there is genuine and intense debate over the proper interpretation of the historical and religious sources considered central to islam: the qur’an1, the hadith of the prophet muhammad2, and the earliest generations of islamic scholars. many authors and commentators3 have framed this internal debate as no less dramatic than a battle for the “soul” of islam. since the earliest days of islam, there has been vigorous debate as to when violent means are justified from the standpoint of the religion and to whom and when those means should be applied. in the philosophical context, just war theory has always been the attempt to examine the relationship of justice and warfare and is a construct composed of two main areas of inquiry: jus in bello—justice in war, and jus ad bellum—justification for war. in the western tradition, just war theory originates largely with the writings of st. thomas aquinas. however, when viewed in the context of the whole islamic tradition, the legal and theological debates within the islamic framework include all of the elements that are generally supposed to constitute a doctrine of jus in bello, justice in war. in the early juridical sources, there is rarely, if ever, a single specific text that can be considered to encompass the total structural system of argument and ruling that fits within the accepted boundaries of a just war theory. but i think that given the wide range of diverse views within early islam and the military realities of the situation in the hijaz desert region, along with islamic communities’ relationships with the empires bordering them, enough discussion exists to demonstrate that an early form of just war theory was in clear if fitful development. islam as displayed in the qur’an and the hadith sources makes a strong attempt to be an eminently practical religion in regards to violence. the words of the qur’an seem to take for granted that a stance of pacifism is neither sufficient nor desirable as a means to meet all the challenges the islamic community might face. there are multiple verses encouraging peace, indeed upon close inspection, it is clear that any verse condoning violence is in 1 the holy scriptures of islam 2 the collected sayings and traditions attributed to prophet muhammad, taken to be prescriptive norms worthy of emulation. 3 excellent introductory examples include reza aslan, khaled fadil, and karen armstrong transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 59 close proximity to verses exhorting believers to understand that peace is better. but the qur’an also spends ample time encouraging believers not to shrink from the martial duties required in support of the community. the qur’an contains verses that command fighting such as 2:216, which explains to hesitant believers that fighting is good for them; 4:74, which states that those killed for their faith in battle will earn great rewards; 3:167, which suggests that any who hesitate to fight for fear of death are hypocrites or non-believers; and of course, 9:5, the famous “verse of the sword,” which commands mulsims to slay the mushrikun—the unbelievers—wherever they are found. the arabic word mushrikun literally translates as “those who associate partners with god” but is typically translated as unbeliever or polytheist in english translations. these few examples, among many others in the qur’an, amply serve to demonstrate that there is no moral timidity about the occasional necessity for violence in the in the early muslim world. despite this, the combat called for in the qur’an could not be accurately described as bloodthirsty or unrestrained. the martial aggression of the early islamic empires waxed and waned as any civilization’s military history might, and frequent sometimes impassioned attempts are made to depict members of the early muslim community as zealots sweeping aside their neighbors in a wave of religious fervor and offering the choice of conversion or the sword. however, since the qur’an contains numerous restrictions and limitations intended to curb violence, and the hadith contains even more, this interpretation of early muslims does not withstand scrutiny. attempts to interpret and apply the ”limits” referred to in 2:190, in which the qur’an asserts that in fighting believers should not transgress certain boundaries of behavior, led to intellectual movements, which constituted a detailed just war theory hundreds of years before st. thomas aquinas would develop and codify the ideas of earlier philosophers to form the christian equivalent. the concept of jus in bello with which this paper is concerned can be identified conceptually in the hebrew scriptures and deuteronomical commands on limiting collateral damage for the early jewish people. in the west, the main source for just war theory is largely a product of the roman catholic tradition, particularly st. thomas aquinas and st. augustine of hippo. the western tradition of justice in warfare was originally conceived as a sort of theological exercise. in short, it was an attempt to answer the question: if christianity is ideally a religion of brotherhood in christ, and given jesus’ famous biblical admonishment that he who lives by the sword is doomed to die by it, then how does christianity confront the realities of a world in which it seems that war is nearly inevitable, whether christians choose their participation or not? towards the 16th century these religious underpinnings were replaced by a concern for international treaty and contract models of international law. here we see a close parallel that mirrors the islamic need to reconcile an absolutist belief in scriptural divine commands with the practical needs of existence in a culturally and religiously diverse world. the directives of traditional just war theory require that, once violence has been initiated, several types of ethical concerns must be respected as much as possible in order to maintain the justness of the war. these concerns include: making a proper distinction scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 60 spring 2013 between combatant and non-combatant, ensuring that responses and destruction are proportional to the desired objective, ensuring that the minimum force necessary to finish the military objective is used, seeing that captured enemy soldiers are treated fairly and humanely, and providing that no methods which are considered unjust or evil are used as a weapon of warfare. in modern times, this last concern has been fully expanded into a vigorous discussion surrounding chemical and biological warfare, but has also traditionally included acts such as rape. a primary ethical concern for jus in bello, then, is the question of just practice. while the justice of jihad was never in question—any legitimate jihad was just—if a particular military expedition was not just, then it was by definition not a legitimate “striving in the way of god.” as is the ideal for all of islamic theology, the rules governing warfare for muslims are supposed to derive from divine revelation in the form of the qur’an and the hadith sources.4 the bulk of the task for islamic jurists was in applying the source material to new situations as they arose and teasing out distinctions for those areas that are addressed only obliquely. the challenge of meeting new innovations in both the technology and methods of violence required the islamic jurist to attempt to craft an internally-coherent system of principles and theory out of the sometimes extremely specific and highly contextualized examples provided by revelation in the qur’an or hadith. in this way, the concepts of just war theory in islam grew alongside the development of the structure of shari’a itself. shari’a has always had this dual role within the islamic system. the arabic word means “path” or “road” and is in islamic theology the perfect and eternal unchanging law of god, his dictates for how humanity is to order their lives. on the basis of this ideal, jurists attempting to model shari’a in earthly legislation created a complex and highly technical legal field that has continually evolved over the course of islamic history. in the early and classical periods, the struggle was to combine practical and immediate needs of the current context with the desire to adhere (at least by analogy) to the dictates that were believed to be products of divine revelation. these sources can seem confusing and even contradictory at times, but they provide a broad enough basis to have served as the foundation for islamic legal rulings relating to each of the typical considerations required of a classical just war theory: distinction of targets, proportionality, military necessity, fair treatment of prisoners of war, and right means of waging war. 4 though a complete overview of the methods by which various schools of theology have analyzed and interpreted these sources are beyond the scope of this paper, it is useful here to make a brief overview. in formulating islamic jurisprudence, the muslim scholar is meant to follow a fairly simple process. the qur’an and the hadith are to be textually analyzed along with the context of the circumstances in which the particular verse or tradition was formed. in cases where there are multiple interpretations possible or there are no explicit instructions on an issue, the jurist is supposed to apply the weight of precedent to the matter and follow the judgment of the majority of respected scholars who have come before. if new information is available which those previous scholars did not possess or the situation seems to otherwise be unique, then analogical reasoning is supposed to be applied, looking for relevant similarities to other more familiar situations. finally, permeating all of this process, jurists are to use their own independent judgment in applying what they feel the principles “behind” the sources would direct for a decision. schools of islamic legal thought primarily differ mostly on which parts of this process are given the most weight. transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 61 generally, in the qur’an itself some form of limitation on killing is recognized (2:190), that life can only be taken with just cause (17:33), that people who are not actively hostile are to be made peace with (4:90), and that all existing peace agreements must be honored (9:4). the hadith contains a number of more specific regulations that further combine to explicate how these general limitations are carried out. pacifism is not even considered as a possibility in the harsh environment of the tribal raid-driven society of the early arabian desert. whether in the face of oppression or existential threat or in order to guarantee the freedom to practice the islamic religion in an area, violence is considered an acceptable response. in contrast to classical just war theory, the early discussion amongst scholars never seems to be if islamic warfare is just. as a matter of theological doctrine, for early muslims the governing of all the world in islamic terms would be the greatest good that could happen for mankind, and imposing of this goal by invitation and, when necessary, by warfare was the first concern of the state. indeed, by the very juridical definition of the word, any legitimate jihad would be a just and righteous undertaking. any such undertaking that was not just and righteous would not be a true jihad. thus early islamic jurists debated issues such as the permissibility of violence against muslim political rebels, and what duration and effort should be expended in non-violent conversion attempts. examples of these early debates are the sunni/shi’a split over the succession after muhammad. the groups of ash’ari and khawarij split over whether rebellion against an impious ruler could be justified and how frequently the invitation to embrace islam and end hostilities must be renewed. in general though, a state of warfare was assumed to exist between the muslim and non-muslim state, the dar al-islam (land of islam) and dar al-harb (land of war) respectively.5 as seen in medieval western christendom, which also explicitly assumed a universal imperative for all mankind, assuring the opportunity of unbelievers to live under a government ruled by god’s standards was often treated as its own de facto justification for warfare. even given this truth, the jihad did not necessarily constitute a program of endless violence. in war and peace in the law of islam, majid khadduri (1979) notes some jurists said merely being prepared for war was enough to fulfill the communal obligation of jihad, and the obligation to call all the world under the authority of islam had many various non-violent methods of being pursued. this shows a clear example of how the early debate on this matter was, at best, divided. furthermore, this is shown as the early islamic scholars clearly assumed the destiny of the whole world was to follow the religion of islam; however, the obligation to fight in order to make this happen was not universally accepted. 5 some early islamic scholars (most notably the shafi’i) recognize a third division of the world into the dar al-sulh (land of treaty or peace) which encompassed non-muslim states in which the freedom to practice islamic religion was protected and treaty relations involving a ceding of some monetary tribute or land to the muslim state was made either before hostilities began or after a prolonged war with no clear winner. other schools of thought insisted that such entities, by ceding tribute and accepting the right of muslims to worship, became part of the islamic world by default, and should be considered under the protection and guidance of the islamic leader, regardless of whether or not the factual form of government changed. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2013 the question of conduct in war was frequently of more importance to the early muslim jurist than of whether or not to go to war. early scholars were consumed with questions about the incorporation of newly encountered military strategies and weapons, whether military service in jihad was the duty of every individual in the community or only some, the right leadership and authority for the conduct of war, and the manner in which troops should behave. however, while religious scholars grappled with these questions in the formation of the different schools of islamic theology and jurisprudence, the practical needs of the islamic state and the political considerations of treaty, warfare, and expansion needed to be conducted and carried out by political leaders. the earliest unified islamic communities developed rules regarding their actions practically at the moment they were needed. michael bonner (2008) points out in jihad in islamic history that like most islamic law, doctrines of religious jihad developed separately in a tense co-existence with the political functions of the islamic state and even then, not until at least the 8th century. this points to the likelihood that in at least some early islamic states, the scholars were explicitly encouraged by the political powers to interpret religious rulings in the way most favorable to the foreign policy of the time. within that process of development though, we see a number of threads constraining the behavior of fighters, both in the arguments of islamic jurists debating the shari’a sources for jihad and in the works of writers like al-farabi and ibn khaldun who adapted philosophical arguments to highlight the issue of justice in warfare (bonner 2008). alfarabi in particular was of the opinion that the invitation to islam should be made through reasoned debate and missionary-type efforts; only the utter failure of these efforts should lead to violence as a possible option. one of the earliest recorded rules of warfare after the prophet muhammad, given by the first caliph of islam, abu baker, was an address to the forces on various restrictions: to not mutilate bodies; kill no aged men, women, or children; destroy no livestock, fruitful trees, or palm trees except as needed for food; and leave unmolested those whose lives were dedicated to the monastic service of a religion (khadduri 1979). such restrictions from the earliest leaders after muhammad showed an initially very clear concern for minimizing the damage and deaths in any armed conflict with muslim troops. in fact, the ideal was to be able to achieve the military objective with as little force as possible. islamic jurisprudence early on shows a concern for the principle of distinction not only in questions of muslim vs. non-muslim targets but also distinguishing between several categories of non-muslims, only some of which were considered the legitimate targets of jihad. in the risala of shafi’i (1987) an excellent example is made in which the imam, or religious leader, attempts to reconcile two differing traditions. the prophet was known to have prohibited the killing of women and children; however, there was also a hadith transmitted which seemed to allow the killing of women and children during a surprise attack at night. shafi’i brings together this seeming contradiction by explaining that during a surprise attack at night when there is much confusion, a muslim warrior should not be held liable for killing women or children by accident. however, since the bulk of the transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 63 prophetic tradition was against it, the warrior should in fact be punished in any case in which it was possible to distinguish and recognize the target. shafi’i further elaborates the religious principle in question: women are not valid targets since they do not fight. and children are not valid targets since they neither fight nor possess the mental capability to distinguish belief from unbelief. these same principles would later be extended, in the majority of scholarly rulings, to apply to the insane, the blind, and religious hermits. the principles of proportionality and military necessity can be discovered in early islamic legal concern as well. in fact, there were fewer than a handful of jurists in the 8th century who accepted the legality of unnecessary destruction without restriction. the practice of abu bakr was to order his soldiers to refrain from destroying crops and livestock except for taking what was absolutely required for their own food or the defeat of the enemy. this practice was then closely followed by most of the caliphs and reinforced by jurists. the destruction of residential areas, if attacks were not being launched from those areas, was also forbidden (abul ala mawdudi 1981). in general, the use of fire and siege engines was limited based on the strength of the enemy’s fortifications and the judgment of the commander in the field. for instance, a ruling by the early jurist al-shaybani stated that if the enemy were employing what in modern times would be referred to as a “human shield”—mingling behind or among a population of people which would normally be considered non-combatants—then attacks, even with siege weapons which wrought largescale destruction, were permissible. this was the case even if non-combatants would be harmed, so long as reasonable care was taken to minimize the loss. the treatment of prisoners of war is regrettably somewhat more mixed in the islamic tradition. it is a defensible argument that in many ways the practices of the early islamic empires in relation to pows was a step forward in terms of comparable civilizations of the age; however, the practice of slavery alone casts a negative light on the record. living persons were generally considered part of the spoils of war and divided into asra, which would be what we now call prisoners of war, and sabi, women or children to be taken as slaves and property (khadduri 1979). in general, the main legal options for the muslim commander concerning prisoners of war was to ransom them for the return of muslim prisoners, force them into slavery (the new slaves being divided equitably among the warriors who were involved in the battles), or execute them. the majority of the predominant legal scholars of the 8th and 9th centuries recommended execution only when ransoming prisoners would unreasonably restore strength to the enemy or there was some other compelling state interest in the execution. in practice, the women and children who comprised the sabi were immune to execution, only a small handful of documented cases exist where such killing took place. interestingly, the treatment of prisoners of war is perhaps the one consideration in warfare that changes the most throughout the history of the islamic empires as they transition from ruler to ruler and from dynasty to dynasty. the hadith do seem to contain clear instructions that no one should be killed in captivity or bound, and that no prisoner should be put to the sword (mawdudi 1976). and yet muhammad himself, on at least two scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2013 occasions, ordered prisoners to be executed when they had been guilty of particularly harsh war crimes. the final consideration of jus in bello in traditional just war theory is often referred to as mal means, which stipulates that soldiers may not use weapons or other methods considered evil such as sexual assault, force soldiers to fight against their own side, or use certain kinds of weapons. of course, restrictions on chemical and biological warfare as it is known in the twentieth and twenty-first century are not addressed in early islamic jurisprudence; however, there was considerable debate among the various schools on the issue of poison. most scholars allowed the use of poisoned arrows or dumping into a militarized water supply with restrictions, but a very small minority either forbade it as causing excessive pain, or allowed it without restrictions. we also find general protections restricting the jihadist from free license to do as he wishes with an area under attack. there are generally accepted prohibitions on the destruction of residential areas, restrictions that prevent the muslims from taking goods from civilian populations without paying fair value for them, and restriction on the use of fire. mutilation of the dead or the display of corpses in order to instill fear in the enemy was also forbidden by most early scholars (mawdudi). one of the many arguments fielded by those who believe that islamic history and theology are composed of unrestrained violence against the unbeliever is that the acts of modern militant self-styled “jihadis” acting globally with such groups as al-qaeda, taliban, hamas, or any number of other organizations identified as terrorists by large segments of the international community seem to support this idea. the spokesmen for such groups and lone actors following in their footsteps unquestionably speak in islamic terms, use islamic sources, and focus on religious goals as their motivation for undertaking acts of terror. it might be granted that at least the leadership of these sorts of groups, while usually not recognized scholars of islamic law and jurisprudence, are not ignorant of their religion, and they clearly have a certain understanding of a religious duty to undertake often terrible violence, which can include violence against non-combatants and utilizing means such as suicide bombers. a commonly repeated viewpoint in the public arena is that moderate and liberal muslims advocating peace and democracy do not “understand” their own religion properly. this stance towards islam is ironically also an argument that is very easy to imagine terrorist groups making in recruitment efforts. indeed, osama bin laden himself made statements to journalists to the effect that when the truth and gravity of the situation became apparent to muslims all over the world, they would understand that the actions of people like embassy bombers would be seen as permissible and that acquiring any kinds of weapons with which to fight is a religious duty for muslims (rahimullah yusufzai 1999). the existence, then, of muslims who are quite knowledgeable about the shari’a sources and still come to conclusions such as making non-combatants permissible targets of terrorist acts, poses a problem for the observer with a thesis that early islamic law showed a healthy concern for justice within warfare. we may point out, as does john kelsay in his invaluable book arguing the just war in islam (2008), that the first fully developed theories transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 65 of islamic law were seemingly custom-tailored to disagreement and open interpretation, which would cause different schools of thought to take very different stances on the same issues. one could also consult the historical and socio-political contexts of both ancient battles of islamic empires and modern-day terrorism. compelling arguments have been made that religion is but one of many competing factors in the formula that leads to violent acts of terrorism. for example, in the early 2000’s the influential cleric yusuf al-qaradawi made televised statements on al-jazeera and british televised news to the effect that women and children were legitimate targets of attacks in palestine (though not outside those territories) due to what he calls the “militarized” nature of israeli society, where there is mandatory military service and women may also serve in combat (abdelhadi 2004). in the case of al-qaeda, one of osama bin laden’s statements aired on al-jazeera with an interviewer argued that all americans, even civilians, could be considered legitimate targets of violence. his argument is that, in a representative democracy where the military is funded by tax-dollars, paying taxes and continuing to live in the country is support for and agreement with the actions of the american government. bin laden references this most explicitly in the statement, “a man is considered a fighter whether he carries a gun or pays taxes to help kill us” (yusufzai, 1999). hamas has made arguments supporting their use of children in war and of suicide attacks in various actions against israel, modes of attack that are rare if not quite unprecedented in islamic history. their statements have made clear their opinion that their war with israel is asymmetric in terms of equipment, numbers, capability, and other forms of military consideration. they believe the extreme nature of their being overmatched militarily justifies certain extreme and desperate measures. they also have made statements to the effect that they would recognize the rights of jews to remain who resided in palestine prior to the declaration of the state of israel. the israeli people are seen as invaders and, hamas has stated, “it is our right as an occupied people to defend ourselves from the occupation by all means possible including suicide attacks;” their representative went on to say, “jews have no right in it [ed: palestine], with the exception of those who lived on the land of palestine before world war i” (“hamas in their own words”). i want to highlight in these arguments that these extremist groups all either implicitly or explicitly recognize that the normal restrictions on conduct have been suspended or superseded but not removed. these arguments serve to demonstrate that at least on the communal level these groups still recognize the traditional limits placed by the early islamic sources on conduct of warfare. however, while recognizing those limits they argue that their specific situations are exceptions justified within a tradition that has long made allowances in its jurisprudence for practical necessity excusing otherwise forbidden acts. these are by no means an exhaustive sample of the arguments and reasoning made by extremist groups; however, each one exhibits attention to a certain traditional rule constraining islamic warfare. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2013 in the case of the statements from al-qaradawi and osama bin laden, there is a clear attempt to work around the rules marking non-combatants as off-limits for intentional attack. both statements make an argument not that attacking innocent civilians is permissible in islam, but that the victims in question did not in fact qualify for that status. bin laden utilizes a common historical interpretation among the scholars that merchants and others who directly and materially support the military with arms or supplies are legitimate targets. al-qaradawi makes the argument that the future status of the victims as combatant is a virtual surety, and so it is not civilians who are killed but military recruits intended for the battlefront. in both cases, there is an attempt to overlay traditional exceptions onto modern situations. through a tactic common in islamic jurisprudence, an analogy is made that the modern situation is enough like these historical traditions to be a valid guide. the cited statements by hamas justifying its military efforts combine a direct appeal to qu’ranic justification with an argument about military necessity. the qu’ran states that those who drive others from their homes unjustly will suffer the worst punishments in the afterlife (2:85), and fighting in order to expel people from land from which muslims have been driven (2:191) is one of the few justifications for war explicitly stated in the qu’ran. the lopsided military capabilities of hamas when compared to the modern and well-trained israeli military pose a problem for traditional military tactics. military necessity has long been considered a valid reason for exceeding the traditional limits in extreme cases. for example, many of the rulings about siege weaponry (which was difficult to aim accurately and incredibly indiscriminate in the damage inflicted) and attacking fortifications in the midst of a civilian population are based on the criteria of military necessity as determined by the commander in the field. hamas and the scholars who support their operations in palestine and israel prefer the term “martyrdom operation” to “suicide bombing” for a very specific reason. suicide has always been absolutely forbidden in islam by the majority of mainstream scholars since the very beginnings of the tradition. however, there are numerous stories of martyrs who went into battle against overwhelming odds that might be rightfully called “suicidal” and died fighting for their cause. in fact, in the rich history of islamic poetry and scholarship this sort of martyr figure is often revered. hamas draws a direct connection between the suicide bombers of today and these narrative figures attempting to claim that they are identical. they claim that in both cases a fighter is making a valiant strike against the enemy even though they are doomed to failure because it will have some military value.6 whether their actions could be attributed to the governmental or military structure of a certain nation, the overwhelming inferiority of the terrorists’ military capabilities, or the feeling that armed violence is an act of self-defense against those who have stolen homes, 6 of course, the strengths of this claim are debatable. bernard freamon (2003) in the fordham international law journal makes a compelling case that this understanding of modern day suicide bomb operations is weakly supported, if at all, by the traditional sources. rather, that the modern conception put forward by hamas and their apologists is based on a shi’a re-imagining of the martyrdom concept during the 1960’s and 1970’s, a full discussion of which leaves the current scope of this paper. the reference is made primarily to demonstrate that it is a matter, which is problematic, at best, among scholars of islamic history. transgress not the limits: just war theory in early islamic theology middle tennessee state university 67 the actions of these groups have been defended using the argument that extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. the justifications used by these organizations appeal to principles of independent reasoning, military realism, and textual interpretation that are foundational to islamic jurisprudence. by arguing in such a fashion and from such sources, terrorists cede the concept that there are identifiable and reasonable limits to what one is allowed to do in the pursuit of islamic warfare. it is a tendency, at least in the opinion of the majority of modern scholars within the islamic tradition, that many of these arguments are weak reasoning and spring from minority or otherwise questionable traditions. at the least, it is clear that valid and historically supported alternative arguments exist which would much more tightly constrain the behavior of the muslim who would consider himself a mujahid, one who wages jihad for god’s path. the sources and tradition of a rich just war theory are present in islamic jurisprudence from the earliest days of the religious community, though their history is strewn with vigorous debate. the violence committed by certain fundamentalist, transnational, islamic organizations does not refute the presence of an ethical standard of just war in islamic theology. rather, the nature of the justifications they present reaffirms it. the justifications used in the commission of these acts are based on a long tradition of shari’a reasoning and use arguments drawn from the historical example of the prophet muhammad and other revered figures of islamic antiquity, which are part of an islamic dialog which is both uniquely modern and also connected to the roots of islamic history. if we are to combat these dangerous ideologies within the modern muslim discourse, we must be prepared to do so using the same methods and sources, engaging “on the enemy’s ground,” so to speak, and further educate people about the wide and diverse range of islamic belief and behavior that is available. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2013 references abdelhadi, m. (n.d.). bbc news | uk | controversial preacher with ‘star status.’ bbc news home. retrieved january 16, 2012, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3874893.stm azadpur, m. (2005, april 1). on violence in islamic political philosophy. university of virginia library. retrieved october 20, 2011, from http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/issues/volume5/number1/ ssr05_01_e04.html bonner, m. (2008). jihad in islamic history doctrines and practice. princeton: princeton university press. enein, y. h., & zuhur, s. (2004). islamic rulings on warfare. carlisle, pa: strategic studies institute, u.s. army war college. freamon, b. (2003). martyrdom, suicide, and the islamic law of war: a short legal history. fordham international law journal, 27(1). retrieved january 14, 2012, from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=597822 hamas in their own words. (2011, may 2). adl: fighting anti-semitism, bigotry and extremism. retrieved january 16, 2012, from http://www.adl.org/main_israel/hamas_own_words.htm kelsay, j. (2007). arguing the just war in islam. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. khadduri, m. (1979). war and peace in the law of islam. new york: ams press. pettygrove, m. (2007). conceptions of war in islamic legal theory and practice. macalester islam journal, 2(3), 34-42. shafi’i, muhammad ibn idris. islamic jurisprudence, al-risala. 2nd (with corrigenda and rev. index.) ed. cambridge: islamic texts society, 1987. yusufzai, rahimullah. “osama bin laden: conversation with terror.” time, january 11, 1999. editor’s introduction editing an academic journal carries its own challenges, but it is also a labor of love. this holds doubly true for a student-run journal like scientia. our journal has a twofold mission, one academic and one educational. the academic mission is self-explanatory: showcasing our university’s best graduate and undergraduate student research. the labor of love, however, truly stems from our educational mission. over the last year, i have had the privilege of getting to know both authors and staff, working closely with them through a long and arduous process. my pride in both is immense. although most of our initial submissions receive a “revise and resubmit” recommendation, our final acceptance rate for issue 7 was less than 33%, making this our most competitive issue yet. almost all our accepted articles underwent at least at least one major revision and usually several additional minor revisions. our authors survived several rounds of rigorous review (peer, editorial, and faculty) as well as copyediting and proofreading. many of our authors, i’m sure, probably groaned when they saw yet another e-mail from me. nonetheless, their dedication and diligence never failed to impress me. likewise, scientia’s staff this year could not have been more professional. despite receiving a record number of submissions this year (25 in all), our staff—all volunteers working around their own coursework demands—kept the machine smoothly running during all stages of production. even beyond producing a high quality journal of peer reviewed student research, scientia aims to prepare the next generation of scholars and researchers for the demands of academic publication, and it has been my pleasure to see authors and staff alike strive to achieve their highest potential. issue 7 features an eclectic and diverse set of articles—the first issue since our second, in fact, where literary analysis does not represent the clear bulk of articles. our undergraduate articles represent three different fields: international relations, english, and psychology. our five graduate articles feature just as wide a range: two economics, two english, and one social work. starting off this year’s issue are our two recipients of the deans’ distinguished essay award, an award bestowed by the deans of the honors college to recognize an issue’s best graduate and undergraduate essay. hillary k. yeager, a doctoral student in english, represents the graduate students for her article about medieval drama. representing our undergraduates is christopher r. bearden, who just graduated with a b.a. in psychology, writing about leadership strategies in student aviation teams. next we have mary ellsworth, a masters candidate in economics, writing about the impact of incarceration on the labor market participation rate for men. two articles focused on literary analysis follow: sara hayes, another doctoral student in english, writing about games as cultural expression, and rebecca clippard, a spanish and japanese double major, writing on fears about the new woman in bram stoker’s dracula. after these two articles, muhammad a. yadudu, who just graduated with his ph.d. in economics, provides an analysis of the hope scholarship’s impact on high school graduation in georgia. after this analysis comes an article on foster care, written by m.a. candidate in social work calista barberi. rounding out our issue is an article by kayla mccrary, who just graduated with her b.s. in international relations. her study of euroskepticism and brexit has been adapted from her mtsu university honors thesis. the 2017 issue of scientia et humanitas marks my fourth and final year with scientia, and i can honestly say that every year the experience has simply gotten more enjoyable. i’ve met and worked with many fantastic people during my time; alas, too many to mention by name. particular thanks, however, must be given to this year’s staff for all their hard work, dedication, and love of the process: erica anderson, ellie carpenter, nick dalbey, katie hickman, benjamin kulas, erica macon, kayla mccrary, abul hasnat muhammed salimullah, sara snoddy, and courtney wright. additional kudos must be given to nick, ellie, and erica macon for their willingness to accept tough assignments, rush jobs, or even extra work. my associate editor, hillary yeager, made my life considerably easier with her constant assistance and support. finally, special thanks must be given to marsha powers and phillip e. phillips, scientia’s faculty advisors, who were always available with advice and suggestions. a lot of hard work goes into producing an academic journal, much of it behind the scenes, but i believe it has especially paid off in this issue. enjoy. dennis wilson wise editor in chief middle tennessee state university 61 dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley lindsay gates abstract the narmada river, india’s fifth largest, runs west through the middle of the subcontinent emptying into the arabian sea. the river is not only important economically for fishing and transport it has long been valued as sacred to hindu’s of the nation. along the banks of the river live peasant farmers and adivasi, forest dwellers who still live in tribes and obtain their livelihood from the rich forests growing along the narmada. in 1979, the indian government under the leadership of prime minister indira gandhi, finalized plans to build a series of dams along the narmada. studies projected that these dams would provide greater irrigation for parched farmlands, hydroelectric power, and increased amounts of drinking water. the largest dam, the sardar sarovar, became a point of contention. the people dwelling in the areas joined with grassroots organizations to fight the dam and “save the narmada.” they used non-violent protest methods, court legislation, and international opinion. their protests in the narmada resulted in landmark studies on dams and their effects on individuals and societies and how the international community discussed and viewed large dam projects 62 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the narmada river, india’s fifth largest, flows for over 800 miles through the middle of the country before emptying into the arabian sea (figure 2). the residents of the narmada river valley have historically been farmers and adivasi. adivasi is the term for forest dwellers or people who subsist on the natural products of india’s lush forest areas. the farmers of the region generally own small farms on lands traditionally held. some make a subsistence living while others have grown into a prosperous middle class. in 1979, the central indian government and the state governments of gujarat, madhya pradesh (mp), and maharashtra formulated a plan for a series of dams along the narmada river. the largest of these dams, the sardar sarovar, gained international notoriety beginning in the 1980s as narmada valley residents and non-governmental organizations (ngos) worked to halt construction of the dam. they contested the right of the government to displace local residents in the name of the “greater good.”1 local residents used non-violent protests, the court system, and international opinion in an attempt to stop the construction of the sardar sarovar dam. it took decades for a dam on the narmada to go from a concept to a planned reality. the british had planned irrigation works on the narmada as early as 1901. the first british irrigation committee had recommended a barrage, a small dam, at the town of bharuch at the mouth of the narmada river.2 the british did not act on the recommendation of its irrigation committee and the narmada remained un-dammed. the first technical studies along the narmada, conducted by the british in the 1940s, found sixteen sites conducive to hydroelectric dams. 3 but by the end of the 1940s, britain had to switch focus from colonial growth to rebuilding her mainland following the devastation of world war ii. once india gained independence, prime minister jawaharial nehru personally promoted large dam projects, claiming they would be the the new temples of modern india. the new indian government considered a dam on the narmada, but the three states that would be affected by the dam–gujarat, madhya pradesh (mp), and maharashtra–could not agree on how they would divide the costs and benefits of a large dam. this deadlock lasted from 1961 to 1969. in 1969, prime minister indira gandhi established the narmada water disputes tribunal (nwdt) to settle the dispute.4 it took this tribunal until 1979, a full decade, to reach an agreement ratified by all three states. in this agreement, the nwdt defined several key terms related to the building of the dam. though they may seem obvious or unnecessary, the definition of these terms decided who would be entitled to compensation due to removal. the three most important terms were land, oustee, and family, and they were defined as follows: 1 nguyen thi dieu, “the state versus indigenous peoples: the impact of hydraulic projects on indigenous peoples of asia,” journal of world history 7 (spring 1996): 114. 2 friends of the narmada, the sardar sarovar: a brief introduction. http://www.narmada.org/nvdp.dams/index. html (accessed august 21, 2011). 3 john r. wood, “india’s narmada river dams: sardar sarovar under siege,” asian survey 33 (october 1993): 972. 4 friends of the narmada, the sardar sarovar. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 63 1(1) : “land” the expression “land” shall have the same meaning as defined in the land acquisition act, 1894 (thereinafter referred to as the act) which states “the expression ‘land’ includes benefits to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth.” 1(2) : “oustee” an ‘oustee’ shall mean any person who since at least one year prior to the date of publication of the notification under section 4 of the act, has been ordinarily residing or cultivating land or carrying on any trade, occupation, or calling or working for gain in the area likely to be submerged permanently or temporarily. 1(3) : “family” (i) a family shall include husband, wife and minor children and other persons dependent on the head of the family, e.g., widowed mother. (ii) every major son will be treated as a separate family.5 the tribunal’s definition of land meant that residents without titles to their land would still be eligible for compensation if the dam would displace them. the term oustee further defined who was entitled to land compensation by establishing the amount of time a person had to live on the land in question to be eligible for benefits. this was a broad definition that covered a variety of work conducted on the land. the definition of family established what constituted a household and specified that major sons, the firstborn sons, would also receive their own property. though this may seem uncontroversial, there is no specification for female land owners or land operators who do not have a male head of household. though it was uncommon for a woman to own or operate her own land, it was not impossible, and the terms of the tribunal’s ruling made it difficult for women to obtain land rights.6 the nwdt also established how expenses would be shared among the three states. the tribunal declared that the state of gujarat would pay the bulk of resettlement expenses for mp and maharashtra. the planned dam project would divert a large portion of the narmada river from the states of mp and maharashtra into gujarat. one of the objectives of the dam planners was to provide better irrigation for agriculture in gujarat. though many of the irrigation benefits would be gained by gujarat, most of the displacement would take place in mp and to a lesser extent maharashtra. of the 245 villages that the dam would submerge or partially submerge, 193 were in mp, 33 in maharashtra, and 19 in gujarat.7 because of this imbalance, the nwdt ordered the state of gujarat to pay the bulk of resettlement expenses for mp and maharashtra. 5 final order and decision of the tribunal. (n.p.: n.p, 1979). http://nca.gov.in/forms_pdf/nwdt_finalorder.pdf (accessed june 7, 2011). 6 world commission on dams, dams and development: a new framework for decision making (london: earthscan publications, 2000), 115. 7 ahmad, afroz. “the narmada water resource project, india: implementing sustainable development,” ambio 28 (august 1999): 400. 64 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research those displaced by the dam waters had the option of moving to gujarat and receiving irrigable lands and a house site, or they could be rehabilitated in their home state; this was a groundbreaking ruling, different from many dam resettlement procedures not only in developing countries but also developed. it established, at least theoretically, that those displaced by the dam were entitled to “land for land.”8 the land given to the oustees by the states was to be comparable to the land they were losing, and the residents had to be able to make a living as they had on their previous lands. gujarat was also responsible for providing cash money to the families for rehabilitation costs and grant-in-aid. these moneys could total as high as rs. 1200 (roughly $30 usd) for each family according to the tribunal’s statement.9 this ruling was the equivalent of an unfunded mandate. it charged the states with the task of finding places and moneys to compensate those to be affected by the dam. while the central government placed this aspect of dam building on the states, the central government worked on bureaucratic issues and finding funding for the project. dam building requires extensive examination of the lands to be flooded, the possible problems arising from a large dam, and the extent of the environmental impacts. the world bank demands that a country undertake these environmental examinations internally before they agree financially to support a project. in 1983, the indian government filed for clearance from their department of environment to build the narmada dam. this filing necessitated the department of environment investigate the dam, the effects of the dam, and make an impartial ruling on its viability. india’s department of environment performs many functions similar to the epa in the united states. on this occasion, before the indian government received internal clearance, the world bank in march of 1985 approved the project and guaranteed world bank support and funding for the project.10 while the central and state governments were beginning the dam building work, small, unorganized protests were beginning among the residents of the narmada valley. one of the earliest grassroots activist groups in the narmada valley was the arch vahini. established in the early 1980s, they worked in primary health activities in the mangrol village of gujarat. their main goal in these activities was to promote awareness to lessen death and disease from avoidable causes and to improve quality of life among the rural people of gujarat. members of the arch vahini have seen poor resettlement practices during and after the building of another gujarat dam, the ukai. particularly the adivasi (tribals) of the regions have been negatively impacted due to a lack of understanding of their rights and how to demand them in court. the goal of the arch vahini for the narmada residents was to begin resettlement work before construction of the dam and ensure that the residents obtained adequate resettlement lands. in many ways,the arch vahini group divided the narmada struggle into two phases. the first was from 1980-1987 and involved a protracted battle for a fair rehabilitation 8 wood, “india’s narmada river dams,” 974-75. 9 ibid. 10 agricultural operations department, project completion reportnarmada river development (gujarat) sardar sarovar dam and power project (n.p.: world bank, 1995), xviii. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 65 and resettlement (r&r) policy for the affected tribals of the project.11 the arch vahini protested the inadequate agricultural lands given to many of the oustees, their inability to live on those lands, and the small sum given to them for their submerged lands. they argued that this was not in accordance with the tribunal’s ruling. there were added difficulties because many of those displaced had no title to their lands and were considered encroachers, thus not entitling them to compensation. this was also not in accordance with the tribunal’s ruling, which demanded only that individuals work or use the land for a year or more. without titles, however, it was difficult to prove use of land in a court of law. through court appeals, protests, and demonstrations by the soon-to-be-displaced, the government of gujarat finally changed their award policy to provide a minimum of five acres for all categories of families.12 the second phase from 1988-1997 involved overseeing proper implementation of the promises made by the government. gujarat’s policies are particularly liberal and have been fairly well implemented; resettlement in maharashtra and mp has been more contentious. individuals who choose to remain in their home states of maharashtra or mp have the right to do so. gujarat is responsible, due to the terms of the tribunal, to pay for rehabilitation of those who do not want to migrate to gujarat. the states, maharashtra and mp, pay for the resettlement and gujarat repays those states. this requires the states to have available funds for relocation upfront. due to the higher amount of people displaced in mp, this amounts to considerable expenditures and could explain some of the difficulties this state has had with their resettlement policies. maharashtra, despite having relatively few oustees, is not as wealthy as the state of gujarat, which could account for some of their difficulty in relocation. another problem with resettlement has been the growing number of people the dam will displace. when the government first planned the dam in 1979 the displacement of project affected families was estimated to be 6,147. the current estimate (as of 2001) is 41,000.13 this massive change in the amount of displaced persons makes relocation and rehabilitation (r&r) an ever-changing variable and changes the amount of funds and lands needed by each state. despite these difficulties, gujarat continues to have the most attractive and well-implemented relocation policies. the world bank posited that the discrepancies in relocation policies and implementation were due to the different functions of the non-governmental organizations (ngos) of the states. according to the world bank, “in gujarat, nongovernmental organizations have been usefully involved in the r&r program, but in the other two states, confrontation persists between project authorities and local ngos.” they also remark, “madhya pradesh’s rehabilitation grant to landless families and adult sons is less attractive than those of the 11 arch: action research in community health and development. resettlement and rehabilitation of the narmada dam oustees. http://archvahini.org/about/history-of-arch/resettlement-and-rehabilitation-of-thenarmada-dam-oustees (accessed september 15, 2011.) see also ashok swain, “democratic consolidation? environmental movements in india,” asian survey 31 (september 1997): 825. 12 arch, resettlement and rehabilitation. 13 phillippe cullet, “human rights and displacement: the indian supreme court decision on sardar sarovar in international perspective,” international and comparative law quarterly 50 (october 2001): 974. 66 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research other states, and its capacity to implement the r&r program is weaker.”14 this does not explain why more people do not avail themselves of gujarat’s more attractive offer. it may be due to tradition; many families have lived on their lands for centuries and want to be rehabilitated as closely to their traditional lands as possible. many individuals may not be aware of the differing opportunities provided by each state or may not be fully aware of their rights of relocation. the individuals in gujarat may be more aware of their rights than individuals in the other states.this, according to the world bank, is largely due to the different work performed by the ngos. if the maharashtra and mp ngos focused on relocation from their inceptions rather than protesting the dam as whole, the people of those states would have better relocation policies and better policing of their implementation. ngos in the narmada valley have taken a variety of forms and not all of the ngos and their work cannot be covered in this paper; there is one ngo in the narmada valley, the narmada bachao andolan (nba), that has gained more national and international interest and provides a case study of the more the radicalized work of ngos in the valley. the work of the nba is in sharp contrast to that of the arch vahini. as pointed out by the world bank, the methods of the arch vahini have involved working with the authorities as much as possible. they are not protesting the dam, and their only protest activities were to enforce proper r&r. unlike the arch vahini, nba has protested the dam in its entirety. their protests were not confined to the national arena but encompassed the international arena, seeking to turn the tide of public opinion against the project and the indian government for its strong stance in favor of the dam. the protests of the nba centered on the sardar sarovar dam, one of the largest concrete gravity dams in the world with a current planned height of 163 meters (approx. 534 feet) and length of 1210 meters (approx. 3,969 feet). its location is near navagam, gujarat, and it is here the nba took their stand. unlike the arch vahini and any number of ngos in the narmada valley, nba came to be associated with one person– its leader, madha patkar. patkar was born in 1954 in mumbai, maharashtra. patkar’s views were, in many ways, shaped by her parents; her father was a freedom fighter, and her mother was part of the organization “swadar,” designed to aid suffering women. her father’s work as a freedom fighter gave her an example of the hard work needed to effect change. her mother’s work apparently gave patkar an interest in social work and the ills affecting her society. she earned her m.a. in social work from tata institute of social sciences.15 she worked first in the slums of bombay before coming to work in rural areas. as her work consumed more of her time, she had to choose between her marriage and her work. in 1983, she divorced her husband and, in an interview conducted by journalist jacques leslie, she claimed she was “married to her work.”16 she first came to the narmada valley in 1985 to conduct a study of dam displacement and how it affected 14 independent evaluation group, learning from narmada, http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/ doc (accessed august 5, 2011). 15 veethi: the face of india, medha patkar profile, http://www.veethi.com/people/medha_patkar-profile-16-38. html (accessed october 3, 2011). 16 jacques leslie, deep water: the epic struggles over dams, displaced people, and the environment (new york: picador, 2005), 37. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 67 the individuals displaced and relocated. as she worked among the people of the narmada, she lost her desire merely to study and recount the difficulties of dam relocation and rehabilitation. she decided to take an active role in the valley and help the people protest the dam rather than negotiate relocation. her name became synonymous with the nba and the struggle against the sardar sarovar. the nba was actually the conglomeration of several ngos under the leadership of. before the formation of the nba, patkar first founded the narmada dharangrast samiti (committee for narmada dam-affected people).17 in maharashtra, villagers formed the narmada ghati dharangrastha samiti (translation unknown) to protest the building of the dam. the people and activists of mp and maharashtra tried to work against the dam builders and anyone associated with them rather than working in cooperation as in gujarat.18 by 1988, the narmada dharangrast samiti and their allies, including but not limited to narmada ghati dharangrastha samiti, announced their total, non-violent resistance to the dam.19 the narmada dharangrast samiti grew to include those soon to be affected by the dam–environmentalists, human rights leaders, religious leaders, and adivasi. it also included individuals evicted as early as the 1960s before the dam project was agreed upon by the states. in preparation for the dam project, the government built a town for the dam workers and those who would work on ancillary canal networks. farmers in the area had been displaced, but because their displacement occurred before the tribunal’s award to displaced families, they had never been compensated for their lost land and livelihood.20 in 1989, the narmada dharangrast samiti and the narmada ghati dharangrastha samiti joined together to form the narmada bachao andolan (save the narmada movement).21 even before the final formation of the nba, patkar was working vigorously outside of india to raise awareness and censure of the sardar sarovar dam project. she traveled to washington, d.c. in 1987 and 1989 seeking allies in the fight against the dam. she testified at a congressional subcommittee meeting hearing on world bank performance. her speech apparently garnered some support for her cause, prompting some congress members to write to the world bank requesting that it suspend their support of the project.22 while in the u.s., patkar also gained the backing of the environmental defense fund (edf). the edf is a non-profit environmental advocacy group that attempts to mitigate environmental destruction and degradation. the edf attempted to bring the narmada case to the attention of the world bank in an effort to keep the world 17 mccully, “a history of the narmada bachao andolan.” 18 smita narula, “the story of narmada bachao andolan: human rights in the global economy and the struggle against the world bank,” new york university public law and legal theory working papers, 106 (december 2007): 358. 19 denis goulet, “global governance, dam conflicts, and participation,” human rights quarterly 27 (august 2005): 884. 20 cullet, “human rights and displacement,” 974. 21 narula, “the story of narmada bachao andolan,” 358. 22 mccully, “a history of the narmada bachao andolan.” 68 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bank from monetarily supporting the narmada project. lori udall of the edf agreed with patkar’s stance and disagreed with the sardar sarovar. she helped to organize an international network of activists in north america, europe, japan, and australia that would communicate with one another and organize dam resistance within their respective countries.23 though many activists throughout the world joined in censure of the sardar sarovar and large dam projects in general, it did not noticeably detract from large dam support, nor did it halt funding to the sardar sarovar project. in an effort to halt international funding to the narmada valley project, patkar met with world bank executives in 1989; though she did not succeed in halting funding of the project at the time, she did present a new aspect of the narmada valley dam project that would have lasting effects. patkar attempted to show the members of the world bank the destruction that would result from the dam, whereas government reports generally show the positive aspects of large development plans. one director commented, “when i hear what ngos say about this project and then what the operations staff say . . . it sounds like they are talking about two different projects.”24 this has been one of the problems within the dam debate. the results have very positive effects for a variety of people. through patkar, the nba attempted to show the negative side of development by presenting the plight of real people that are more than just numbers on a page. patkar’s work against the sardar sarovar did not end with her world bank meeting or her successes in the united sates as she continued to seek supporters and actively oppose international funding for the dam. in 1990, patkar and the nba organized a symposium in tokyo in order to sway public opinion in japan away from the sardar sarovar project. the symposium consisted of indian ngos, japanese ngos, academics, and members of government, receiving national press coverage. activists also met privately with government officials. the japanese government had actively supported the building of the sardar sarovar. they had agreed to lend 200 million to the government for the dam’s turbines, provided the turbines came from a japanese manufacturer. the nba was successful here as in the u.s., and following the symposium, the japanese government rescinded its offer of financial support for the dam. this was the first time a japanese aid loan had been withdrawn due to environmental and human rights reasons.25 while the nba had considerable success in the international arena, they were still actively protesting dam building within the narmada valley. utilizing gandhian nonviolence tactics, patkar and nba launched a series of eye-catching, government-irritating, journalist-attracting protests in the valley they hoped to save. in this way, they hoped to rally national sentiment against the dam project, which would cause more people to put more pressure on the government to cease dam building plans along the narmada. over the years, the nba staged hundreds of protests in the narmada valley, neighboring states, and even the capitol of delhi. it would be tedious and nearly impossible 23 ibid. 24 ibid. 25 ibid. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 69 to relate them all, but many of the protests resembled one another in tactics and goals and relating just a few of them presents a fairly clear picture of dam protests in india. one such protest was termed the “long march” by protesters. on december 25, 1990, the nba staged a march from the narmada valley in the heart of mp to the proposed dam sight 150 miles away in gujarat. this time, their goal was not to end the dam permanently but to force the government to suspend the dam project pending an independent–rather than a government–review of the dam’s goals and effects.26 this was not only a stall tactic designed to give the nba more time to launch more permanent injunctions against the dam, it also gave the nba a short-term, unifying aim. the march, however, never made it to the dam sight. at the shared border between mp and gujarat, the protesters found police and a pro-dam, counter-rally blocking the road into the state. this was a rare confrontation– an intranational border incident is uncommon, particularly in democratic india.27 the members of the nba tried many methods to end the counter-rally and march to the dam sight. some sat and stayed, hoping the pro-dam activists would grow tired of the protest and leave. others repeatedly attempted to cross the state line linking arms and walking. when met by gujarati police, they would react only with passive resistance, only to be forced back across the mp border. still others, patkar included, lay down on mattresses along the gujarati border and threatened a hunger fast until the government agreed to an independent review of the dam project. the fast lasted three weeks; patkar’s kidneys began to fail, and at the advice of doctors and the urging of other activists, the fast ended. neither the gujarat officials nor the indian government had given into any of the nba’s demands. despite the intractability experienced by the nba in india, their protests, their networking, and their indefatigable stance gained them support, or at least acknowledgement from the international community. facing pressure from activists groups in the united states, japan, australia and other nations, the world bank decided to commission an independent review of the project. this was the world bank’s response to a number of criticisms of the world bank’s involvement with the sardar sarovar project. due largely to the work of patkar and the nba, many in the international community questioned the world bank’s oversight of human rights during the project, how far they ensured r&r for the residents, and the viability of the dam as a whole. this independent review was the first time in the bank’s forty-five year history that it had asked outsiders to evaluate one of its projects.28 the final report came out in 1992. in june of 1992, bradford morse and thomas r. berger submitted the results of their unprecedented report of the independent review of the sardar sarovar; it included a number of criticisms of the bank and india’s commitment to human rights and welfare. the study found, “the bank and india failed to carry out adequate assessment of human impacts.”29 26 cullet, “human rights and displacement,” 975. 27 leslie, deep water, 50. 28 ibid. 29 bradford morse and thomas r. berger, “sardar sarovar: report of the independent review,” in the sardar sarovar dam project: selected documents, ed. cullet, 345. 70 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research these included several distinct oversights. there was a failure on the part of the states to include those displaced by canal and irrigation projects as “oustees” with entitlement to r&r. this left a significant number of indian residents–numbering in the thousands– without land, homes, or work. also, r&r and displacement appraisals, under bank policy, should have been established before the bank entered into the loan agreement in 1985. a problem that continued to plague resettlement was that encroachers–those without clear title to their lands–and their sons were not slated for adequate r&r. once again, this left a significant portion of the population homeless and jobless because of a clear method to prove ownership. while gujarat had improved its r&r policies considerably, they were not retroactive to include those displaced in 1960-61 to make way for dam construction and construction crews. additionally, mp and maharashtra had not improved their r&r policies, and at least 60% of tribal oustees engaged in cultivation in mp; maharashtra still would not receive adequate compensation. the review also showed that the numbers of those affected by the dam were much higher than originally estimated. for example, in 1979, the estimated number of displaced families in maharashtra was 450. by 1988, the estimated figure was 2000; when the report was released in 1992, the estimate was at 3000.30 the costs of rehabilitating this growing number of displaced people had not been adequately factored into the cost-benefit analysis that showed a dam’s viability. the review also denounced environmental planning for the sardar sarovar, mentioning a number of oversights that needed to be rectified before the dam project continued. the review stated, “the history of the environmental aspects of the sardar sarovar is a history of non-compliance.”31 the review mentioned several specific breaches of the world bank’s environmental policies. in 1983, india’s ministry of environment and forests did not give environmental clearance for the dam. according to the bank’s own statutes, they would not commit funds to a project until that country received internal approval from its own environmental department. however, in 1985, before india received internal consent, the bank approved funds for the project. in 1987, the indian ministry of environment and forests gave the plan clearance with the understanding that “instead of environmental impact studies being done before approval of the projects, there were to be done . . . concurrently with construction–an approach that we believe undermines the very basis for environmental planning.”32 another aspect of bank protocol demanded that the indian government create an environmental “work plan” by december 1985. the bank later extended this date to 1989. according to the review, this work plan was still unavailable in 1992.33 the review also found “significant discrepancies” that indicated the dam would not perform as indicated; their report indicated that quality of forests in the regions would decline. this would result in more loss of livelihood, particularly for adivasi who depended on the forests for survival. the report also stated that downstream ecological implications 30 ibid., 332-39. 31 ibid., 341. 32 ibid. 33 ibid. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 71 had not been considered, meaning that the results of the dam had only been considered at the dam sight, and changes in flora and fauna downstream of the dam had not been factored. and while the government and the world bank had factored in provision of drinking water as a benefit, they could find no plans for providing drinking water. waterlogging and salinity would also be problematic; too much water in certain growing areas and too much salt in the soil could severely inhibit farmers’ ability to grow traditional crops. finally, the threat of malaria due to the stagnant water inherent in a dam project would be considerable.34 all of these stated criticisms are fairly ubiquitous in dam projects, and many times planners still reason that the benefits outweigh the costs. bradford and morse’s criticisms are not that these consequenses may happen, but that they had been insufficiently considered with little to no effort to mitigate these negative effects. the report criticized a significant portion of the bank and indian government’s actions and recommended a reevaluation of the project. it stated: [the review] was critical of the bank’s and the borrower’s performance, especially with respect to r&r and environmental planning. the ir (independent review) pointed out that the bank had not followed its own guidelines, and recommended that the bank ‘step back’ from the project rather than continue with financing of its planned implementation.35 the report accused india and the world bank of wanting to “get on with the job”36 and said that the bank’s actions suggested that the demands of engineering carry far more weight in the bank than the needs of the people to be affected or of the environment. the bank’s incremental strategy . . . strengthen[s] this impression. readiness to bear with noncompliance thereafter confirms it.37 the world bank admitted in its sardar sarovar report that there had, indeed, been difficulties in planning and management. “in brief, the bank did not follow its own r&r guidelines (oms 2.33 of 1980 and oms 2.34 of 1982) designed to ensure appropriate treatment of landed and landless pafs.” due to this report, the world bank requested that india halt construction of the dam until they could properly evaluate relocation and rehabilitation and ways to reduce environmental. the reaction of the indian government to the review admitted to no such difficulties and verged on hostility. mr. madhav chitale, secretary of the ministry of water resources wrote to mr. heinz vergin of the world bank, “at the outset, i must mention the ir have clearly overstepped their terms of reference and have commented on several issues which were not within their jurisdiction.” chitale found it unfortunate that “distorted versions of environmental and rehabilitation scenarios have appeared in the report.”38 34 ibid., 348-49. 35 agricultural operations department, project completion report, 1. the world bank conducts a completion report when a fiscal relationship ends even if the recipient nation cancels a loan. 36 morse, “sardar sarovar,” 349. 37 ibid., 351. 38 mr. chitale, “letter from mr. chitale, secretary, ministry of water resources to mr. vergin, world bank concerning the morse report, 1992,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 353-54. 72 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research chitale reaffirmed india’s commitment to r&r in accordance with the nwdt. his final point in the letter guaranteed that the narmada development projects would indeed bring development–“the basic human right of individuals . . . there is, therefore, no question of any violation of the human rights when such projects are undertaken or implemented.”39 government indignation in india did not end there. the government of gujarat defended r&r and planning of the sardar sarovar project, emphasizing their cooperation with the authors of the report and their expectation of a “constructive review.” however, they found the report “highly disappointing.” they claimed the report failed to refer to the applicable tables that showed adequate water supply upon dam completion. they were also indignant that, in their opinion, the reviewers had ignored india’s leading social science organizations’ detailed reports of tribals and their socio-economic structures. they accused reviewers of imposing colonial and british views of the “noble savage” on tribal people.40 they denounced the independent review as “intellectual bankruptcy parading as arrogance.”41 in response to the ir, the government of india conducted its own review of the sardar sarovar released in 1994. though it did find some problems with the project and recommended stepping up environmental research, the report saw no reason to cease building the sardar sarovar.42 india did not agree with the world bank or the independent review to the advisability of “stepping back” from the sardar sarovar project. gujarat officials stated that world bank aid represented only 10% of the total cost of sardar sarovar, and that if it were withdrawn, construction would continue.43 the central indian government took this view, and in march 1993, the goi (government of india) decided to cancel the balance of its loan for the project but reaffirmed its commitment to sound environmental and r&r practices.44 with this decision, there was little recourse outside of marshaling internal opinion and the courts to halt construction of the dam. despite the indian government’s decision to remove their project from world bank oversight, the nba was still active in the international arena trying to raise awareness on big dams and their detrimental effects to people and the environment. they attended two conferences in 1997. the first, in brazil, was the first international conference against big dams; the second was not an anti-dam conference but rather a multi-lateral conference organized by the world bank that included businesses, ngos, and dam builders. from this conference came the decision to organize the world commission on dams (wcd). the commission included anti-dam and pro-dam members, and despite the bias individuals might bring, their joint goal was to undertake a massive research operation around the world 39 ibid., 355. 40 the idea of the “noble savage” comes from british and american views that sentimentalized the lifestyle of native peoples and sought to preserve their lifestyles rather than assimilate them into the dominant culture. 41 government of gujarat, “comment on the report of the independent review session on sardar sarovar project, august 1992 (extracts),” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 356-357. 42 “report of the five member group, 1994,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 357-72. 43 wood, “india’s narmada river dams,” 975. 44 agricultural operations department, project completion report, narmada river development, xix. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 73 and report–with as little bias as possible–the actual results of such dams. the commission selected medha patkar, leader of narmada bachao andolan, to be a commissioner.45 this commission owed its inception in part to the international furor created by the protests to the sardar sarovar dam project. this was part of the legacy left by the narmada valley anti-dam activists. despite growing nba success in raising awareness internationally, the fight in their own country with their own government was progressing slowly at best and sometimes not progressing at all. various individuals had launched petitions against states, attempting redress for poor r&r and violations to civil and constitutional rights. for this purpose, the government established a grievance redressal authority, the sole purpose of which was to hear cases by oustees and future oustees and to decide their claims. while the nba had succeeded in forcing the government to hear and acknowledge the indigenous people of the narmada to a certain extent, they had failed in their ultimate goal–to stop the damming of the narmada river. with the withdrawal of the indian government from world bank involvement, the fight narrowed to the nba, the states, and the government of india. while still pursuing the protest activities that had garnered so much international support, in 1994, having exhausted all other options without halting construction of the dam, the nba turned to the court system. they launched a writ petition with the supreme court government of india. the nba’s lawyers used three novel legal arguments—one, that the project was unconstitutional; two, that it violated the equal protection clause of the indian constitution; and three, that the government had infringed on their right to reside and settle in any part of india.46 they also charged that the dam was a threat to the environment. they once again demanded a comprehensive review that the government would acknowledge and by which it would abide. this time, the nba had support from within the government as madhya pradesh began battling with gujarat and the central government over the proposed height of the dam. neither the nba nor mp wanted the dam height raised as it would displace more people and submerge more land in mp. the dam height had been set at eighty meters, but the dam planners were considering new plans for a higher dam. the new chief minister of madhya pradesh petitioned, on behalf of the state, that the sardar height not be raised to avoid high displacement rates in the state and to save more land from inundation.47 in 1995, the government agreed to maintain the sarovar height at eighty meters for the time being.48 however, in 1999, the government reversed this interim measure and permitted 45 narula, “the story of narmada bachao andolan,” 375. 46 ibid., 374. 47 ibid., 375. 48 supreme court of india, “narmada bachao andolan v. union of india and others, writ petition (civil) no. (2) 319 of 1994, order of 5 may 1995 (interim measures), in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 127. 74 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the dam to be raised to eighty-five meters, though it did not agree to the ninety meters requested by the state of gujarat.49 in 2000, the government responded with a final judgement to the 1994 nba petition. the courts dismissed nba’s environmental concerns, claiming the nba could have launched an environmental petition before the government gave final clearance. the nba’s failure to do so earlier showed, in the opinion of the court, that their petition was merely a stall tactic.50 the supreme court did, however, provide a detailed history of the environmental clearances of the project, show early failures in planning and implementation, and illustrate current compliance with the environmental impact agency of the ministry and environment.51 the judgement noted past failures on the part of the states adequately to rehabilitate oustees, claiming that through the new grievance redressal authorities, the states were correcting their earlier shortcomings and thant the concerns of the nba were null. the grievance redressal authority’s sole purpose was to hear cases by oustees and future oustees and decide their claims. the judgement finally ordered a stay of construction above the original 80 meters pending environmental clearance by a committee and rehabilitation of affected individuals.52 the decision added that reassessment of dam-affected people had to be made every time the dam was raised by five meters. while the nba had succeeded in forcing the government to hear and acknowledge the indigenous people of the narmada to a certain extent, they had failed in their ultimate goal–stopping the damming of the narmada. dam construction at the original height of eighty meters continued unabated. forced to recognize that the government would build the dam regardless of any and all protest, the nba launched a writ petition in 2002 asking for a stay of construction until proper environmental planning was completed and until all affected people were properly rehabilitated. the nba claimed that the state of mp was still attempting to provide cash compensation rather than land to oustees and that oustees affected by the dam at ninety meters had not been resettled in mp. per previous government decisions, the government must halt work on the dam above ninety meters until one year after their resettlement.53 in its judgement, the supreme court opined that: displacement of the tribals and other persons would not per se result in violation of their fundamental or other rights; on their rehabilitation at new locations they would be better off than what they were; at the rehabilitation sites they will have more and better 49 supreme court of india, “narmada bachao andolan v. union of india and others, writ petition (civil) no 319 of 1994, order of 18 february 1999,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 128-30. 50 grievance redressal authority, “madhya pradesh (sardar sarovar project), case no. 234 of 2004, order of 11 september 2004,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 272. 51 supreme court of india, “narmada bachao andolan v. union of india, minority judgement of justice s.p. bharucha, october 2000,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 236-241. 52 ibid., 243. 53 supreme court of india, narmada bachao andolansc verdict, january 2005, http://narmada.aidindia.org/ docs/narmadaverdict.pdf (accessed june 17, 2011), 2-3. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 75 amenities than those they enjoyed in their hamlets; and the gradual assimilation in the mainstream of the society would lead to betterment and progress.54 the decision did, however, note that the directions of the court had not been implemented in “letter and spirit,” prompting redressal before the courts. the court once again established the duties of the states to provide for those temporarily and permanently affected and for major sons. it noted the most non-compliance with the state of madhya pradesh and reiterated that if oustees chose to remain in mp, the state must properly rehabilitate them before dam completion. all other requests for rehabilitation, outside of special cases, should be referred to the grievance redressal authority (gra). reiterating the responsibility of the states to its oustees, the supreme court declared the applicants “disposed of.”55 the nba did not agree. though the nba did not consider the matter “disposed of ” and continued to launch protests and court appeals, the government of india showed an ultimate and unshakeable commitment to the sardar sarovar. though committed, at least on paper, to proper rehabilitation of displaced peoples, no amount of displacement would cause it to reconsider the dam project. in 2006, the projected dam height stood at 121.92 meters.56 it was the government’s view that those affected by the dam–many of them adivasi–would be better able to assimilate into mainstream society. centuries old community ties were broken as there were no guarantees from the government that it would relocate communities together.57 and despite the stated commitment to rehabilitation, there were no studies on the state of the family upon resettlement or the lives of individual’s upon rehabilitation. the world commission on dams (wcd) reported that displacement often leads to higher rates of alcoholism and abuse of women and children.58 furthermore, since land allotment and rehabilitation packages were decided by state and central governments, women rarely received land in their own right. the wcd specifically stated, “in tribal communities in india, women do not have land rights and therefore they have not been compensated for the land they have lost as users. instead women’s interests are seen as linked to the household and only men and major sons are given land.”59 the indian government, in the view of sardar detractors, has not concerned itself with the rehabilitation of women, the societal effects of resettlement, or the lives and livelihoods of the people resettled. the controversy surrounding the narmada valley project produced lasting change in dam building around the world; however, it did not stop the construction of the sardar sarovar dam. residents of the three affected states worked tirelessly to promote their interests and secure their stability. ngos like the arch vahini worked against 54 ibid., 3. 55 ibid., 3-21. 56 narmada control authority, “resettlement and rehabilitation sub-group: minutes of the 63rd meeting, item no. lxiii-2 (345), 8 march 2006,” in the sardar sarovar dam project, ed. cullet, 311. 57 supreme court of india, narmada bachao andolansc verdict, 20. 58 world commission on dams, dams and development, 115. 59 ibid. 76 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the government to gain adequate rehabilitation rights for the gujarati people and then worked with the government to see that the rights were enforced. ngos in maharashtra and madhya pradesh worked to fight the construction of the dam, seeking to hold on to traditional land, traditional practices, and centuries-old communities. when this failed, they worked to ensure proper rehabilitation of dam-affected people using international opinion, protests, and the law to attain their ends. the work of madhya patkar and the narmada bachao andolan raised awareness of dam-building activities in the developing world and changed many views on large-scale dam projects and the expectations placed on the world bank and governments. their work in the international arena prompted the world bank to reconsider its stance on the sardar sarovar and prompted the first-ever, large-scale investigation of dam building in the form of the world commission on dams. no matter how much resistance they met and the number of court cases lost, those fighting the sardar sarovar dam never ceased to fight for what they believed to be their rights in a democratic nation. dam dissent: protest methods and results in india’s narmada river valley middle tennessee state university 77 bibliography primary sources agricultural operations department, project completion reportnarmada river development (gujarat) sardar sarovar dam and power project (n.p.: world bank, 1995), xviii. cullet, phillippe (ed). the sardar sarovar dam project: selected documents. burlington, vt: ashgate publishing company, 2007. final order and decision of the tribunal. (n.p.: n.p, 1979). http://nca.gov.in/forms_pdf/nwdt_finalorder. pdf (accessed june 7, 2011).. project completion report. narmada river developmentgujaratsardar sarovar dam and power projects. http://www.ielrc.org/content/c9504.pdf (accessed june 20, 2011). supreme court of india. narmada bachao andolansc verdict, january 2005. 1-22. http://narmada. aidindia.org/docs/narmadaverdict.pdf (accessed june 17, 2011). secondary sources ahmad, afroz. “the narmada water resource project, india; implementing sustainable development.” ambio 28 (august 1999): 398-403. arch: action research in community health and development. resettlement and rehabilitation of the narmada dam oustees http://archvahini.org/about/history-of-arch/resettlement-and-rehabilitationof-the-narmada-dam-oustees (accessed september 15, 2011.) cullet, phillippe. “human rights and displacement: the indian supreme court decision on sardar sarovar in international perspective.” international and comparative law quarterly 50, no. 4 (october 2001): 973-987. friends of the narmada the sardar sarovar: a brief introduction. http://www.narmada.org/nvdp.dams/ index.html (accessed august 21, 2011). goulet, denis. “global governance, dam conflicts, and participation.” human rights quarterly 27(august, 2005): 881-907. independent evaluation group. learning from narmada. the world bank group. http://lnweb90. worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/doc (accessed august 5, 2011). leslie, jacques. deep water: the epic struggles over dams, displaced people, and the environment. new york: picador, 2005. mccully, patrick. “a history of the narmada bachao andolan/save the narmada movement.” in silenced rivers: the ecology and politics of large dams. london: zed books ltd., 1996. narula, smita. “the story of narmada bachao andolan: human rights in the global economy and the struggle against the world bank.” new york university public law and legal theory working papers, 106 (december 2007): 351-83. nguyen, thi dieu. “the state versus indigenous peoples: the impact of hydraulic projects on indigenous peoples of asia.” journal of world history 7, no. 1 (spring 1996): 101-130. 78 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research rajgopal, shoba s. “reclaiming democracy? the anti-globalization movement in south asia.” feminist review, 70 ( january 2002): 134-137. swain, ashok. “democratic consolidation? environmental movements in india.” asian survey 31, no. 9/10 (sep., 1997): 818-832. veethi: the face of india. medha patkar profile. http://www.veethi.com/people/medha_patkarprofile-16-38.html (accessed october 3, 2011). wood, john r. “india’s narmada river dams: sardar sarovar under siege.” asian survey 33 (october 1993): 968-84. world commission on dams. dams and development: a new framework for decision making. london: earthscan publications, 2000. “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 121 “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm sarah gray-panesi abstract this project examines anne rice’s blackwood farm as an addition to the southern literary canon by considering aspects of the grotesque, as well as concerns with history, family, community, justice, religion, race, land ownership, and social class which proliferate in southern literature in general. this essay analyses key events from rice’s text, and key works by william faulkner and robert penn warren in order to examine the extent to which warren, faulkner, and rice share similar themes that reverberate throughout the southern literary tradition. finally, this paper argues that quinn’s quest for identity in rice’s blackwood farm echoes the journeys of warren’s and faulkner’s protagonists in the sound and the fury, go down, moses, and all the king’s men. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 122 spring 2013 anne rice’s fiction has been labeled gothic, southern gothic, postmodern, innovative, monstrous, and excessive, and while most scholars are quick to note her reliance on southern settings, none have discussed her significance as a contributor to the southern literary tradition. rice herself, according to biographer katherine ramsland, “did not feel she could call herself a southern writer like mccullers, faulkner, or eudora welty” when she published her first novel, interview with the vampire in 1977 (190). 1 rice, who grew up in the south, had lived in california for over a decade at that point, and although she still gravitated toward “issues that typically captured the attention of ” southern writers, it was not until her move to new orleans in 1989 that she began to identify herself as a southern author (ramsland 190). indeed, with the publication of the witching hour (1990), rice’s fiction began displaying the profound influence of other southern writers, a trait rice herself stated is part of being considered southern (ramsland 316). while this influence can be felt in many of her texts, it is perhaps nowhere more poignant than in blackwood farm (2002). with its central themes of history, family, community, justice, and race, blackwood farm and anne rice both deserve to be considered a part of the southern literary tradition. placing rice, or any writer, within a given tradition requires at least some outline of that tradition. richard gray states in the literature of memory that “the funereal mansion, the intimations of incest, violence, and miscegenation, the brooding over the past and the desperate attempt to recover some of its memories” are all common themes in southern writing (260). indeed, he laments their inherently gothic nature, falling prey to the belief against which gothic scholars continually struggle—that gothic is somehow an inferior mode.2 one must concede, however, that written in 1977, gray’s study did not have the benefit of more recent scholarship illustrating the profound cultural implications of the gothic. the literature of the south, in its preoccupations with history and the memory of “horrible deeds” perpetrated on “innocent victims,” savors strongly of the gothic. as charles l. crow points out in american gothic, the term “southern gothic” has been so much employed that the words have nearly become interchangeable (134). southern literature, however, is not gothic, but many of its themes can certainly be employed to gothic effect. history, family, community, justice, religion, race, land ownership, and social class are all themes with which the gothic has dealt since horace walpole’s castle of otranto (1764). but, placed in a southern context, they can be employed to almost any end. to determine precisely where within the scope of the southern literary tradition rice’s work fits, one must more closely examine her narrative style. of course her work is gothic; however, simply labeling her novels gothic due to their reliance on the supernatural contradicts what actually constitutes the gothic in america and especially the southern gothic. defining the gothic has never been a simple task, and delineating the varied strains of gothic is even less so. in america at least, crow asserts that “gothic is no longer defined as a narrow tradition bound by certain props”: the generic “clap-trap” of persecuted maidens, byronic heroes, and hidden doors with which readers are so familiar no longer applies (2).3 instead crow states that “it is now seen as a tradition of oppositional “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 123 literature, presenting in disturbing, usually frightening ways, a sceptical [sic], ambiguous view of human nature and of history” (2). crow’s argument expands upon teresa goddu’s earlier groundbreaking study in which she asserts that gothic, usually classified as “an escapist form,” actually “registers its culture’s contradictions, presenting a distorted, not a disengaged, version of reality” (2-3). the gothic in america, rather than fleeing from its cultural concerns, challenges and questions the american dream and concludes that not only are individuals and society unlikely to attain that dream, but also that its attainment would be detrimental. rice’s fiction is gothic not because of its vampires and witches, but because it “exposes the repressed, what is hidden, unspoken, deliberately forgotten” in american culture (crow 2). her fiction could contain no supernatural characters whatsoever and it would still be gothic by way of its narrative structure. bette roberts states in her critical biography, anne rice, that: the journey from innocence to experience caused by loss or change that forces rice’s characters’ to confront nothingness, the liberation of self that comes through this awareness, and the construction of an individual morality that affirms a human capacity for goodness are what it means to realize the potential of being human. these are the themes in her life and her art. (8) this journey and the subsequent realizations that arise from it are not dependent upon the character’s being a vampire or a witch. indeed, to suggest that the presence of a supernatural creature in a text automatically delineates that text as gothic is akin to assuming that because a building has a turret, it must be a castle. neither case is true. rice’s vampires fit a southern and american gothic mode not because they are supernatural, but because they grapple with the “senselessness of existence and serve as metaphors for human beings searching for truths to live by” (roberts 23). this point is perhaps best proven in the fact that for the majority of rice’s blackwood farm, vampires are not even mentioned. rather than focus on the supernatural in rice’s blackwood farm, this project examines her novel as an exemplar of the grotesque to elucidate the extent to which rice writes in the southern tradition regardless of her supernatural characters. flannery o’connor jokes in her essay “the grotesque in southern fiction” that “anything that comes out of the south is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic” (40). for our purposes, crow’s description of the grotesque as “the strange, distorted or monstrous, usually as applied to human characters” works nicely (6). the grotesque in recent years has been hyperbolized to the point of ridiculousness, the word usually only being invoked to describe something horribly deformed or monstrous. but acknowledging that grotesque can simply mean “strange,” and thereby recognizing its close ties with the uncanny and the numinous is imperative to identifying the characteristics of southern literature and the southern gothic. by this definition, the events witnessed or described by characters such as william faulkner’s quentin compson and ike mccaslin, and robert penn warren’s jack burden become grotesque in the same way that flannery scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 124 spring 2013 o’connor’s fiction is grotesque. furthermore, the similarity between quentin’s, ike’s, and jack’s quests for identity and that of rice’s tarquin blackwood (quinn) of blackwood farm provides the basis upon which i assert that rice is, indeed, “a southern writer like mccullers, faulkner, or eudora welty” (ramsland 190). while scholars have yet to affirm that rice works within southern literary traditions, the framework for such an argument was constructed long ago. leslie fiedler’s seminal, though dated, love and death in the american novel describes a mode of gothic in which, rather than focusing on the persecuted maiden and her heroic, though ultimately ineffective hero, the narrative centers around the “stranger,” invariably “a disaffected child of the reigning race and class,” who has “cut himself out of the community that bred him in a desire to embrace some alien shadow-figure symbolizing the instinctive life despised by his white, anglo-saxon parents and his fated white, anglo-saxon wife” (362). for fielder, this shadow-figure or “shadow-spouse” is usually a dark skinned male such as melville’s queequeg (365). fiedler suggests that the stranger’s shadow-spouse is “properly of another race, a race suppressed and denied” (365). in faulkner’s go down, moses (1942), fielder proposes that sam fathers, with his “warriors’ and chiefs’ blood” as well as his mother’s “blood of slaves” becomes ike mccaslin’s shadow-spouse (162). in fact, fiedler provides a list of exemplary shadow-spouses all in the form of native americans, pacific islanders, or otherwise “non-white” men. however, by limiting his representative set to male pairs only, he overlooks two of the most “sinister relationships” in the literature available to him (363). in his assertion that the shadow-spouse is a “forbidden erotic object,” faulkner’s caddy in the sound and the fury (1929) and warren’s willie stark in all the king’s men (1946) both fit fiedler’s mold regardless the fact that neither of them is “non-white” and only one of them is male (365). when the racial and sexual restrictions inflicted by fiedler’s dated reading are removed, new influential relationships can be detected between otherwise unassociated authors and texts. applying this “stranger and shadow” model, rice’s goblin in blackwood farm also becomes a modern representation of fiedler’s shadow-spouse as quinn becomes the stranger. fiedler’s model allows for a much closer examination of rice’s influences than has previously been conducted. while rice herself has stated that she is “a terrible reader [. . .] i can write about five times faster than i read,” faulkner and warren’s influences have reached her pen, whether directly or not (rice, called 144). i do not suggest that rice set out to write blackwood farm as a literary doppelgänger or even that she took any of the texts discussed here as models for her novel. rather, i argue that echoes of faulkner and warren can be heard in rice’s writing as they can be heard in many other southern writers’ work as well. instead of reproductions of already familiar scenes, warren, faulkner, and rice share similar themes that reverberate throughout the southern literary tradition. these thematic similarities show themselves most clearly in the revelations that occur during what becomes a symbolic “reading of the will” in the mccaslin ledgers in faulkner’s go down, moses, quentin’s identity-destroying conversation with his father in faulkner’s the sound and the fury, warren’s “cass mastern” section of all the king’s men, and rice’s scenes in blackwood “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 125 farm in which quinn discovers rebecca stanford’s trunk and later hears the actual reading of his grandfather’s will. each of these scenes deal in memory, its persistence, and its ability to mar, irreparably, characters’ perceptions of themselves and their ancestors. the thematic similarities between rice’s scenes and faulkner’s and warren’s provide evidence of southern literature’s influence on rice’s writing and serve to place her work within the southern tradition. blackwood farm opens with a letter from quinn to the infamous vampire lestat, requesting his assistance with goblin, quinn’s spirit doppelgänger, who has haunted him since he was a baby.4 since becoming a vampire, goblin has taken to attacking quinn after he feeds in order to rob him of some of the blood. lestat accompanies quinn to his home, blackwood manor, and what follows is quinn’s retelling of his life story complete with psychological, sexual, and vampiric comings of age. quinn, now 22, has been a vampire for one year, and has lived his entire life on blackwood farm raised by his grandmother and grandfather, sweetheart and pops, and his great aunt queen. sprinkled throughout the narrative are the rest of his “family”: little ida, big ramona, lolly, jasmine, clem, and other members of the extended african american family who have lived with and worked for the blackwoods since manfred, quinn’s great-great-great grandfather, built the mansion in the 1880s. after hearing quinn’s tale, lestat not only assists quinn in ridding himself of his spirit, but he also offers to make quinn’s lover, mona mayfair, a vampire as well. while it seems from this short synopsis that the novel is a “vampire tale,” only fourteen of the fifty-two chapters actually feature a vampire protagonist. blackwood farm, according to rice, “can be seen as two novels trying to break apart from each other: one about the real world of the south as i knew it, with its big families and its unique characters; and the other a supernatural novel about the old themes of being ripped out of the world of grace into the world of darkness against one’s will” (rice, called 199). it is rice’s novel “about the real world of the south” with which this project is concerned. quinn is mostly sheltered from this “real world” for the better part of his youth until a series of deaths on the farm— his bedfellow little ida dies in her sleep, his grandmother sweetheart dies of cancer, and his beloved tutor lynelle is killed in a car wreck—inspire in him a simultaneous fear and fascination with death. after his grandmother’s funeral, quinn relates that he “pictured going upstairs to pops’ bedroom, taking his pistol out of the drawer and putting it to my head and pulling the trigger. i thought: ‘if you do that, this terror will end”’ (rice, blackwood 146). these melancholy broodings worsen as quinn wrestles with his fear of death and of being homosexual, and he tries to determine how and if his identity is entangled with that of goblin, stating, “when i thought of putting the gun to my head, i wondered if one bullet would kill us both” (150). quinn’s preoccupation with sexuality and identity in blackwood farm reflects this same preoccupation in faulkner’s quentin compson. indeed, quentin’s identity is so tied to his sister caddy’s honor—read virginity—that her loss of it literally kills him. quentin has built his entire identity based on notions of southern gentility and honor, and his crisis arises when he realizes that these notions are a sham. quentin ties scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 126 spring 2013 his identity as a southern gentleman to that of his sister as a southern “sacred woman.”5 when caddy loses her virginity before she is married, quentin wishes that it could be his virginity instead of hers that was lost, since, according to his father, jason, “in the south,” men are “ashamed of being a virgin. boys. men. they lie about it” (faulkner, tsf 112). quentin is appalled that caddy’s virginity and, by extension, her honor seem to mean nothing to his father: “but to believe it doesn’t matter and he said, that’s what’s so sad about anything: not only virginity and i said, why couldn’t it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, that’s why that’s sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it” (faulkner, tsf 50). quentin’s father believes that the notion of caddy’s honor is not even worth wishing for its return. further complicating quentin’s crisis, his father suggests that, someday, quentin will feel the same way: you are not thinking of finitude you are contemplating an apotheosis in which a temporary state of mind will become symmetrical above the flesh and aware both of itself and of the flesh it will not quite discard you will not even be dead and i temporary and he you cannot bear to think that someday it will no longer hurt you like this. (faulkner, tsf 112) quentin cannot bear the thought that he will eventually come to the belief that caddy’s honor means nothing because if this is true, then southern gentility as a whole concept, which quentin’s father still upholds when he asserts that “no compson has ever disappointed a lady,” is false (faulkner, tsf 113). his identity destroyed, quentin drowns himself. quinn, however, takes an active role in preventing his own suicide. realizing that he has never explored the attic of blackwood manor, quinn goes forth to seek the distraction that he hopes will save his life. his endeavor proves successful. once in the attic, he discovers an old steamer trunk with a label in faded ink reading “rebecca stanford.” a search of the trunk reveals several items, including a “small leather book with lots of pages of writing” (rice, blackwood 153). this, he discovers, is a book of poetry written by his greatgrandmother camille. removing the book and several pieces of jewelry draws rebecca’s spirit, who then spurs quinn on a quest to discover the location of manfred blackwood’s hermitage on sugar devil island and thereby avenge her death. rebecca orders quinn to “find the island. find what they did to me,” and his search ultimately leads to the vampiric transformation that causes goblin’s violent behavior. when quinn discovers his ancestor’s hermitage, he realizes that it “had been a house of torture” and that rebecca and others were brutally murdered there (rice, blackwood 175). quinn soon also discovers that from the hermitage, the scene of so many torturous murders committed by manfred blackwood, he can see his own home, blackwood manor. the scene of past atrocities located in the very backyard of present life is a metaphor for the south itself, and quinn’s quest and the truths he learns about himself, his family, and his southern legacy echoes the journeys of some of southern literature’s most famous characters: warren’s and faulkner’s protagonists in all the king’s men, go down, moses, and the sound and the fury. although jack burden’s quest does not begin at a ghost’s behest, his desire to exhume the “ghosts of the past” drives him to learn the truth about cass mastern. warren’s “cass “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 127 mastern’s wedding ring,” included as the fourth chapter of all the king’s men, features jack burden describing himself as a younger man and his quest to find out who cass mastern was and by extension who he, jack burden, is. readers will note that rice’s narrative structure in blackwood farm strongly resembles that of warren’s cass mastern episode.6 jack reads cass mastern’s story in cass’s journal; as jack reads the journal, so does warren’s reader. carol le cor suggests that if “cass mastern’s journal is his way of coming to terms with the burden of southern history,” then jack burden’s “narration parallels and reiterates that of his ancestor” (128). by telling this story to jack and in jack’s retelling it to the reader, the “legacy of guilt” associated with the south and slavery is passed on to the reader. decades later, rice uses similar tactics to pass manfred blackwood’s guilt to quinn. in quinn’s discovery of the truth of his ancestry, the guilt associated with the southern past is, once again, transferred to the reader. in cass’s journal, jack learns the story of phebe, annabelle trice’s slave. annabelle’s husband duncan, after learning of cass and annabelle’s affair, commits suicide, but he does so in such a way that people conclude that he accidently shot himself while cleaning his gun. phebe discovers the truth, so annabelle sells her “down the river . . . in paducah, to a man who was making up a coffle of negroes for new orleans” (warren 264). confused, cass wonders why annabelle did not free her instead. annabelle responds: she’d stay right here, she wouldn’t go away, she would stay right here and look at me. oh, no, she wouldn’t go away, for she’s the wife of a man the motley’s have, their coachman. oh, she’d stay right here and look at me and tell, tell what she knows, and i’ll not abide it. (warren 265) annabelle cannot endure not only the tales phebe might tell, but also, and perhaps especially, the accusing looks of a former slave. feeling a sense of responsibility for phebe’s plight, cass decides to track her down and free her. he finds himself at an “inspection,” in which white men parade slave women before other white men to be purchased to fill their brothels. what he witnesses disgusts him, and he ends up fighting one of the other men. cass is ultimately unable to find phebe, and he comes to refer to himself as the ‘“chief of sinners and a plague spot on the body of the human world.’ he would have committed suicide except for fear of damnation for that act” (warren 273). cass believes that his actions have resulted not only in his friend’s suicide, but also in the living damnation of phebe, so he spends the remainder of his life in atonement. cass returns home after the “inspection,” and for the next two years “operated his plantation, read the bible, prayed, and, strangely enough, prospered greatly, almost as though against his will” (warren 273). he uses his profits to pay his debts and set his slaves free, but he refuses to go north, refuses to move, believing that his example “if it is good . . . is not lost. nothing is ever lost” (warren 274). but he soon realizes that he did not free his slaves because they deserved to be free; he freed them “to relieve my spirit of a burden, the burden of their misery and their eyes upon me” (warren 275). observing the meaninglessness of his action, he joins the confederate army as a private, ‘“marching with other men’” in order to ‘“partake with them of all bitterness’” (warren 279). cass is shot and, dying slowly in a hospital after the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 128 spring 2013 civil war has ended, writes, ‘“it is all over but the dying, which will yet go on’” (warren 281). jack explains that, in his short life, cass learned that “the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration” wakes the spider (warren 283). unable to understand, jack “laid aside the journal and entered upon one of the periods of the great sleep” (warren 284). rather than live life and risk disturbing the web, jack retreats. this retreat mirrors cass’s behavior in the years following his altercation at the “inspection” in that he affects nothing. when jack wakes from his “great sleep,” he turns his back on his own history and goes to work to ensure another man’s legacy, willie stark’s, rather than his own. just as jack burden’s behavior mirrors cass mastern’s, so it also reflects ike mccaslin’s in faulkner’s go down, moses. the truth of cass mastern’s past comes to jack in a manner similar to the way in which ike mccaslin learns of the historical atrocities committed by his ancestors. cass writes his journal in an old account book, but it is the actual account contained within ike’s uncles’ ledgers that reveal his ancestral truths. richard godden argues that ike learns through a series of ledger entries that his grandfather “first rapes the slave eunice, and then rapes tomasina, his own daughter by eunice” (9). as ike reads the entries describing eunice’s suicide by drowning, which he believes occurred in response to her daughter’s incestuous rape, “the old frail pages seemed to turn of their own accord even while he thought his own daughter his own daughter, no no not even him” (faulkner, gdm 259). upon discovering the travesties committed by his ancestors, ike repudiates his claim on the family farm only to be later convinced by his wife to take it back. years later, long after ike believes the “family curse” of incest and miscegenation has been broken, he learns that his nephew’s pregnant mistress is a descendant of the offspring of the original incestuous union that spurred his initial repudiation of his farm. ike then realizes that, in the south, history, memory, and family will not be denied, and can never be forgotten, no matter how hard one may try to flee. rice’s quinn learns all too quickly jack burden’s and ike mccaslin’s lessons regarding southern memory’s persistence and insistence, though her treatment of this motif relies less on old books and written word than do warren’s or faulkner’s. the book of poems quinn finds with the jewelry in rebecca’s chest is a catalyst to allow rebecca to appear and tell her own story, and quinn becomes an active participant in rebecca’s storytelling rather than simply a passive reader. rice’s manipulation of the revelatory scene, however, rather than pulling her novel away from southern literary traditions, actually serves further to reinforce its tie to them. in rebecca’s retelling of her story, quinn and the reader experience the same sense of “time out of time” felt in warren’s and faulkner’s texts discussed here. just as ike muses that his buck “still and forever leaps” (faulkner, gdm 171), and jack burden asserts that “all times are one time” (warren 342), rebecca reminds quinn that “everything is always happening all the time” (rice, blackwood farm 157). furthermore, just as ike and jack’s examinations of the past serve to destroy their notions of their own southern histories, so quinn’s detours with rebecca nearly serve to destroy his ancestral home. “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 129 while quinn learns of rebecca and her fate from a series of supernatural journeys into the past, he learns of his more recent ancestor’s transgressions from the reading of his grandfather pops’s will. after doling out inheritances, the blackwood’s attorney, grady breen, shares that before he died, pops informed him that the infamous terry sue of louisiana backwoods fame, fertile to a fault, ‘“had a child by pops about nine years ago”’ while his wife sweetheart was still alive (rice, blackwood 284). pops allowed this child to live in squalor, providing a pittance of an annuity to the single mother of six children in the amount of five hundred dollars a week. quinn and his aunt queen agree with breen that they should “equalize things” by ensuring that all the children are taken care of, but aunt queen requests a written report of the circumstances to set up the arrangement. breen responds, ‘“no, i wouldn’t do it in writing, miss queen . . . i wouldn’t put anything in writing at all”’ (rice, blackwood 285). by putting this incident down in writing, the blackwoods would be perpetuating the cycle set in motion by the mccaslins and masterns of old: ensuring a record of past atrocities which can then be brought to bear upon future generations; however, not putting it in writing—attempting to hide the truth of the situation from the world—is what has allowed a relatively harmless situation to become an atrocity. while conceiving a child out of wedlock or by an affair is certainly not on a level with slavery or incest, the manner in which pops, a man with hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal, allowed the child to live is atrocious. additionally, breen informs quinn and aunt queen that terry sue’s “new man” beats the children. readers learn later that it is actually terry sue herself who beats them, but the fact that ‘“pops knew of this sort of thing and did nothing about it”’ causes “a gloom” and a “feeling of unrest’ to fall over quinn, and he wonders what his grandfather had wanted from life (rice, blackwood 286-7). quinn realizes that he has to make his life “greater” than pops’s had been or he would lose his mind: “i felt pursued by the pressure of life itself. i felt frantic” (rice, blackwood 287). when quinn learns that pops named his son after himself, even as he otherwise attempted to hide him from the world: my mood grew even darker. who was i to judge pops, i thought. who was i to judge the man who had just left me so much wealth and who might have done otherwise? who was i to judge him that he had left little tommy harrison in such a situation? but it weighed on me. and it weighed on me that patsy’s character had perhaps been shaped by her lifelong struggle against a man who did not believe in her. (rice, blackwood 287) quinn questions everything he used to believe about his grandfather and finds himself disillusioned. quinn’s “daze about the newfound uncle and pops’s wealth” is the same daze in which ike mccaslin and jack burden find themselves and which lead to ike’s repudiation of his legacy and jack’s “great sleep.” just as the pages of the mccaslin ledgers “seemed to turn of their own accord” (faulkner, gdm 259) and jack “must tell about the first excursion into the enchantments of the past” (warren 236), so quinn is forced to hear his grandfather’s legacy, which will forever change his worldview. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 130 spring 2013 however, unlike ike, quinn does not repudiate his legacy, and unlike jack, quinn does not fall into a “great sleep.” when he returns from the reading of the will, quinn sees rebecca’s wicker furniture, a reminder of history’s insistence on not being forgotten, and he realizes that he cannot flee or hide from what he has learned. quinn realizes that trying to keep the “family secret” will serve only to destroy the family it is meant to protect and determines to welcome pop’s son, tommy, into the blackwood family and proclaim him to the world instead. this acceptance and advertisement of family scandal is exactly the opposite of how faulkner’s quentin compson chooses to deal with his sister caddy’s loss of virginity before marriage. unlike quinn, quentin tries “to isolate her [caddy] out of the loud world so that it would have to flee us of necessity” by making a claim of incest to his father (faulkner, tsf 112). quentin believes that he can keep his sister’s honor intact by sacrificing his own, as a proper southern gentleman should do. however, as his father disabuses him of the myth of southern honor and gentility that quentin has come to identify with, quentin approaches a crisis not unlike those faced by ike, jack, and quinn. however, as gretchen martin points out in her essay, “quentin’s dilemma is fixed between a romantic ideal and the real, but rather than examine the real, he continuously attempts to recover, or at least find compensation for the ideal” (martin 58). quentin, rather than taking action based on the destruction of his notions of southern gentility and honor, attempts, and fails repeatedly, to reconstruct them and with them his own identity. because quentin is never able to patch his emotional wounds by taking action, he reaches a “psychological impasse that ends in his suicide” (martin 58). quinn’s formation of identity is equally as romantic as quentin’s, especially in his conception of honor; however, because he responds to his crisis with action instead of inaction, affirmation rather than negation, he is able to move past the destruction of his gentile southern ideals and construct an identity based in reality rather than idealism. quinn guides lestat, himself, and the reader through the legacy of pain, horror, beauty, and wonder that is the american south and illustrates that while the south and its inhabitants may never escape history, rather than attempting to flee, or hide from it, they can embrace it and in doing so, move forward. in quinn’s struggles with history, memory, and family, rice demonstrates that, gothic or not, supernatural or not, her fiction is distinctly southern. “everything is always happening”: echoes of faulkner and warren in anne rice’s blackwood farm middle tennessee state university 131 notes 1 southern literature, or the southern literary tradition, is usually defined as literature about the american south, written by writers from the region that typically includes north and south carolina, georgia, alabama, virginia, tennessee, mississippi, and louisiana. writers such as carson mccullers, william faulkner, and eudora welty as mentioned here are usually named to exemplify southern writing. 2 gothic literature has historically been considered an inferior mode due to its “popular” nature; however, scholars in the last two decades have offered compelling arguments for the genre that highlight gothic’s influence on canonical writing from the romantic period to today. see for example david punter’s a new companion to the gothic, fred botting’s gothic, and the university of wales ongoing gothic literary studies series. 3 see especially maggie kilgour’s the rise of the gothic novel, robert miles’ gothic writing, and eve kosofsky sedgwick’s the coherence of gothic conventions for listings of recurrent gothic tropes. 4 rice introduced the vampire lestat in her first novel interview with the vampire, and he has since been the protagonist of all but a handful of her vampire chronicles. 5 sacred womanhood was an ideal held up throughout the us until the end of the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth; however, it was perhaps nowhere more strongly adhered to than in the south. the “ideal” woman was pious, pure, submissive, and domestic. her job was to preside over her household and ensure her husband’s contentment. see for example barbara welter’s the cult of true womanhood. 6 both warren’s cass mastern episode and rice’s blackwood farm are constructed as frame narratives. the reader joins the protagonist in the present, and then accompanies him as he tells a story of the past, and finally returns with him, again, to the present and the conclusion of the narrative. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 132 spring 2013 works cited crow, charles l. history of the gothic: american gothic. cardiff: u of wales p, 2009. print. faulkner, william. go down, moses. ny: random house, 1990. print. ---. the sound and the fury. david minter, ed. ny: w.w. norton, 1994. print. fiedler, leslie. love and death in the american novel. 2nd ed. ny: scarborough, 1966. print. goddu, teresa. gothic america: narrative, history, and nation. ny: columbia up, 1997. print. gray, richard. the literature of memory: modern writers of the american south. baltimore: johns hopkins up, 1977. print. le cor, carol. “the critical voice and the narrative voice: robert penn warren’s essay on coleridge and all the king’s men.” mississippi quarterly 63.1-2 (2010): 199-133. mla international bibliography. web. 9 nov 2012. martin, gretchen. “am i going to have to hear it all again?”: quentin compson’s role as narratee in the sound and the fury and absalom, absalom!” southern studies: an interdisciplinary journal of the south 14.1 (2007): 47-61. mla international bibliography. web. 3 oct. 2012. o’connor, flannery. “some aspects of the grotesque in southern fiction.” mystery and manners: occasional prose. sally and robert fitzgerald, eds. ny: farrar, straus & giroux, 1969. print. ramsland, katherine. prism of the night: a biography of anne rice. ny: penguin, 1992. print. rice, anne. blackwood farm. ny: alfred a. knopf, 2002. print. ---. called out of darkness: a spiritual confession. ny: alfred a. knopf, 2008. print. roberts, bette b. anne rice. ny: twayne, 1994. print. warren, robert penn. all the king’s men. orlando: harcourt, 2006. print. human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 115 human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage kelsey bishop abstract probably shocking to many americans, human sex trafficking is an active and growing industry that happens right at home in the united states. this paper seeks to understand how the american print media reports on the crime of human sex trafficking in published newspaper articles. understanding how american culture showcases sex slavery in the print media is the first step toward understanding what information is available to the general public about this crime. this study looks at identifying the common themes of human sex trafficking from a national american newspaper, exposing a small-scale understanding of how the print media represents modern-day slavery to the american public. a thematic analysis was used to uncover the emergent themes of 32 articles from the third highest circulated newspaper in the united states, the new york times. using this qualitative method, the first research question—which asked specifically what content the articles were expressing about human sex trafficking in the united states—uncovered three major themes with seven sub-themes. agenda-setting theory served as the foundational theory to explain how the public interprets the voice of print media, how they adapt those opinions with their own, and why dependence on the news is crucial for issue awareness. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2016 probably shocking to many americans, human sex trafficking is an active and growing industry that happens right at home in the united states. in fact, according to a department of state report, the united states has become the second most trafficked country in the world (“trafficking in persons,” 2007). for the pimps, sex slavery is a lucrative business that involves the coercion of mostly vulnerable american and foreign girls. the u.s. department of justice reported in 2005 that there were an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 sex slaves as young as five years old in the united states (“trafficking in persons,” 2007). in 2012, human sex trafficking was a $32 billion dollar industry in the united states (“time to tackle,” 2012, february 12). beyond the sheer magnitude of this issue, the real travesty is why the american media is not placing a spotlight on why it has become desirable to exploit minors for their bodies. the purpose of this paper is to understand how the american media, specifically the print media, is reporting on the crime of human sex trafficking in published newspaper articles. understanding how american culture is showcasing sex slavery in the print media is the first step toward understanding what information is available to the general public about this crime. this study looks at identifying the common themes of human sex trafficking from a national american newspaper, exposing a small-scale understanding of how the print media is representing the issue of modernday slavery to the american public. a thematic analysis was used to uncover the emergent themes of 32 articles from the third highest circulated newspaper in the united states, the new york times. using this qualitative method, three major themes emerged with seven sub-themes from the first research question, which asked specifically what content the articles were expressing about human sex trafficking in the united states. agendasetting theory served as the foundational theory to explain how the public interprets the voice of print media, how they adapt those opinions with their own, and why dependence on the news is crucial for issue awareness. literature review what is sex trafficking? modern-day slavery is a billion dollar industry that forcibly claims the lives of mostly young adolescents who find themselves captured in brutal confinement without any hope of escape. the supreme court of the united states groups human trafficking into two categories: sex trafficking and labor trafficking (clawson, dutch, solomon, & grace, 2009). this paper focuses exclusively on human sex trafficking. wholly defined, human sex trafficking is the “action of forcing, coercing, or deceiving an individual human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 117 into prostitution through the means of recruiting, transporting, or harboring that person for the goal of involuntary servitude, exploitation, debt bondage, or slavery” (aronowitz, 2009, p. 1; “fact sheet,” 2007). human sex trafficking is the most common form of modern-day slavery, amounting to the fastest growing business of organized crime and the third largest criminal enterprise in the world (hill & rodriguez, 2011). sex trafficking crimes include prostitution, pornography, stripping, live-sex shows, mail-order brides, military prostitution, and sex tourism (clawson et al., 2009). of all the trafficked victims in the world moved across borders, 70% are female and 50% are children (sabyan, smith, & tanneeru, 2011). it is estimated that 199,000 incidents of sexual exploitation of minors occur annually in the united states (clawson et al., 2009). in 2012, a federal anti-trafficking task force created by the u.s. department of justice found that 82% of the 2,515 suspected incidents were classified as sex trafficking (u.s. human, 2012). of those cases, more than half of the victims were minors, and 83% were united states citizens (u.s. human, 2012). further research indicates that most victims of sex trafficking into and within the united states are women and children, particularly girls under the age of 18 (richard, 1999). the u.s. state department estimates approximately half of the 600,000 to 800,000 victims transported across borders worldwide are minors (u.s. human, 2007). despite the number of cases found, it is difficult to estimate fully the number of victims in the united states. first, human trafficking is a covert crime, making gathering statistics on the nature, prevalence, and geography of human trafficking difficult to assess (clawson, layner, & small, 2006; clawson et al.,2009). secondly, victims are often hidden by a lack of immigration documents or in private businesses that act as a façade for trafficking operations (clawson et al., 2006). lastly, victims are closely guarded by their captors, making victims difficult to identify (clawson et al., 2006). domestic versus foreign sex trafficking sex trafficking victims in the united states can be classified into two categories: domestic (u.s. citizens) or foreign (individuals brought to the united states for the purpose of being traded in the sex industry). domestic trafficking. to be classified as modern day slavery, victims of sex trafficking do not have to be transported across country borders as some may believe (clawson et al., 2009). another misconception about sex trafficking is that girls are the only victims in this crime, but boys are also trafficked inside their own countries. domestic sex trafficking refers scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 118 spring 2016 specifically to the recruitment and transportation of children within their home country through deception or coercion for the purpose of commercial sex exploitation (estes & weiner, 2001). the majority of american sex trafficking victims are either runaways or thrown-away youths who live on the streets and whose life experiences involve abusive homes or families (hill & rodriguez, 2011). since runaways have little or no way to support themselves, many get involved in prostitution for financial support and to get drugs or other possessions they need or desire (hill & rodriguez, 2011). foreign trafficking. domestic trafficking involves victims already in the target country; alternatively, foreign trafficking involves transporting the victims across international borders. trafficking women and children for the sex industry is rampant in every region of the united states (richard, 1999). the average age of women trafficked into the united states is twenty, but many of them have been forced into slavery at a younger age (richard, 1999). in 2009, the u.s. government and nongovernmental experts in the field estimated that, out of the 700,000 to 2 million women and children trafficked globally each year, approximately 50,000 of those women and children are trafficked to the united states (richard, 1999). many of these women transported to the united states are smuggled in the country by small crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks (richard, 1999). research has shown that most of these women are from thailand, vietnam, china, mexico, russia, ukraine, and the czech republic (richard, 1999). other targeted trafficked countries are the philippines, korea, malaysia, poland, brazil, and honduras (richard, 1999). these women are predominantly forced into prostitution via stripping, peep and touch shows, or massage parlors that offer sexual services (richard, 1999). the victims stereotypes of young innocent foreign girls seduced or kidnapped from their home countries and forced into prostitution do not accurately depict the demographics of all victims. men, women, and children of all ages and nationalities are trafficked for sex purposes regardless of whether they are trafficked into the united states or are citizens exploited in their own country (florida university, 2003). although people from every race and ethnicity are victims of sex trafficking, the majority of adolescents arrested for prostitution are african-american girls (clawson et al., 2009; flowers, 2001). despite this divide, victims of sex trafficking have vulnerabilities in common that surface across categories of sex, age, immigration status, or human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 119 citizenship (protection project, 2002). poverty, youth, limited education, limited work opportunities, lack of family (homeless, throw-away, runaways), history of sexual abuse, health or mental challenges, and areas with high crime or police corruption are all risk factors or characteristics that attract traffickers looking for victims (salvation army, 2006). impoverished women and children with a lack of options constitute a large portion of victims. international victims may be trying to escape economic and political crises or unsatisfactory living conditions (aiko, 2002). in poor economic times, traffickers prey on struggling individuals (aronowitz, 2009). the correlation between poverty and sex slavery is strong because low-income girls find it harder to escape the life of a prostitute (lloyd, 2005). girls who were sexually abused in the past are also prey to sex trafficking. in a study by clawson et al., (2009), of a sample of 106 adult women incarcerated for prostitution-related offenses, 68 percent reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 10 and half reported having been raped at a younger age. research demonstrates that the younger a girl is when she enters prostitution, the greater the likelihood of prior sexual abuse (clawson et al., 2009). there are also studies that show a correlation between prostituted girls and family disruption. girls who come from families where addiction is present, and/or if their mothers were physically abused by an intimate partner, are more likely to be involved in prostitution (clawson et al., 2009). furthermore, the death of a parent, a divorce, or abandonment can put a youth at risk for exploitation (clawson et al., 2009). the sense of loneliness and isolation that can occur from being placed in a foster home or in the child welfare system can make them vulnerable (rabinovitch, 2003). boys are not as visible as young girls in the crime of sex trafficking (mcknight, 2006). the likelihood of boys leaving their homes feeling unwanted or misunderstood is more likely than girls, but often their involvement in prostitution stems from a similar history, such as past abuse and dysfunctional homes (flowers, 1998). “boys primarily sell their bodies to survive financially, explore their sexuality, and/or to make contact with gay men” (flowers, 1998, p. 141). one study found that two-thirds of prostituted males had run away from home before being involved in the sex industry, and 40-50% were thrown out of their homes because of sexual identity issues (clawson et al., 2009). approximately 25-35% of boys involved in prostitution self-identify as gay, bisexual, or transgender/transsexual (estes & weinter, 2001). no matter their self-identification, 95% of clientele for prostituted boys are adult men (estes & weinter, 2001). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 120 spring 2016 pimp or trafficker the terms “pimp” and “trafficker” can easily be assumed to be synonymous; however, there is a distinction between these two roles (“domestic human,” 2008). depending on the jurisdiction, a pimp may not be violating any laws if he does not force another person to stay with him for the purposes of exploitation because the arrangement is for him to find and manage clients for her (“domestic human,” 2008). although a pimp does earn profit from a prostitute’s earnings, according to law it is not considered force, fraud, or coercion to oblige adult women to prostitute themselves (“domestic human,” 2008). however, any pimp who knowingly manages a minor would be classified as a trafficker (“domestic human,” 2008). similar to a pimp, a trafficker also consciously profits from prostitution, except that the victim has been coerced (“domestic human,” 2008). it does not matter if he is directly or indirectly involved in the management of victims (“domestic human,” 2008). although most traffickers are men, there is also a fraction of female sex traffickers (estes & weiner, 2001). many pimps will have house rules about how to speak to traffickers, authorities, and johns or customers (“domestic human,” 2008). victims have reported that extreme sexual and/or physical violence occurs if any of the rules are broken (“domestic human,” 2008). some victims are forced to commit other criminal acts or to recruit other victims (“domestic human,” 2008). one common house rule is the nightly quota, which requires the girls to make a certain amount of earnings every evening. the quotas typically range from $500 to $1,000 each night for commercial sex (polaris project). the women have to meet their quota through whatever means necessary or they will not be allowed to eat or sleep until the quota has been reached (“sex trafficking,” 2012). quotas are strictly enforced through punishment in the form of physical torture (“sex trafficking,” 2012). to add to the injustice, the girls rarely get to keep any of the money because it all is given to the trafficker (“sex trafficking,” 2012). a nonprofit based out of washington d.c., the polaris project, made an informal estimate of a pimp’s annual income from prostituting four women in his control (the average number of women and girls a pimp will control) based on direct client accounts. between these four women, the pimp would make $632,000 in a year if each woman made approximately $500-1,000 per night, seven days a week (“sex trafficking,” 2012). these pimps have created a separate subculture to imprison their victims, but most traffickers grow up not far away from the crime itself. a study of twenty-five ex-pimps discovered that 88% of them were physically human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 121 abused as a child and 76% were victims of sexual abuse themselves (myerspowell & raphael, 2010). the same study uncovered that 88% of these traffickers grew up in domestic violence households and witnessed substance abuse in their home as a child. to illustrate this further, one female pimp argued that sexual violation against women is a fact of life and can be used to benefit the women (myers-powell & raphael, 2010). the johns human sex trafficking does not only involve the victim and the trafficker; in fact, without a demand from “johns” or clients, there would be no need for modern-day slavery. in a study by raphael and myers-powell (2010), one pimp described the surplus of johns as if they were falling out of trees. it may be assumed that the clients of sex trafficking are lowincome men with social or psychological issues, but the reality is that “johns” are average, respected americans with regular jobs, who tend to view women as commodities (malarek, 2009). victor malarek (2009), author of the johns: sex for sale and the men who buy it, has written that johns “remain on the sidelines while the women provide the public face of prostitution” (p. 13). in fact, there is little research on “johns” other than a handful of demographic studies on age, marital status, education, salary, and employment, all of which could fit into a briefcase when compared to the small library that could be filled with research on prostituted women (malarek, 2009). these men are stockbrokers, musicians, politicians, lawyers, writers, hotel bellmen, cab drivers, and bartenders, along with other professionals (malarek, 2009). research which interviewed former pimps indicated that wealthy caucasian and asian men are the main clients, but african-american men were rare unless also professional athletes (raphael & myers-powell, 2010). prostitution allows caucasian and asian men to live out their fantasy of having sex with an african-american woman (malarek, 2009). these pimps also told of “snooty” college kids with money being common customers; some even came with their fathers (malarak, 2009). for some johns, buying sex is more of a hobby, although not one they easily brag about or are proud of, although many would argue it is “perfectly natural” (malarak, 2009). farley did a study in 2011 with 202 men from boston, which serves as a small representative sample of sex buyers and non-sex buyers. this study showed that the average age of sex buyers was 41, with the range being between 20 to 70 years old. fifty-six percent of these men were caucasian, 23% african american, and 89% of these men identified as heterosexual. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 122 spring 2016 the average age when most of these men bought sex for the first time was 21, and these men paid for sexual services an average of 54 times in their lifetime. eighty-eight percent of these occasions began at a bar, strip club, private party, or hotel. out of this sample, 50% of sex buyers selected women based on ethnicity, and 80% also chose women based on their age (farley, 2011). some research found that the johns who revisit brothels choose children from the age of 12 to 17 as their preferred age group (“slavery,” 2012). the johns refuse to identify the children as victims of sexual exploitation (“slavery,” 2012). in one study, a pimp who managed a brothel informed researchers that repeat customers want new faces, therefore he had to “clean house” every six weeks (myers-powell & raphael, 2010). outside of finding girls in person, clients use public announcements to find girls and women “willing” to sell their bodies. internet advertisements have become a huge resource for pimps and traffickers to advertise their girls (farley, 2011). johns are referred by bartenders and hotel bell men, but mostly cab drivers (myers-powell and raphael, 2010). different interviews with pimps said that bachelor parties were consistent opportunities to attract at least two or three regular clients (myers-powell & raphael, 2010). the yellow pages telephone book lists numbers for massage parlors and escort services, which can be façades for sex trafficking (clawson et al., 2009). newspapers, tabloids, and free advertising in adult bookstores boast about different ethnicities, nationalities, and races (clawson et al., 2009). there are also a number of online forums for men to share experiences and to share information on establishments with prostitutes (clawson et al., 2009). while most johns do not like to think of their “date” as a sex slave, they are creating a demand for more girls and more illegal activity of prostitution (“slavery,” 2012). johns see prostitution as consensual and/ or an economic choice for the woman (farley, 2011). johns prefer to view prostitutes as loving sex (farley, 2011). contrary to this belief, victims of sex slavery often suffer from psychological illnesses that can cause them to shut down mentally in preparation for having sex with ten strangers or more a day (farley, 2011). these illnesses can manifest even greater the longer they stay in the industry (farley, 2011). additionally, most women just as if they enjoy sex as an act for the client (farley, 2011). media effects on the public whether the effects of media are intended or by accident, media channels do have a platform to influence its audience. some intended effects human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 123 may include: public service announcements on personal behavior and social improvements, effects on propaganda or ideology, and effects of virtual media on social control (mcguire, 1986). however, according to mcguire (1986), there are a substantial number of effects that the media does not intend on making. these include effects of media reportage of violence on aggressive behavior, the impact of media images on the social construction of reality, effects of media bias on stereotyping, effects of erotic and sexual material on attitudes and objectionable behavior, and how media forms affect cognitive activity and style (mcguire, 1986). further research has blamed mainstream media for knowledge gain and distribution through society, the socialization into social norms, and cultural adaptations and changes (perse, 2001). there are disagreements on how much media affects its audience; however, no matter the degree of emphasis, there is a consensus that media does have some impact on social life and structure (perse, 2001). according to perse (2001), there are three learning curves associated with media effects: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. first, cognitive effects refer to what is learned and how much is learned. second, affective effects contribute to the audience’s positive or negative attitude or evaluation of a particular topic which evokes emotion within a media context. last, audiences exposed to media begin to behave according to the media exposure, which is labeled as behavioral effects. the idea that people have the willingness to let the media shape their views is referred to as the index of curiosity (bittner, 2006). agenda-setting theory. the reality of our culture is that there is a surplus of information from various media channels. journalism professors maxwell mccombs and donald shaw believe that “mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on news agendas to the public agenda” (mccombs, 2004, p. 177). their theory of agenda-setting says that the media influences the public with salient cues in deciding which topics are the most important to consider (bittner, 1996). this view does not suggest that broadcast and print personnel intentionally try to influence their readers, listeners, or viewers (bittner, 1996). nevertheless, mccombs and shaw claim that the public looks to news professionals for cues on where to focus their attention on what is important (bittner, 1996). “the press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about,” said bernard cohen, university of wisconsin political scientist (as cited in mccombs & shaw, 1972, p. 177). i used the agenda-setting theory to analyze my data to understand scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 124 spring 2016 which themes of sex trafficking the new york times has made more salient. by identifying which concepts involving sex trafficking in the united states are expressed as more important in the articles, i was able to conclude how this affects how the readers view each item and therefore rank it in importance. through an agenda-setting theory lens, article placement is a large factor in suggesting to the reader which stories are most important. mccombs and shaw reasoned that people who read the newspaper recognize that editors place greater stress on the front page than the shorter articles hidden in the other pages (bittner, 2006). another example is when a newspaper or other news source puts greater emphasis on certain stories. these become the issues that the public gravitates to as most important, which consequently influences the way people think (bittner, 2006). the mindset is, “if the news editors of time and abc think it is important, i probably will too” (bittner, 2006, p. 363). this attention is further exploited by the news source. top representatives of the associated press, like the new york times, become the agenda setter for other news sources, again keeping the top issues in the frontline (bittner, 2006). this can keep the public narrow-minded, especially because these media conglomerates are mostly composed of caucasian males who follow the same social circles, parties, and conferences, resulting in a misrepresentation of u.s. citizens (bittner, 2006). research question: what themes were written about in regard to sex slavery in the new york times? methods data collection sample. the criteria for article selection mandated that each article chosen for this study 1) be related to the subject of human sex trafficking in the united states and 2) had been published from january 2011 through june 2012 in the new york times. these dates were chosen in order to acquire the most recent sample of articles, and the dates provided the researcher with a broader understanding of how sex trafficking has been represented over an 18 month period. i chose the new york times because it is the third most widely circulated american newspaper in the united states (audit bureau of circulation, 2012). initially, it was suggested to use three newspapers, including usa today (which is second on the list) and the wall street journal (which is ranked first); however, after some preliminary research on each newspaper’s website, the new york times offered the most variety and material for data analysis. in addition, human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 125 after only finding less than five articles relating to human sex trafficking in the previously suggested newspapers, the decision was made to focus solely on the articles from the new york times, which provided a more accurate collection of data than other online national newspaper archives; the lack of articles found under other sources did not effectively represent enough range to be evaluated for educational data. criterion sampling was the major sampling technique used to identify relevant articles to examine. according to miles and huberman (1994), criterion sampling is used when the research decides on specific criteria that will be used to choose the sample that will be examined. in this study, criteria for the articles had to be related to (1) human sex trafficking (and not any other form of modern-day slavery); (2) the articles could not be focused on celebrity involvement in awareness because these articles did not provide substantial evidence based on the research questions; and (3) the articles had to be directly related to sex trafficking in the united states. identifying the articles involved visiting the new york times website and using the search bar to search “human sex trafficking.” once directed to the archive page, i narrowed the search further by putting in the dates “january 1st, 2011” to “june 30, 2012.” from this search, 2,200 results were found to have some connection with the dates and the search words. the articles were placed in order of relevance for the search phrase “human sex trafficking.” from this step, i found 60 articles that varied from topics on celebrity sex scandals and foreign sex trafficking to other items not directly related to the discussion of human sex trafficking in the united states. although over 2,000 hits were identified, after reviewing articles on the first ten pages of the website search, the articles shifted focus on either “humans,” “sex,” or “trafficking” and no longer focused on human sex trafficking as an organized crime. therefore, from the sample, 32 articles were identified as relevant to the topic of “human sex trafficking in the united states,” excluding any articles involving celebrity advocates or sex offenders. data analysis thematic analysis. i examined 32 articles from the nationally acclaimed newspaper the new york times. a thematic analysis was conducted that identified themes common to each article. to find themes in these articles, i read each article holistically, jotting down notes and numbering each potential themes. then i read the articles a second time, looking for common themes throughout. in qualitative research, it is common to realize that not all of the material found in the reading process will be used scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 126 spring 2016 as data because it will not contribute to the research objectives. with this understanding, data reduction, or prioritizing emerging themes, were “reduced” into categories and codes to create a manageable number of emergent themes (lindlof & taylor, 2002). therefore, on the last review of the 32 articles, i was able to distinguish the emergent themes from the articles. it was important while reviewing the data collected that i re-read my research question to keep the evidence relevant to the focus of this study. after identifying the emergent themes based on my reading, it was easy to see which potential themes stood out and were more prevalent or common. from my findings, i determined how the print media is representing sex slavery to its readers. validation strategies due to my own personal opinions and biases of this particular cultural issue, i applied two validation strategies. first, i identified and clarified my bias of this topic. i have strong opinions against the use of power or manipulation to force another human to commit sexual acts without consent, especially when the victim is viewed as an object or attraction. the second validation strategy used was rich, thick description. these direct quotes from the newspaper articles are used so the researcher can decide if the data are transferable to other print media (lincoln & guba, 1985). in the results section of this report, i used direct quotes from the newspaper articles to highlight emergent themes that connected the various articles. using rich, thick quotes allows the reader to judge the data with his or her own perspective. results the research questions guiding this analysis focused on how the new york times articles from january 1, 2011 to june 30, 2012 have been communicating the issues of human sex trafficking to its readers. the first research question focused on themes that emerged in the articles about sex slavery in the new york times. three themes were found: the victims’ demographics, pimping tactics, and the online sex market. within these themes, several subthemes were discovered as a result of an analysis of the 32 articles. victims’ demographics young girls. the most frequent subtheme found in these 32 articles of the new york times was the prevalence of underage girl victims either rescued from or who escaped from the industry. from the articles, the human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 127 youngest girl interviewed said she was nine when she started being sold for sex. along with her, girls as young as 10 and 12 (and up to 17) testified as having been approached by a pimp. the articles reported two different claims: the average age for girls to be forced into prostitution is 12 to 14, and the most vulnerable ages range from 16 to 18. another article stated that half of these young sex-slaved minors still live with their parents. young girls are most desirable in the sex-trade because of their “tween” bodies (kitroeff, 2012, para. 3). race and family background. the backgrounds for many of the victims recorded in these articles reveal that the majority grew up in abusive homes. for example, one article stated that a victim’s father beat her when she was a young child (brown, 2011, para. 3). another victim said her stepfather would take her to an abandoned building to touch her inappropriately when she was twelve. one victim, withelma ortiz, grew up in the foster system with families that would sexually and psychologically abuse her (kitroeff, 2012). another victim, lisa, recounts that for ten years her father would rape her, starting when she was four years old. he would also invite other men to join in the abuse after she turned 18. lisa’s story began before birth. her mother was an alcoholic, which resulted in lisa being born with fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects a person developmentally, leading to difficulty in paying attention, speaking, and possessing a poor memory (kristof, 2012, para. 3-4). one article claimed that the typical victim is usually a “13-year-old girl of color from a troubled home who is on bad terms with her mother” (kristof, 2011, para. 13). this was the case for brianna. at age 12, she ran away from home for the night because of a fight with her mother. she never intended to be gone more than a night, but after confiding in a friend’s older brother, she was forced into the sex trade. runaways are a big target for pimps. one victim, baby face, was found by her pimp after she had run away from home (kristof, january 2012, para. 19). her pimp provided her with human essentials for survival and, a few days later, she was being advertised online. pimping tactics first meeting. for the girls that find themselves enslaved in the sex industry, most are coerced by an “idealistic” man. this overpowering system involves an older man approaching the victim and telling her that she is attractive or beautiful and then asking her to be his girlfriend. for these girls who “lack self-esteem and lack alternatives” (kristof, 2011, para. 6), they are flattered and agree because of his promise for “a better life” scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 128 spring 2016 (walter, 2012, para 3). for the minors or runaways that have no means for providing for themselves, the pimps promise to feed, clothe, and take care of them when they are sick. for other victims, perhaps their pimp bought them food and, because she was “boy crazy” and desperate to have a man her in life, she viewed him as a boyfriend that would always have her best interests in mind (kitroeff, 2012, para. 9). it is not an accident that these men approach these girls. many of them could be stalking a girl for days to see if she is vulnerable. traffickers are ready to exploit these girls mentally, emotionally, and physically (kitroeff, 2012, para. 11). for other victims, kidnapping is the gateway into the trade. “you can be kidnapped just walking down the street,” said one victim. “it’s ‘hey girl,’ and the next thing you know you’re kicking him or some other girl will talk to you and then snatch you up,” she said (brown, 2011, para. 19, 20). violence and threats. violence is a common theme in these articles for how pimps treat their victims. the girls are often locked in a room, tied up, drugged, raped, and threatened. beatings, rape, and drugging are typical tactics for pimps to inflict on victims in the beginning of their relationship. one pimp would beat his prostitutes with a studded belt, his fists, a hammer, or a heel of a shoe (kristof, 2012, para. 19). pimps will use threats, intimidation, and beatings to force the girls to have sex for money with clients. prostitutes live in fear of their pimp, which helps explain why these girls do not try to escape. one victim was kicked down a stairwell because she tried to run. another survivor retold the memory of her pimp hitting her over the head with a glass bottle for trying to call 911 (kristof, january 2012, para. 3). a similar attempt for escape resulted in one girl almost being killed. “i got drowned. he choked me, put me in the tub, and when i woke up, i was drowning. he said he’d kill me if i left” (kristof, 2012, para. 15). a young girl once saw her mother outside the window hanging up search flyers for her return. the girl tried to yell for her mother’s attention, but the pimp grabbed her back viciously and threatened to kill her if she shouted (kristof, 2012, para. 15). forms of this violence are also inflicted on the victims as a consequence for not meeting the pimp’s quota for the night or for being caught by police. alyssa said that, if she did not meet the quota or if she tried to connect with the outside world, the pimp “would get aggressive and strangle me and physically assault me and threaten to sell me to someone that was more violent than him, which he eventually did” (kristof, march 2012, para 13). pimps also have been known to brand their victims. several articles said that pimps would tattoo their names or a barcode on the girls to illustrate that she was property and for sale. allegedly one pimp branded his human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 129 victim with a tattoo of a dollar sign in her pubic area (kristof, may 2012, para. 3). still, needles are not always the tools used by pimps. one survivor has a scar on her face from when her pimp gouged her with a potato peeler. “he wanted to brand me in a way i would never forget,” she said (kristof, march 2012, para. 2). another victim had her pimp’s name carved into her back with a safety pin. stockholm syndrome. as stated earlier, the majority of the victims in these articles reportedly came from broken families, which resulted in them having low self-esteem and a desperate desire for affection. the pimps will use a web of deceit emotionally to capture the girls’ affection, which results in a stockholm syndrome effect for the majority of these girls. the pimps prey on vulnerable girls and women that they can degrade by using a combination of violence and tenderness to coerce them under their control. many victims feel a romantic bond with their pimps, even if he beats them. one victim said that even though he beat her maliciously, he would then beg for forgiveness. being beaten was not a new experience for her, but the expression of remorse differed from her past. “somebody finally beat the crap out of you and then comes back and kisses it and says, ‘i want to make it better’” (kitroeff, 2012, para. 3). for her, the sign of regret was love. this emotional bond becomes particularly destructive when the victim needs to testify in court. advocates against human sex trafficking blame the psychological and emotional difficulties as reasons why many victims refuse or retract any accusations against the pimps that sell their bodies. for girls and women raised in unsafe and unloving environments, this dependency runs particularly deep. for girls who have never really felt valued, it is even harder to speak out against perhaps the only person to ever show them love (kitroeff, 2012, para. 10). one victim was asked to testify against her pimp after five years of enslavement by him; however, because she was still afraid that he could hurt her, even after he was in custody, she chose not to make a claim. she regrets the decision deeply and blames her decision on stockholm syndrome (kitroeff, 2012, para. 4). for those victims subjected to violence and prostitution at a young age, the slave-life seems normal. one victim told reporters that she loved her pimp very much and thought the relationship normal. it is difficult to find victims who will testify in court or who will try to escape because they are either paralyzed by fear or have stockholm syndrome. norma ramos, executive director of the coalition against trafficking in women, says that one “thing we’ve learned from women who scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 130 spring 2016 have been prostituted is that it is very easy to get into, but very difficult to get out of ” (buettner, 2012, para. 11). online sex trade the online sex trade completes the analysis of the emergent themes found under the first research question for discovering what the new york times articles were saying about human sex trafficking. the internet has become a booming resource for pimps to advertise victims and for johns to find girls. ironically, the same websites that sell and advertise sex with victims also provides law enforcement an easy access into the trade market for the purpose of rescuing these girls and arresting traffickers. first is an explanation of how pimps and johns use this technology to further advance the industry. helping johns and pimps. the researched articles found that most pimps are looking at online websites to advertise and sell their prostitutes. “pimps are turning to the internet,” said lauren hersh, ace prosecutor in brooklyn who leads the sex-trafficking unit (walter, 2012, 10). other enforcement officers and child advocates agree that american-born minors being lured into the sex trade has exploded with the internet. pimps will post ads with naked pictures of the girls, marketed on the websites where the clients with more time and money will browse (baker & stelloh, 2012, para. 5). these advertisements can be found under section labels such as “adult,” “escort,” or “strippers and strip clubs” (carr, 2011, para. 3). despite nationwide campaigns and pressure from government leaders for these sites to ban sex-related advertisements, the online sex trade is flourishing. the largest forum for the online sex trade is backpage.com. this website is mentioned in every article reviewed for the current study about human sex trafficking online sales. this website accounts for about 70% of america’s prostitution ads, which estimates to $22 million in annual sales from these ads (kristof, april 2012, para. 9; kristof, march 2012, para. 5). the articles recognize that some of these ads are made by consensual adults. a sixteen-year-old former victim said that three quarters of her “dates” came from backpage (kristof, march 2012, 15). backpage representatives say that they have spent millions of dollars working with law enforcement to monitor these advertisements to screen ads that feature minors. “for a website like backpage to make $22 million off our backs,” said former victim, “it’s like going back to slave times” (kristof, march 2012, para. 18). backpage.com is not the only site subject to being infiltrated by sex traffickers. in fact, one site, itspimpin101.net, provides a forum for comhuman sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 131 munity sharing for johns, prostitutes, and pimps. the site provides visitors with instructional podcasts for pimps or aspiring pimps. there are tips and advice about “the game,” and users make deals and share police sighting in real-time (walter, 2012, para. 5). this site and other similar sites provide individuals an opportunity to speak out against pimps, prostitutes, or customers that have robbed or ripped them off. helping police. there is some debate in the articles reviewed on whether online forums are igniting the industry or providing an easier method for law enforcement to rescue victims. law enforcement officials agree that online communities have made solicitation easier; however, it has also given police a new insight into the hidden trade. in 2010, when craigslist’s “erotic services” was removed, it took away the “fish pond,” which detective jeremy martinez of the san jose police human trafficking task force called a “great tool” for law enforcement to gather intelligence (walter, 2012, para. 6, 7). the alameda county district attorney’s human trafficking unit supervisor, casey bates, says that online sex sites are a “love-hate-relationship” and “maybe the best thing to do is to block a site or take it down, but it just pops up in a different form” (walter, 2012, para. 20). in fact, the side that does not believe battling the different websites will change the crime claims that $44 million of the sex-related advertisements that were on craigslist have now relocated to backpage. com. supporting this argument, some advocates believe that instead of spending money on banning advertisements, money should be spent on the root causes of human trafficking: drug addiction, poverty, and family abuse (carr, 2011, para. 16). on the other side, opponents against online communities argue that when craigslist stopped advertisements in 2010, the online prostitution plummeted more than 50 percent. they claim that getting backpage.com to exit the sex trade advertisements would be a setback for pimps, losing a major online market, though it would not solve the problem (kristof, 2012, para. 9). in conclusion, the three major themes that emerged from the 32 articles from the new york times for the first research question were the victims’ demographics, the tactics of pimps, and the increasing online sex trade. each of these themes generated its own subthemes, which increased the readers’ understanding of how to categorize the information said about human sex trafficking in the united states. discussion as stated previously, under agenda-setting theory, the media has an impact on its readers and viewers. the human sex trafficking articles scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 132 spring 2016 reported in the new york times portrayed a basic understanding of the issue constructed from testimonies from former sex slave victims, personal opinions of the authors, and police reports. the salience of these themes determines how the readers prioritize the central factors of this social issue, which corresponds with their personal convictions toward this human injustice. this study reviewed articles that dealt with the issue of human sex trafficking in the united states; however, as agenda-setting theory suggests, the tragedy is that only a handful of articles singled out this issue. how can the american public fully understand this issue when only 32 articles in a timeframe of a year and half were published? unfortunately, the placement of these articles in the print form of the newspaper (one factor in agenda-setting theory) is unclear, having been found while archived online. the research question focused on what themes were expressed in the 32 newspaper articles from the new york times. in order to make conclusions about what the articles say about sex trafficking, it is crucial to compare the emergent themes with the academic research already found about sex trafficking. the congruent themes found in the literature review and the articles included the demographics of the victims, the cycle of coercion used by traffickers, and the psychological difficulties for the victims. the articles studied frequently referenced the ages and family backgrounds of the girls being trafficked for sex. similar to prior research, the average age for these girls ranged from twelve to fourteen (e.g. brown, 2011; moynihan, 2012). the testimonies from the former victims in the newspaper articles consistently told of girls who had run away from home or had a history of physical or sexual abuse from their relatives. these “throw away” youths are finding their needs met by a trafficker who promises to give them a better life. as the literature claims (“sex trafficking,” 2012), the victim’s stories told of how these traffickers would pose as caring older men and propose to be their “boyfriend.” whether through force or emotional confinement, these traffickers quickly turn these girls into profit. for these girls, many of whom have come from emotionally deprived home lives, this expression of love and hope begins the cycle of abuse that ultimately traps them into a life of slavery. victor malarek (2009), author of “the johns: sex for sale and the men who buy it,” writes that these men are often overlooked in the media because there is an underlying cultural belief that “prostitution is an acceptable outlet for men’s urge” because “men need sex, as the belief goes, to feel like real men, to amuse themselves, let off steam, or as a diversion from the human sex trafficking: a thematic analysis of new york times coverage middle tennessee state university 133 cares of life” (p. 15). the combination of the cultural acceptance that “boys will be boys” and the lie that prostitutes choose that lifestyle has created a social injustice that is impersonal to the public. as explained extensively in the articles, the girls are often too afraid to stand up against their trafficker because they live in fear of their pimps. victims live in a desperate and continuous cycle of being forced to perform sexual acts with various men until late in the morning, only to sleep or mentally prepare during the day for the next night. they have no say on whether they keep the money or whether or not they want to prostitute themselves. the option of refusing comes with the reality of knowing that it will result in malicious violence and potentially death. the reality for these victims is that they have to forgo their freedom either by fear or by an emotional affection for their trafficker. stockholm syndrome is present and unifying in these cases of sex trafficking victims. vulnerabilities are exploited as the captives of sex trafficking are removed from any emotional state of safety. victims are physically and emotionally overpowered, making them incapable of escape even if they had an opportunity. conclusion the issue of sex slavery is a problem that is happening right now. this issue is american. it is hurting citizens, minors, girls, boys, and families. it is a personal issue, and should be presented as such. whether citizens feel the need to become actively involved or not in rescuing these girls, the public should be informed about the whole issue so it becomes a choice to act, not an issue of naivety. from this current study, the public that has read all of the articles relating to human sex trafficking from january 1, 2011 to june 30, 2012, in the new york times became predominately aware 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(2012). trafficking in persons report. washington, dc: secretary for democracy and global affairs and bureau of public affairs. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 138 spring 2016 the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 71 the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow luke howard judkins abstract one of the world ’s most beautiful and iconic structures, the parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess athena, boldly displays the culmination of culture and civilization upon the acropolis in athens, greece and in centennial park in nashville, tennessee. i have attempted to research the history, architecture, and sculpture of the magnificent marble edifice by analyzing the key themes and elements that compose the great work: culture, civilization, and rebirth. using a musical sonata form to display my research, i wished to convey a digestible analysis of how the parthenon and its connotations transcend time through rebirth in nashville, tennessee. known as the “athens of the south,” nashville continues the culture displayed in ancient greece and symbolizes this through the city’s scale replication of the parthenon within centennial park. in the first century a.d., plutarch wrote greek history so that the greeks could recall the history that was gradually fading from their memories. as plutarch did with his readers, i am attempting to re-educate nashvillians, as well as the world, about the rich history and inheritance of the athenian culture within ourselves. 72 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research introduction in various ways, every world civilization has attempted to explore and improve the quality of life, promote communal well-being, and further the education and the creative abilities of its people. one of the most successful civilizations in these endeavors was that of the ancient greeks. our contemporary fine arts, education, and forms of government ground themselves, in one way or another, in the “classical” soil of ancient greece. classical civilization has been one of the most significant shaping influences for refined society in western history, constituting the foundation for any modern attempt to further the ideals of civilization in civil affairs. one of these more recent attempts for civil advancement has been the establishment of the united states. however, one of the states, not long after its acceptance in the u.s. in 1796, emerged as the cultural leader and exemplar for new states seeking admittance into the newly expanding union—tennessee and its capital of nashville. by the turn of the 20th century, nashville was a fully established cultural center focused on cultivating the best forms of civilization to suit a new nation. though ancient athens and contemporary nashville both have elements in their history that count strongly against them in terms of “quality of life” and “communal well-being,” such as slavery, nashville nevertheless continues the best aspects of the classical tradition and attempts to improve upon them. nashville’s museums and history celebrate the abolition of slavery and, today, the city still leads the way in promoting a greater equality for all. therefore, not only does nashville exhibit and continue the best classical roots of athens’s innovative civilization, but it also attempts to refine them so that an even better form of civilization might flourish within the purest forms of government, education, and fine arts for the sake and benefit of the people. evidence for this gradual shift and improvement of the classical heritage is nashville’s eventual response to slavery. despite the contested opinions of slavery and inclusion in the confederacy during the civil war, nashville eventually helped tennessee become one of the first confederate states to ratify the thirteenth amendment. even today, this improvement still exists as nashville seeks to foster diversity, equal opportunity, and freedom for all. grounded in the model offered by the greeks, despite any flaws we might note now, nashville nonetheless was born on the edge of the “wild frontier” of america, setting the stage for the rebirth of the “civilization over barbarism” binary that still persists in american culture. many scholfigure 1—east end of nashville parthenon depicting athena’s birth the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 73 introduction in various ways, every world civilization has attempted to explore and improve the quality of life, promote communal well-being, and further the education and the creative abilities of its people. one of the most successful civilizations in these endeavors was that of the ancient greeks. our contemporary fine arts, education, and forms of government ground themselves, in one way or another, in the “classical” soil of ancient greece. classical civilization has been one of the most significant shaping influences for refined society in western history, constituting the foundation for any modern attempt to further the ideals of civilization in civil affairs. one of these more recent attempts for civil advancement has been the establishment of the united states. however, one of the states, not long after its acceptance in the u.s. in 1796, emerged as the cultural leader and exemplar for new states seeking admittance into the newly expanding union—tennessee and its capital of nashville. by the turn of the 20th century, nashville was a fully established cultural center focused on cultivating the best forms of civilization to suit a new nation. though ancient athens and contemporary nashville both have elements in their history that count strongly against them in terms of “quality of life” and “communal well-being,” such as slavery, nashville nevertheless continues the best aspects of the classical tradition and attempts to improve upon them. nashville’s museums and history celebrate the abolition of slavery and, today, the city still leads the way in promoting a greater equality for all. therefore, not only does nashville exhibit and continue the best classical roots of athens’s innovative civilization, but it also attempts to refine them so that an even better form of civilization might flourish within the purest forms of government, education, and fine arts for the sake and benefit of the people. evidence for this gradual shift and improvement of the classical heritage is nashville’s eventual response to slavery. despite the contested opinions of slavery and inclusion in the confederacy during the civil war, nashville eventually helped tennessee become one of the first confederate states to ratify the thirteenth amendment. even today, this improvement still exists as nashville seeks to foster diversity, equal opportunity, and freedom for all. grounded in the model offered by the greeks, despite any flaws we might note now, nashville nonetheless was born on the edge of the “wild frontier” of america, setting the stage for the rebirth of the “civilization over barbarism” binary that still persists in american culture. many scholfigure 1—east end of nashville parthenon depicting athena’s birth ars might deny any direct correlation between athens and nashville, but i argue that submerged elements within these two cities connect them more than might appear at first glance. it is important to recognize nashville’s reputation as “athens of the west” (and later “of the south”) and how this reputation manifests itself in order to understand the improvements and rebirth on original athenian culture nashville offers. the most obvious manifestation of this reputation is the presence of the duplicate parthenon within centennial park in nashville, tennessee. exploring the history, construction, architecture, and sculpture of the two parthenons, i will show how the connections between the two cities (despite a separation of 2,000 years) has helped tennessee continue—and develop—a classical civilization rooted in ancient greece. in order to display these connections effectively, i have chosen a musical form, the sonata-allegro, as well as the labels of its constituent parts, to organize information about these two cities and bring out parallels. the sonata-allegro structure usually attempts to present two seemingly opposing musical themes in the exposition, develop them through motivic deconstruction in the development, and integrate the opposing themes harmoniously in the recapitulation, leaving the listener satisfied and affected by the final cadence (spring and hutcheson 197-224). i hope that this research on the parthenon as a symbol of the athenian and nashvillian civilizations and cultures show that nashville, tennessee, truly is the “athens of the south.” an exposition a blazing chariot of helios declines to the horizon as his hot rays reflect off large mounds of broken marble. glimmering through towering, marble giants, and dancing across the empty inner floor on the roofless ruin, the sun distinguishes the mighty duel between the powerful god of the sea and the goddess of wisdom, a recapitulation of the origins of civil prosperity. heroic images of the violent clash between the athenians and the amazons, protruding dynamically from the threaded narrative, burn with fury in the searing sunset. yet, helios rises as he falls, the newborn morning light simmering in the drops of dew surrounding the concrete aggregate steps. a tremendous king gives birth to the wise goddess once more, as the light simmers over the horizon, highlighting the victorious birth with the olympians’ wrestling the barbaric giants below. helios’s chariot ushers the decline of an age of athens, greece, and the birth of a new age in nashville, tennessee, as the sun never sets on the iconic symbol of democracy and civilization—the parthenon, temple of pallas athena. 74 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research a development the parthenon and its history: then and now since the late fifth century b.c., the doric temple known as the parthenon, or temple of the virgin goddess athena, has remained through the ages and is still considered to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. enriched with an astounding history of war, death, politics, religious tension, theft, fortune, misfortune, and theft for the sake of preservation, the parthenon, its architecture, sculpture, and the statue of pallas athena in athens and its reproduction in nashville, can never be adequately discussed or researched without accounting for its powerful history. this history enlightens us to the parthenon’s purpose and amply allows us to be in awe of one of humanity’s greatest works. the origin of the parthenon has its roots in the early fifth century and the persian wars. victory at “the battle of marathon [490 b.c.], often considered a turning point in the history of western civilization,” sparked patriotism in athens (camp 47). had the tide of this battle turned, the entire western tradition, as we know it today, would have been drastically different, diminishing the greek’s influence upon modern western culture. celebrating their victory, the greeks constructed temples for the gods. some researchers assert that the temple planned for the acropolis was one of these temples. most modern scholars and archeologists title the acropolis temple the “pre-parthenon” and the “older parthenon,” since it was probably built in appreciation to athena for her protection and victory in defeating the persians at marathon. however, the history and existence of the parthenon can be traced even further to the athenians selecting athena as their goddess over poseidon, a theme in the architecture of the parthenon’s west pediment. before construction was finished on the “pre-parthenon,” the persians invaded once more in 480 b.c., aiming for the heart of athens—the acropolis. they destroyed the city and its sacred structures. deserting the city, the athenians vowed to leave the acropolis in ruins and the “preparthenon” unbuilt as a memorial for those athenians who remained to defend and died in the siege. it should be taken into account that the “hellenes had long followed a code by which the holy places of enemies were respected and spared during the war,” so the greeks were thoroughly shocked at the persians’ actions (connelly 72). in honor of those who sacrificed their life defending the acropolis, they swore: the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 75 . . . the famous oath said to have been sworn by the greeks just before the battle of plataia in 479 [b.c.] [that] included this line: “i will not rebuild a single one of the shrines that the barbarians have destroyed but will allow them to remain for future generations as a memorial of the barbarians’ impiety” [cited from lykourgos’s against leokrates] . . . . its citation in both the literary and the epigraphic records suggests that it was real. (connelly 82, 121) both the unfinished “pre-parthenon” and the oath taken after the persian invasion become important to the history of the parthenon that we know today. with the newly formed delian league and athens as the head of the alliance due to their powerful navy, the poleis could donate money or ships to the war (camp 61). most donated money that amounted in fortunes, setting the stage for the possibility of a newly built acropolis, though this was not in any greeks’ agenda due to the persian war and their oath. with the rise of perikles as the political leader in 461 b.c., athens reached its height of the golden age of greece, a “time when art, theatre, philosophy, and democracy flourished to a degree not seen before and only rarely seen since” (camp 72). after another raid and defeat in egypt in 455 b.c., the tributes were transferred from their original location in delos to the acropolis, causing athens to flourish financially under perikles’ rule. sometime after this, the delian league negotiated the peace of kallias with the persians, ending the necessity for the league. with the treasury of the league in athens and the war over, perikles recommended the tributes be used to reconstruct temples and build various other structures, especially on the acropolis, and the plataian vow be nullified. perikles’ program was not accepted positively, however. many greek citizens saw the use of the delian treasury for the funding of new embellishments in the city questionable (plutarch, pericles 12.1-2). justifying the use of athens’s money, perikles countered that it was given as a means of defense from the war and was therefore a sacrifice from those contributing to athens. he moved to fund such works that would “bring her [athens] everlasting glory” (12.4). thereafter, all such oppositions to his building program, such as his chief opponent thucydides, were ostracized. once approved, the project began under the “general manager and general overseer” pheidias (plutarch, pericles 13.4). the parthenon was one of the first built in the program. since the parthenon was not only a house for athens’s goddess athena, but also doubled as a treasury for the delian funds, the construction’s completion was thought to take multiple 76 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research generations. however, it was completed entirely under the rule of perikles. the parthenon, as well as the nike temple, the erechtheion, and the propylaia on the acropolis, was built during the highest point in athenian history with the means for the best materials, contractors, and artistic skills available (camp 74). beginning construction in 447 b.c., the greeks dedicated the statue of athena, phiedas’s masterpiece, in 438 b.c. and completed the architecture around 433-432 b.c. an architectural masterpiece, the parthenon primarily stands as the house of the goddess pallas athena. when analyzing historical accounts and archeological records, the flourish of the athenian’s power primarily emerges. the parthenon was built for worship, appreciation, and victorious celebration for athena’s protection in the persian war. the parthenon shows the limitless power of athens to the world. though some greeks considered the program to be theft of the treasury, most believed as perikles that they were fortunate and should repay appreciation to the gods. after roman domination in 86 b.c. and the rise of christianity in the later roman empire, the parthenon ceased to be associated with the virgin athena and instead became a house of the virgin mary. it served first as a christian basilica and then became a church later in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries a.d. the use of the parthenon as a christian cathedral continued until it then became a turkish mosque after the turkish invasion in 1456, after the fall of constantinople in 1453. war and conflict thread the entire history of the parthenon, reaching a pinnacle when the venetians attempted to seize the city in 1687-1688. during the attack on the acropolis, a mortar permeated the parthenon’s roof, falling upon the stored ammunitions of the turks. the parthenon, “which had remained largely intact until then,” was extremely damaged (camp 242). the venetian general francesco morosini further damaged the parthenon attempting to remove figures from the west pediment and removing three marble griffins (the trustees of the british museum 8; camp 242). the official use of the parthenon as a mosque was around 1700, but it ceased due to deterioration in 1842 (camp 243). before the removal of the mosque, one of the most debated aspects of the parthenon’s history can be labeled “theft for the sake of preservation.” according to the trustees of the british museum, thomas bruce, lord elgin, created a proposal to endorse the arts (9). when this proposal did not pass in the government, he decided to undertake the program under his own name. his program included journeying to the acropolis with architects and artists to reproduce the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 77 elements of the acropolis’s structures in drawing, measuring, and molding in 1800-1801. upon arriving and beginning their work, they noticed the rate at which the precious sculptures were being stolen and destroyed, and they resolved to get permission to take all sculptures and inscriptions that did not structurally interfere with the works or walls of the citadel (the trustees of the british museum 11). after receiving permission to do so, they had an eventful voyage to britain where elgin disappointingly sold the collection he had taken from greece for thirty-five thousand pounds to the british museum (the trustees of the british museum 16). today, there is a grand dispute over who should have the right to the sculptures and whether or not they were removed illegally from the parthenon. the parthenon would continue to survive in the greek war of independence and eventual independence of greece in 1833, with athens as its capital. the establishment of a solid government greatly contributed to the preservation of the area’s history. salvage excavations and restorations regularly maintain the structures and historical sites such as the parthenon. plutarch best stated the essence of the parthenon and acropolis and prophesied its greatness, glory, and history by stating, “they were created in a short time for all time” (pericles 13.3). truly, the parthenon’s legacy continues, as the full-size replica located in nashville, tennessee, embodies the elements of the ancient parthenon. the nashville parthenon parallels with many of the same themes and historical contexts that surround the athenian’s parthenon. in the fall of 1893, colonel w.c. smith proposed a centennial exposition to celebrate the state of tennessee’s centennial in the union to stimulate the economy from the country’s recent depression and to heighten the state’s patriotism (kreyling et al. 124). once a tennessee exposition approved, major e.c. lewis was elected director general and oversaw the project in 1895. as a part of lewis’s plan, the central location of the exposition would be a fine arts building constructed as a replica of the parthenon. considering that this was a widely accepted plan, the matter of why nashvillians would reconstruct the parthenon and place it at the center of the exposition emerges. as many modern scholars of nashville point out, some nashvillians and most visitors do not understand the significance of the parthenon in nashville and its symbolic nature. nashville is the “athens of the south” (kreyling et al. xi). since the settlement of nashville in 1780 with the cumberland compact between james robertson and john donelson’s settlement parties, education was highly prioritized and valued, especially a classical education usually given in seminaries for ancient studies. what was then a frontier settlement eventually grew to 78 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research a considerable size. at that time, figures as andrew jackson and william strickland played valuable roles in promoting neoclassical architecture in the late eighteenth century. however, “the person most responsible for the specific identification of nashville with classical athens was philip lindsley, president of the [now-defunct] university of nashville from 1825 to 1850” (kreyling et al. xiii). even though speculation exists that the phrase “athens of the west” was used to denote nashville as early as 1840, the phrase emerges on record in 1859, when a student of lindsley wrote of him and his impact on nashville after his death, crediting him with the phrase (kreyling et al. xiv). with the cultural ideals and values in art, community participation, and education—echoing the greeks’ cultural ideals—it is easily understandable to see nashville as an emerging center for culture and the arts. even though education plays a significant role alongside art and architecture in nashville’s heritage, the true relation between athens and nashville runs much deeper. the arts displayed are a manifestation of the culture, and the education is a continuation of it. the culture itself promotes refined civilization, and that is the key feature linking the ambitious nashvillians to the ambitious athenians. not all will agree with president lindsley or me, as j.s. buckingham did in 1841 when he stated: though the farmers of tennessee may have their country studded with classical names . . . it will take some time before their prose compositions will equal those of demosthenes, or their poetry rival that of homer; there being only one feature in which they resemble the athenians—though it must be admitted on much more slender grounds—namely, that of thinking themselves the only polished and refined people on the earth. (kreyling et al. xvi) certainly, he noticed tennessee’s value in classical antiquity, but he prioritized the wrong aspects on his visit from england. tennessee, and more specifically nashville, revolves around the determination to achieve and perfect civilization, all inherited from the greeks—an example also followed by the u.s. founding fathers. when beginning a new nation and a new city, the requirement was obvious—return to the roots of the western tradition and create a new culture and civilization modeled on one of the best the world has seen. since nashville is known as the “athens of the south,” it is merely an act of convention to place a replica of the parthenon at the heart of tennessee’s centennial exposition. receiving drawings (some from the french diplomat jacques carrey in 1674, showing the building thirteen years the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 79 before the explosion in the turkish-venetian conflict), recordings, and architectural records from king george i of greece, the exposition parthenon was underway (kreyling et al 125). just as the periklian program, the exposition parthenon was the first building completed. additionally, no other building at the exposition was built intentionally as an exact replica like the exposition parthenon. it was the world’s only exterior replica of the parthenon with that detail. inside, the exposition parthenon housed an extensive art gallery, reflecting nashville’s artistic culture and american paintings. built of “staff,” an exterior-grade plaster, the exposition parthenon was intended to be a permeant fixture, despite some records that indicate it was meant to be disassembled after the six-month exposition. after the exposition, the exposition parthenon remained, and the board of park commissioners formed in 1901. the board gained the site of the exposition, and centennial park was born. due to the disintegration of the “staff” used to create the exposition parthenon, it was in disrepair many years later, and eventually, the pediment sculptures were removed since they were a safety hazard (kreyling et al. 126). noting positive public response to the structure, plans were arranged to build an even more permanent parthenon. plans were then made to rebuild an accurate parthenon using much of the same reinforcement from the exposition parthenon. therefore, just as the athenians had a “pre-parthenon” with a period of time before the parthenon, so nashvillians had the exposition parthenon before rebuilding a permanent replica of the parthenon. two of the larger differences between the construction of the parthenons, the athenian and the nashvillian, would be the time of completion—as the nashvillian project was delayed due to funds (a problem the athenians did not have), and slavery and war. the civil war can be associated with the nashville project insofar as the intent of increasing patriotism by celebrating tennessee’s centennial anniversary within the union. even though athens and nashville both had a history of slavery, the nashville parthenon was not built by slaves. rather, it was built by paid labor to represent nashville’s cultural leadership before and after the civil war and reconstruction. by recounting the history and analyzing the architecture of the parthenons, i hope to achieve the same as plutarch when he concerned himself with educating the greeks of their history that they were gradually unable to recall. the parthenon and its architecture: masterminds at work the primary framework when considering the parthenon is its function 80 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in the worship of pallas athena; therefore, the architecture and structure has intent in every aspect. acting as a setting and display for the goddess, the structure of the parthenon itself embodies the act of worship to athena. much genius and effort was behind each detail of the parthenon, making it the most unique all of greek structures. while perikles appointed pheidias “general manager and general overseer” of the building program, other architects oversaw construction and are named by historians as “iktinos (named by pausanias, plutarch, and vitruvius), kallikrates (plutarch), and karpion (vitruvius)” (camp 74). plutarch lists the many materials, artists, and labors (plutarch, pericles 12.6-7). with their expertise, the structure was completed in ten years, begun in 447 b.c., and dedicated in 438 b.c., with the remaining sculptures completed in 432-431 b.c. the oblong doric temple with various ionic elements rests four hundred and fifty feet above sea level measuring two hundred and thirty-eight feet long by one hundred and eleven feet wide by sixty-five feet tall, measuring to the peak of the pediments, and including the lower steps. three key elements distinct this temple from all others in greece—the plan, the refinements, and the sculptures. the elaborate plan began with the foundations, and the contractors resolved to place it on the pre-existing platform left from the “pre-parthenon,” the best place to achieve the crowning feature when viewed from the south and west, making it seem to be the most important structure on the acropolis (anderson and spiers 117). to place the parthenon on the acropolis perfectly to achieve the desired effect, the “pre-parthenon” platform was fourteen feet too large at the east end and five and a half feet too large at the south side, but on the north side, eleven more feet were required to place the temple perfectly on the acropolis. the northern additions overlapped a shrine (naiskos) and altar, so after the construction was complete, the small temple-like structure was rebuilt directly above its location, placing it between the seventh and eighth columns from the east end on the northern side with a circular alter not farther away (connelly 90). since the parthenon would be built larger to accommodate the statue of athena, the platform would have to be configured to support such a building, especially considering the need for remodeling due to persian fires that destroyed what little of the “pre-parthenon” that stood. the exterior plan of the parthenon includes forty-six large doric columns with twenty flutes (vertical ridges along the shaft of the column), each averagely measuring thirty-four feet three inches high and a lower diameter of six feet three inches and higher diameter of four feet ten and one half inches (anderson and spiers 193-200). seventeen columns the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 81 stood along the sides with eight at each end (counting the corner columns twice), modifying the normal six column style of the doric order. below the columns, the stereobate, or lower two steps, led to the stylobate, or top step. on the stylobate, the columns’ shafts rose to the capitals of the doric order. the entablature above the capitals and below the pediments includes the architrave just above the capitals and the doric frieze with alternating metopes and triglyphs between the architrave and the pediments. additionally, the ionic frieze runs just inside inner porch around the parthenon. the interior plan of the parthenon consists of four stages, beginning from the east end: the “front porch (pronaos) with six doric columns, the ‘hundred-foot’ cella, or sanctuary proper (hekatompedes naos) [containing forty-six columns and housing the statue of athena]; a separate back chamber, known in antiquity as the parthenon [the treasury room and believed to be the residing place of athena containing four ionic columns]; and a back porch (opisthodomos) [at the west end], also with six doric columns” (camp 75). walking into the two, perfectly balanced, seven and a half ton bronze doors, entering the hekatompedes naos, attention would immediately be drawn to the goddess athena. another one of the other major aspects of the room is the two-tier doric colonnade format with ten columns along the sides and three columns in the back behind the statue of athena, creating a backdrop. the architrave between the two levels of doric columns (also with twenty flutes each) leads the mind’s eye directly to the statue of athena, especially when viewing from the doorway. these optical illusions would have been inherent in the smallest detail to shift all focus to the statue of athena. furthermore, windows were at the upper east end, providing more light to the statue and more than likely increasing the light for the large recessed reflecting pool at the floor in front of her podium. before the later title of “parthenon” referred to the entire structure, it first referred to the smaller back chamber. considered as the residing place of athena—thus, parthenon—it was also used to store the treasury of the city’s wealth. one of the most astounding features of this chamber is the four ionic columns, as the markings on the original foundation depict their placement and base style. the doric order having no base and the corinthian not prominent yet, the ionic columns are quite puzzling despite other ionic elements in the temple. for logical architectural reasoning, the four ionic columns chosen were the best choice for support, since doric columns at that height would have been much too large for the smaller chamber and the two-tiered doric colonnade too excessive for the small space. in order to access the parthenon, or the treasury room, one must 82 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research walk around the entire building and enter the same type of doors at the west end, as no part of the two chambers linked together until renovated as a christian church. much is said about the doric and ionic orders used in the building plan. though the ionic columns in the parthenon were of best architectural choice, the inner ionic frieze was optional. the double columned pronaos and opisthodomos and the bead and reel moldings of the doric frieze crown are also ionic features (connelly 90). noting that the doric style was regarded as masculine due to its strength and bulk, and the ionic as feminine due to its grace and thinner form, i believe that the binary is a large theme in the architecture, as it also possesses the binary theme of civilization conquering barbarianism. the world’s most important icon contains elements advocating the harmony of masculine and feminine ideals. that is, the structure itself testifies to the role of gender in society, as both masculine and feminine ideals hold up the parthenon. the mathematical genius behind the parthenon’s architecture proves itself in the use of the nine to four ratio, also known as the golden ratio or golden proportion. the golden ratio is frequently used due to its visual appeal to the natural human aesthetics. unifying the entire building, the golden ratio in the structure of the parthenon lies most recognizably in the proportion of size between the hekatompedes naos and the parthenon. the size of the hekatompedes naos to the entire size of the structure, the length of the sides of the stylobate to the widths of the ends of the stylobate, the distance between each pair of columns to the diameter of each column at the base, and the width of the end of the stylobate with the height of the structure to the base of the pediments are all examples of the repeating ratio unifying the mathematical architecture. however, the architecture cannot be purely focused on the math behind the form without considering the second unique feature of the temple and more important than the math itself– the refinements to the structure. the parthenon is refined—or mathematically altered—in such a way that there is no straight line in the entire structure. the manipulations of the mathematical form are made possible by the pentelic marble used. giving life to the structure while providing a grand sense of strength, the refinements act as a conventional alteration of the form set up in the golden ratio, arguably representing beauty of the imperfect. manipulating this form, “the parthenon tips, slants, recedes, inclines, and bows, all the while transmitting an overwhelming sense of harmony and balance” (connelly 94). not only is this harmony and balance for structural and visual purposes, it embodies the essence of the goddess athena’s character in her the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 83 wisdom and strategy. even though observers might be unaware of the refinements, mathematical conventions, and methods used, they are nevertheless “captivated by them” as ernest flagg comments (qtd. in connelly 95). additionally, professor percy gardner states: the whole building is constructed, so to speak, on a subjective rather than an objective basis; it is intended not to be mathematically accurate, but to be adapted to the eye of the spectator. to the eye a curve is a more pleasing form than a straight line, and the deviations from rigid correctness serve to give a character of purpose, almost of life, to the solid marble construction. (qtd. in anderson and spiers 119) first noted and documented by cockerell (1810), donaldson (1818), and hoffer and pennethorne (1836-1837) and measured by penrose in 1846, the refinements and their more recent study reveal the entire structure’s focus to athena. beginning from the exterior and moving in towards athena, the stylobate bows up at the middle roughly over two and a half inches in the center of the ends’ stylobate and bows up to roughly four inches for the sides’ stylobate with similar measurements mirrored in the base of the pediments and architraves. upon ascending these steps, the greek architects constructed the stereobate and stylobate at such a size and angle so that visitors must lift their legs at just the proportionate angle, shifting their weight as they lean forward to lift their body, causing them to bow to athena merely in their ascent to her temple. more “refined” mathematics exist in the columns, not just at the top of the stylobate but on the pronaos and opisthodomos and in the hekatompedes naos and parthenon. slightly curving outward at a convex curve up the shaft, the columns swell outward (an effect known as entasis) and do not appear equally distanced from one another. in addition, the columns at the corners are closer spaced to the other columns and are one-fortieth larger in diameter. all columns in the entire plan actually tilt inwards toward the center of the building measured at roughly two and five-eighth inches, which, if continued until an apex, would result in a pyramidal image rising just under a mile and a half in the sky for the side columns and almost three miles in the sky for the end columns, making the building seem taller and grander than it actually is (anderson and spiers 120; kreyling et al. 129). walking into the hekatompedes naos, the patterns of the columns are uniquely repeated with the tilt and entasis, while the mind’s eye follows 84 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the architrave between the tiered columns down to the statue of athena. though these are the more obvious refinements in the structure, each element, including the metopes and triglyphs, the pediment sculptures, and other various features, all repeat the alteration of mathematics, causing the building to naturally be the most iconic and beautiful building of all time due to its pleasing appearance to the eye. the level of accuracy in stone carving was a fine skill, and as manolis korres points out, one that . . . would be impossible today to duplicate the perfectly constructed temple in the astounding time of eight years. this remains true even if gasoline-powered vehicles replaced animal-drawn wagons, or electric cranes were used instead of manually operated ones. . . . the greatest possible demands of refinement and accuracy occur during the final stages, in the preparation of each block, of each column, of each sculpted figure. (7-8) throughout the ages after its construction, the parthenon received many alterations by dominating groups with the additions of walls and doorways and the majority of the structure was blown out. however, we can still measure and appreciate the mathematics and refinements that make the parthenon so appealing to us. the last major difference between the other temples and the parthenon is the sculpture. the parthenon has more sculpture and embellishment than any other greek temple. excluding the statue of athena, there are three groups of sculpture—the doric frieze, consisting of an alternating pattern of metopes and triglyphs; the continuous ionic frieze; and the largerthan-life pediment sculptures. under pheidias, probably ninety sculptors worked on the parthenon’s embellishments. beginning with the doric frieze, there are fourteen metopes on each end and thirty-two on each side with a triglyph in between each metope. each handcrafted metope was probably completed individually on the ground and then raised into position. each end and side represents a different narrative. the east end depicts the gods fighting giants; the south side depicts greeks, more specifically the lapiths from northern greece, fighting centaurs; the west end depicts the greeks fighting the amazons; and the north side depicts the greeks fighting the trojans. the theme of civilization triumphing barbarianism weaves into the doric frieze and thematically ties the frieze to athena, as the goddess of wisdom and rationality. recalling the history of the parthenon, the christians removed and defaced most of the east, north, and south, while others have been lost to time, so the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 85 we rely on historical records regarding their content. the british museum possesses fifteen from the south side—the first eight from the western end of the south side and the last seven to the eastern end of the south side (trustees of the british museum 38). the ionic frieze just inside the outer columns runs five hundred and twenty-five feet around the entire structure, and its theme celebrates the athenians and their panathenaea celebration of the goddess. the position of the frieze, sculpted in place, is actually hardly seen by observers due to its recessed position, revealing the sculptors intended audience—the gods. the various elements sculpted for appreciation by human spectators were also all constructed in worship of athena. the frieze begins at the southwestern corner and runs around the structure in both directions with detailed figures in procession—equestrians, chariots, elders, musicians, pitcher bearers, tray bearers, victims, maidens of the peplos, marshals, magistrates, deities, and the presentation of the peplos to athena directly above the doorway to the hekatompedes naos, respectively (trustees of the british museum 22). upon lord elgin’s visit to the parthenon, this frieze was cast as well, and this cast resides in the british museum. finally, the pediment sculptures focus on athena in her birth on the east end pediment and her triumph over poseidon for athens on the west end pediment. it is important to associate the rising of the sun in the east with the birth of athena depicted on the east pediment, so that, with each rise of the sun, athena is reborn and crowned victorious. much dispute over identifying the gods in the pediments exists for many of the figures. not much historical literature and records exist on the pediment sculptures other than those that merely describe the narrative content of the two pediments and provide a brief description of placement of certain figures. however, due to developing research, educated speculations give us a clearer knowledge of the majority. when the board of park commissioners formed in 1901, the exposition grounds were transformed into what we know today as centennial park. in 1920, a project from the board planned a permanent reproduction of the parthenon and chose russell hart as the lead architect. the permanent rebuild would include a more accurate exterior and an exact interior, since the interior housed only visual art at the exposition. more research would have to be conducted and a permanent material discovered, since marble was far too expensive, an issue the greeks never faced. hart decided the best material was reinforced concrete, the latest development in materials, and covered it with “newly patented concrete aggregate formulated by the john early studio in washington, d.c.,” which would be colored 86 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research to appear as marble and allow for red and blue trim (kreyling et al. 127). needing assistance with his research, hart hired william bell dinsmoor, “the foremost authority on ancient architecture” (kreyling et al. 127-128). the exterior of the parthenon was completed in 1925, and the interior was completed in 1931. in every detail of the plan, the refinements, and the sculptures, the nashville parthenon is an extremely close replica. as dinsmoor stated, “while there are several more or less faithful modern replicas of the exterior of the parthenon, the only reproduction of the interior at full size is that which i designed in 1927 for the parthenon in nashville, tennessee” (qtd. in kreyling et al. 128). needing further help in sculpting and designing, hart hired george zolnay, who sculpted the pediments on the exposition parthenon, to recreate the metopes, while hiring belle kinney and leopold scholz to recreate the east and west pediments. both belle kinney and leopold scholz teamed with russell hart later to create the bronze doors (paine et al. 28). once created, the large doors were brought into the nashvillian parthenon on ice because of their weight and placed on the hinges. the ice melted, and the seven and a half ton doors with lion medallions and serpent door handles were mounted accurately. additionally, the tilt and entasis of the columns, the convex curves in the stylobate, and all other refinements and features are reproduced accurately. even though completed in roughly the same period as the athenian parthenon, the nashvillian parthenon used different materials, already had templates and casts, and, when opened in 1931 a.d., most importantly lacked the statue of athena and the ionic frieze. another parallel in the structural history between the athenian parthenon and the nashvillian parthenon is that the nashville parthenon had connections to christianity from 1954-1967a.d. true nashvillians would agree that a discussion of the parthenon in centennial park is unsatisfactory and incomplete without the christmas tradition of the harvey nativity scene, owned by harvey’s department store. two hundred and eighty feet long by seventy-five feet wide, glossed with multicolored lights, music, and narrative of the christmas story, the nativity scene decorated the lawn next to the parthenon. many local families have had life-long memories of visiting “the main attraction in nashville at christmastime” (judkins). however, in 1968, the nativity was damaged beyond what the harvey’s department store could afford to repair, so the collection was bought by a cincinnati shopping center. to the dismay of nashvillians by word through the nashville banner, the cincinnati shopping center displayed the collection for two years before disposing of the set. in 1990, minor renovations were required to maintain the sculptures the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 87 and the structure, including the lower level office additions, the elevator, gift shop, and other similar additions in 1988-1989. with these renovations complete ten years later, the parthenon was ready to celebrate the centennial of the board of park commissioners in 2001 (paine et al. 40-42). due to an accurate replication, entering the nashville parthenon and standing at the doors of the hekatompedes naos, the same visual effect is achieved by the exact replica of measurements from the original—the entire structure’s focus on athena. the parthenon and athena: the centerpiece and its meaning the most important aspect of the entire parthenon is not the architectural features or the magnificent outer sculptures; it is the statue of pallas athena in the hekatompedes naos. the heart of the parthenon, the statue of athena, pheidias’s chief masterpiece, is the stunning culmination of every aspect the building, as presented. unfortunately, not a lot of information exists about the original sculpture of athena. pausanias describes: the statue itself is made of ivory and gold [chryselephantine]. on the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the sphinx . . . and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. . . . the statue of athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of medusa is worked in ivory. she holds a statue of victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. the serpent would be erichthonius. on the pedestal is the birth of pandora in relief. [pausanias continues to describe the pandora relief with a hero and emperor present in the relief.] (24.5-7) with a core of a wooden or metal armature and brace, athena stood over forty feet high in the hekatompedes naos holding a six-foot nike in her right hand, both ivory-skinned and adorned in golden clothing with precious stones for eyes. many depictions of a similar image are found around the same time and later in the roman empire than can allude to what she might have looked like. the statue of athena went missing sometime between the first and third century a.d., though most scholars assert that she was removed or destroyed in the fire around the third century a.d., possibly as a result of the herulian invasion of athens (camp 223). this theory is supported by pausanias’s record, as he is writing in the second century a.d. using present tense to describe the statue of athena within the parthenon. 88 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research concerning the serpent, erichthonius symbolizes the image of the “great goddess” figure throughout classical mythology. athena’s association with the serpent at her feet is no coincidence but a continuation of this greek idea. here the serpent is believed to symbolize the athenians’ protection and origin with athena. the role of women in mythology repeats in the birth of pandora relief, the head of medusa, the sphinx, and the masculine doric order and the feminine ionic order—another example that all elements are combined in the statue of athena, as she becomes the center and culmination of all ideas introduced in the architecture and sculpture. regarding athena’s shield, some myths account the placement of medusa’s head on her outer shield, so it is also possible medusa’s head might have reoccurred there. further information concerning the nature of the statue and her shield lies with plutarch when discussing the trial of pheidias, who was charged with heretical acts of placing his and perikles image with the gods in the shield: but the reputation of his works nevertheless brought a burden of jealous hatred upon pheidias, and especially the fact that when he wrought the battle of amazons on the shield of the goddess, he carved out a figure that suggested himself as a bald old man lifting on high a stone with both hands, and also inserted a very fine likeness of pericles fighting with an amazon. and the attitude of the hand, which holds out a spear in front of the face of pericles, is cunningly contrived as it were with a desire to conceal the resemblance, which is, however, plain to be seen on either side. (pericles 31.4) in pericles 31.5, plutarch says that pheidias was led away to prison, where he later died of sickness, though some believe enemies of perikles poisoned him. on the outside and inside of her shield, the civilization conquering barbarianism theme is repeated in closer association with athena, unifying this theme of the parthenon with the statue of athena and ultimately athena herself. as the “great goddess” embodies life, death, and rebirth, so athena is reborn in nashville, tennessee, despite her absence from the parthenon for many centuries. after the nashvillian parthenon’s opening in may 1931, belle kinney and leopold scholz returned and approached the board of park commissioners with plans to complete the structure with the missing ionic frieze and sculpture of athena. the finances were not available, though the miniature four-foot sculpture they presented lived in the parthenon thereafter. thirty years later, “sometime in the late 1960s a the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 89 donation box appeared next to belle kinney’s model in the middle of the parthenon. school children, visitors, and nashvillians put their nickels, dimes, and dollar bills in that box over the next twelve years” (kreyling et al. 133). thirty thousand dollars were raised by 1982, enough to begin the program. after emerging victorious in the sculpting competition for the position in the program, twenty-six year old alan lequire began researching. he speculated a period of eighteen months for the project; however, it took over seven years (kreyling et al. 133). unveiling the sculpture in may 1990, athena was complete with the pedestal, the statue of nike, the spear, the shield, and the serpent. athena and nike were later glided with twenty-three and three quarter karat gold in 2002, with lequire and master guilder lou reed (paine et al. 45). also during this time, the skin was painted to resemble ivory and the inside of her shield to depict the battle of the gods and giants. interpreting his research to the best of his ability, alan lequire received much guidance to create the most accurate replica of a statue that had not existed in over seventeen hundred years. coming to conclusions such as the leg-weight shift position, similar to the contrapposto position, and analyzing the different effects of weight shift, he further discovered that a simple wooden beam placed through athena’s arm could easily bear the weight of the six-foot nike. following dinsmoor’s measurements and speculations, lequire’s athena measures forty-one feet and ten inches tall. after completing drafts of his athena, he also had to plan a fifteen-foot shield with thirty-one figures in the amazon relief, twenty-one figures on the pedestal for the birth of pandora, and a thirty-foot serpent (lequire 143). taking some liberty in his design, lequire inherited the spirit of pheidias by creating perspective distortions and culminating themes introduced in the architecture. first, lequire created larger proportions such as her slightly larger head while her upper body decreases in proportion as her figure nears the base, so that her arms would almost touch her knees if placed at her side. these visual alterations, when viewed from below, make athena look equal in proportion as she rises to the ceiling of the hekatompedes naos. noting the design of the architrave between the twotiered columns and its effect on the mind’s eye, he also places athena’s right hand holding nike at the same level intensifying that focus on athena and the crowning of her victory. second, lequire ties in the civilization conquering barbarianism theme and the “great goddess” theme in his reliefs and embellishments on athena. on the exterior of athena’s shield, lequire depicts the famous 90 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research battle between the greeks and amazons, including pheidias and perikles. on the interior of her shield, he recreated the battle between the gods and the giants. lastly, on her sandals, he depicts the battle between the lapiths and the centaurs. all three recreate the metopes, excluding the greeks battle with the trojans, and establish the binary theme of civilization triumphing barbarianism with athena. furthermore, as athena’s belt and adornment on her breastplate and wrists, lequire sculpts serpents. as the symbol of the “great goddess” figure, the serpents parallel those from the bronze door handles and erichthonius by her side. lastly, officially modeling himself after pheidias despite his trial and persecution, lequire created pandora’s birth scene with himself in the relief with other friends, family, and others involved in recreating athena. adding a unique american touch, lequire also transformed a mcdonald’s flagpole into the mighty spear of the goddess, another symbol of her american rebirth. though he does not consider his educated interpretation to be faultless, he thinks that his style might bear some resemblance to pheidias. he also considers athena to be a “lady liberty, a living symbol of justice and democracy” (lequire 144). comparing athena to the parthenon like a kernel to a shell, he thinks that he has given meaning and spirit to the monument (lequire 144). transformed from a focus of worship, athena’s rebirth in nashville represents the continuation of a skilled, determined culture now known as the “athens of the south.” a recapitulation one of the most iconic structures of all time, the parthenon represents the epitome of civilization. journeying through its powerful history, analyzing the structural form, and examining the heart of the parthenon, pallas athena, through the athenian and nashvillian parthenons, this cultural civilization reaches its height in the golden age of athens, greece, declines, and is reborn in nashville, tennessee. carrying the connotations of the greeks’ culture and civilization in the athenian parthenon, the nashvillian parthenon transforms from a temple of worship to an icon of a refined culture—the “athens of the south.” though many argue that the title of “athens of the south” is due to nashville’s history of classical education, i further argue that the education and the ideal for art are the representations of culture. this culture is defined by its determination to achieve a refined, civil society and the best civilization possible by means of democracy. as the original parthenon carried these political connotations, so does the replica in nashville. the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 91 many other parallels include the historical building process, the celebration of patriotism, the display of power, the themes of civilization conquering barbarianism, and, most importantly, the cycle of the “great goddess,” as classical greek culture is reborn in nashville. the parthenon represents in every measurement and detail the athena within, and the athena within carries meaning that surpasses all other cultural achievements. the parthenon does not merely exist to be appreciated and studied as a representation of an ancient people; it exists as a representation of today, while modelling a future of tomorrow. words cannot adequately capture the experience of walking among the large columns, touching the large bronze doors, enjoying a marionette production of socrates’ “allegory of the cave” on a sunday afternoon in the parthenon, and gazing awestruck at alan lequire’s interpretation of the work of pheidias due to the recreated optical refinements. i urge all to experience the parthenon in nashville physically. even though greece might be on the opposite side of the globe from nashville and the ancient culture written in history, nashvillians can look within local culture and find that greek culture is not as distant as first thought. absorbing the nashville replica of the parthenon will be an experience one will never forget and will cause one to examine oneself and nashvillian culture in an entirely new way. we must not forget our roots; we must not forget what we have inherited and that which is reborn and refined in each of us, dwelling in our core as athena dwells in the parthenon. just as the parthenon and the statue of athena was “created in a short time for all time” (plutarch, pericles 13.3), the underlying civilized culture, “intellectual, pure, progressive, and just, constantly at war with the opposing forces of barbarianism” (kreyling et al. 135), is reborn in us. therefore, as the sun breaches the horizon once more and shines down upon us, it births a refined cultural identity that transcends yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 92 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research works cited anderson, william j., and r. phené spiers. the architecture of ancient greece: an account of its historic development. rev. and rewrit. william bell dinsmoor. london: b.t. batsford, 1927. print. beard, mary. the parthenon. cambridge: harvard up, 2002. print. camp, john m. the archaeology of athens. new haven: yale up, 2001. print. connelly, joan breton. the parthenon enigma. new york: alfred a. knopf, 2014. print. harris, stephen l., and gloria platzner. classical mythology: images & insights. 6th ed. sacramento: california state up, 2012. print. jefferson, thomas. “notes on the state of virginia.” the norton anthology of american literature: volume a: beginnings to 1820. ed. nina baym. new york: norton, 2012. 668-677. print. judkins, gary floyd. personal interview. 23 oct. 2014. korres, manolis. the stones of the parthenon. los angeles: j. paul getty museum, 2000. print. kreyling, christine, wesley paine, charles w. waterfield, jr., and susan ford wiltshire. classical nashville: athens of the south. nashville: vanderbilt up, 1996. print. lequire, alan. “athena parthenos: the re-creation in nashville.” kreyling, christine, wesley paine, charles w. waterfield, jr., and susan ford wiltshire. classical nashville: athens of the south. nashville: vanderbilt up, 1996. 137-144. print. paine, wesley, laruen bufferd, laura carrillo, timothy cartmell, brenna cothran, dee gee lester, karen riley, susan shockley, amanda tackett, linda vanlandingham, and chester wade. the parthenon. nashville: the parthenon staff, 2014. print. pausanias. description of greece book i: attica. trans. w.h.s. jones. the loeb classical library: pausanias. vol. 1. cambridge: harvard up, 1992. 2-243. print. plutarch. pericles. trans. bernadontte perrin. the loeb classical library: the parthenon: yesterday, today, and tomorrow middle tennessee state university 93 plutarch’s lives. vol. 3. cambridge: harvard up, 1984. 2-115. print. ---. roman lives: a selection of eight roman lives. ed. philip a. stadter and robin waterfield. oxford: oxford up, 1999. ebook collection (ebscohost). web. 4 apr. 2016. spring, glenn, and jere hutcheson. musical form and analysis: time, pattern, proportion. long grove: waveland press, 1995. print. the trustees of the british museum. a historical guide to the sculptures of the parthenon. london: balding and mansell, 1971. print. selected list of works consulted carpenter, rhys. the architects of the parthenon. baltimore: penguin, 1970. print. curlee, lynn. parthenon. new york: simon & shuster, 2004. print. green, peter. the shadow of the parthenon. berkley and los angeles: u of california p, 1972. print. green, peter and eds. of the newsweek book division. the parthenon. new york: newsweek, 1978. print. tournikiotis, panayotis, gen. ed. the parthenon and its impact in modern times. athens: melissa publishing, 1994. print. 94 spring 2016 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 69 she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance jonathan bradley abstract female writers of the southern renaissance had to deal with a number of oppressive forces, encapsulated in the idea of “sacred womanhood.” the way many of these women writers depicted this struggle parallels the struggle for authentic self-hood as proposed by existentialism, and by using the philosophy to inform the events of various novels from writers, such as zora neal hurston, carson mccullers, kate chopin, and ellen glasgow, the actions and words of the characters can be more fully understood. 70 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the concept of objectification has been researched in academia from many different viewpoints, most notably feminist theory. searching for a way to understand better how gender issues have affected society and continue to persist today, feminists focus on objectification as one of the means of control enacted by men. feminists, however, are not the only scholars to examine the process of objectification in-depth. existentialist philosophers such as albert camus, søren kierkegaard, jean-paul sartre, martin heidegger, and simone de beauvoir have also studied how objectification affects the human mind and leads to a life of passivity, and attempt to illustrate how people deal with this problem and ultimately come to an awakening in the form of an authentic existence. this existential awakening parallels the rebirth women experience as they begin to fight back against notions of patriarchy and search for a new identity within a male-dominated culture. considering that the southern renaissance1 was a time when women were finding themselves more capable of speaking out against an unjust system and rejecting ideas of southern tradition, it is not surprising that many women writers of the time period incorporate the theme of autonomous existence into their works. by reading the works of southern women writers such as kate chopin, ellen glasgow, lillian smith, zora neale hurston, and carson mccullers alongside the works of existentialist philosophers, a new perspective is possible—one in which the explanations provided by the philosophers for a person’s behavior inform the actions of the characters in the literary works and provide a fuller understanding of the characters’ motives. before exploring the interrelationship between the problems facing southern women and existentialist philosophy, it is important to outline the defining traits of “sacred womanhood” that many women writers of the southern renaissance were trying to expose or (in some cases) break down. in dixie’s diadem, anne goodwyn jones presents some of the adjectives meant to describe the southern woman: “leisure, passivity, dependence, sexual purity, submission, ignorance” (28). while intended to describe the perfect southern woman, these terms also happen to describe what existentialists call an inauthentic existence. a life of “leisure” would generally conflict with the “essential projects” a person should work toward to find personal fulfillment (barrett 225, italics in original). “passivity” is a problem for all existentialists because an authentic existence requires a person to take an active role in deciding who he or she intends to be, to value, and to do. “dependence” leads to passivity and contradicts the life of self-reliance promoted by the philosophy. “sexual purity,” that is, virginity for unmarried women and fidelity for married or widowed women, demands a person reject pursuing someone for whom they likely feel a true passion. in addition, the tenets of sexual purity are based in religious morality, which many existentialists rejected outright. all of the philosophers agree that “submission,” particularly submission to the will or order of society, is the greatest injustice one can do to the self. finally, “ignorance,” 1 this literary movement beginning in the south concerned itself mostly with the conflict between the “old” pre-civil war south and the post-restoration south. although scholars such as carol manning contest the years encompassed by the literary movement, arguing that the current dates do not acknowledge the contribution of many women writers working less than a generation before, the movement is generally considered to have occurred in the 1920s and 30s. she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 71 especially when one wishes to be educated, is an act of passivity and an abandoning of one’s volitions. considering that the ideal state of sacred womanhood parallels so closely the inauthentic existence described by existentialists, it follows that women characters attempting to escape the bonds of sacred womanhood share many experiences with those struggling toward the authentic existence described by existentialist philosophers.2 while critics in southern american studies have written about existential themes, they have almost solely focused on the works of southern male writers such as faulkner to the exclusion of canonical women writers. while a large body of research does not yet exist on the subject, scholars looking at women writers of the same time period have still made connections with existentialism. jones argues that kate chopin, like many other women writers of the time period, “seeks to find and articulate her individual voice in the face of terrible pressure toward uniformity, by seeking and speaking with the authority of her experience” (40). this struggle to find “individual voice” has its counterpart in existential philosophy; for both feminist and existential thought, the enemy is the same: “uniformity.” even the means for overcoming this problem is the same from both perspectives in that both require the “authority” of one’s own experiences. although she does not explicitly make the connection, jones even enters the debate concerning to what degree women can be held accountable for not pursuing an authentic existence while being oppressed, stating, “as long as those feelings [desiring selfhood] and perceptions remained limited to the woman’s private world, they could have little significant effect on the man’s public world” (37). jones acknowledges how little power women had in affecting “man’s public world,” but she still implies that writing fiction was a way to begin enacting change, therefore not completely excusing passivity as inevitable. in broader terms, jones argues that forms of patriarchy “[a]ll deny to women authentic selfhood,” which makes a woman’s struggle twofold—a struggle for existential selfhood and a woman’s selfhood of the kind described by de beauvoir. both require the woman to stand against patriarchy, against societal norms, and against all that would force her to conform to something other than what she desires to be. 2 studying women’s writing through an existentialist lens, however, a philosophy (like most) dominated by male writers, is itself problematic. critics such as michele doeuff, argue that existentialism does not accurately reflect a feminine struggle because sartre constructs certain metaphors that are meant to illustrate his concept of “nothingness,” which doeuff feels are sexist in that they present a world in which one must “penetrate” and “fill holes.” she also points out that while sartre argues that an inauthentic existence is the product of one’s choosing not to pursue his or her own life, he does not allow for people who cannot choose because of social circumstances and therefore undermines what women have gone through historically. doeuff even dismisses the work of simone de beauvoir, who identified herself as both an existentialist and feminist, because doeuff maintains that de beauvoir’s work, the second sex, is an attempt to further sartrian ideas in a different framework. however, doeuff ’s depiction of de beauvoir as presenting a feminine-masked version of sartre’s philosophy is by no means the common consensus. karen vintges opposes doeuff ’s argument: “feminists who thought the second sex merely implies the necessity for women to become identical to men severely criticized it. closer scrutiny of the text discloses that its aim is exactly the opposite, namely to make women free to create new situations, new cultural meanings, and new ways of experiencing life as a woman” (141). vintges interprets de beauvoir’s work as containing a different perspective than sartre’s, one that allows for a woman’s unique experiences while still endorsing many of the same tenets common in existentialist philosophy. 72 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research it is precisely this multi-faceted battle that women writers of the southern renaissance try to articulate in their fiction. in order fully to understand the mindset created by the tenets of sacred womanhood, one must turn to lillian smith’s killers of the dream. the novel, part philosophical musing, part allegory about southern tradition, attempts to expose the social and political structure of the american south and how it affects the women raised in such a system. smith defines sacred womanhood, which is designed not only to control how women act but also specifically how they think of themselves and their role in southern tradition. a powerful set of mannerisms and rules for living in the south, sacred womanhood requires women to conform or be ostracized for their defiance, and many women ultimately internalize its conventions. smith states, “the majority of southern women convinced themselves that god had ordained that they be deprived of pleasure, and meekly stuffed their hollowness with piety, trying to believe the tightness they felt was hunger satisfied” (141). the inability to pursue pleasure or desires because of social restrictions has its counterpart in existentialism; sacred womanhood would be a form of the “they,” or the social mass that promotes definitions of one’s existence. like the life of adherence to sacred womanhood, the inauthentic life of existentialism occurs when one “subscribes to the mores of his [or her] society without even questioning the ultimate ‘why’ of such conformity” (tulloch 41, original emphasis). the unquestioning mind is a problem for existentialists, but it is an even greater barrier for women of the south searching for selfhood because as smith and others note, sacred womanhood requires ignorance from women (142). therefore, questioning the circumstances of her life was taboo for a woman in this timeframe and even more difficult to overcome than it would be for a man. one of the early women writers presenting characters trying to escape from underneath the veil of sacred womanhood is kate chopin. although she was writing before the southern renaissance’s traditional beginnings, critics such as carol manning argue that chopin’s themes and the male-bias of those dating literary movements justify her inclusion (xvii). the awakening is the story of edna pontellier’s search for authentic selfhood. by looking at the novel with existentialism in mind, some of the more ambiguous actions become clearer. edna begins the novel in the throes of what existentialists call an inauthentic existence, in which she is beginning to understand herself: “an indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish” (6). the “oppression” she feels is the need to conform to what mr. pontellier later refers to as “les convenances;” because those conventions do not reflect who she desires to be, they seem “unfamiliar” to her (51). edna identifies that she “was not a mother-woman” or one of the women “who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals” (8). by identifying herself as such, edna reveals that she wishes to escape her inauthentic life dominated by social norms for what a woman should be and pursue a more fulfilling existence, one in which she would not have to “efface” her individuality and can become the “the situated, sensitive self ” de beauvoir desires for women (vintges 136). other characters she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 73 in the novel embody certain ideals that help edna come to terms with the warring factions in her life. in particular, robert takes on the role opposite edna’s husband as someone willing to acknowledge her freedom and newfound selfhood, which is why she develops a passion for him. existentially speaking, one of the most important events in edna and robert’s relationship happens when the two are sitting alone together. robert “seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in silence. neither did mrs. pontellier speak. no multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire” (30). the scene is seemingly unremarkable, but it takes on greater meaning when viewed through the lens of existentialism. in heidegger’s terms, to keep silent robert and edna “must have something to say;” they must each be prepared to offer “an authentic and rich disclosedness of ” themselves. (208). through their silent moment together, edna and robert express more than they could have through conversation, a fact the narrator acknowledges. with this in mind, edna’s passion for robert later in the book makes sense since he is the first person honestly to communicate with her, the first actually to experience the “authentic” and “rich disclosedness” of her selfhood instead of stifling it with meaningless small talk. in contrast to her scene with robert, edna also experiences a quiet evening with her husband, though the circumstances here are very different. mr. pontellier does not communicate authentically with his wife because he has nothing to offer her—he simply wishes to establish his dominance over her. after ordering her to come inside (an order she refuses to follow), mr. pontellier proceeds to remain outside in order to show that he has not submitted to her demand that he “go to bed,” that somehow he wished to stay outside the whole time. he does not remain outside with his wife because he enjoys her company and desires to spend time with her as robert does. instead, he makes a statement about who is in charge. this power play is solidified by the fact that once edna decides to go back inside, mr. pontellier remains outside, as if to prove he can outlast her in a battle of wills (32). because robert, unlike mr. pontellier, is willing to acknowledge edna’s selfhood, robert comes to represent the different life edna desires. midway through the novel, while edna is “casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world” (57), she seeks out solitude, which may not seem that important until viewed through existentialism. edna “found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested” (58). edna searches for solitude to escape objectification because as sartre states, “[b]y the mere appearance of the other, i am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as on an object, for it is as an object that i appear to the other” (being and nothingness 198). the existentialists argue that humans view each other as objects because they can never truly understand one another. according to sartre, people are unlike objects in that they can change and have the capacity to become something new at any moment. since the “other” is unable to comprehend this change and possibilities for the future, it is easier to view a person as fixed in time and form, just like common household objects. women during the southern renaissance had an even 74 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research greater struggle with this issue because although men could not know the changes the “other” might go through, they were still acknowledged as having a potential for change. for the most part, women were given no such allowance, and men (and other women) had a tendency to view women as a passive entity ready to be used, the same way a hammer rests on the table until someone needs to drive a nail. consequently, when edna moves out of her husband’s house and into her own, she attempts to escape all the people “passing judgment” on her, forming her into an object, and ultimately making her consider herself an object as well. in her solitude void of distracting “others,” she is able to focus on her autonomous self, which she manifests through her art. after coming to terms with authentic selfhood, she can then return to society and not completely lose sight of herself in the crowd, in the “they.” while edna makes some great steps in the right direction, her fall is eventually brought about by madam ratignolle—chopin’s embodiment of sacred womanhood. edna’s implied suicide at the end of the novel is the product of her realization that she cannot escape her circumstances and remain in this new authentic life she created for herself. the triggering event for the suicide is ratignolle’s plea after giving birth: “‘think of the children, edna. oh[,] think of the children! remember them!’” (111). ratignolle’s words help edna understand that her actions—particularly those she plans to pursue in her new life—have an effect on others, namely her children. in the next scene, edna tells doctor mandelet, “[b]ut i don’t want anything but my own way. that is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others—but no matter—still, i should want to trample upon the little lives” (112). while edna has no qualms causing problems for her husband, she does not feel comfortable letting her children see the negative effects that will likely come of her authentic life of freedom, in which she plans to begin an affair with robert. this desire not to “trample” the lives of her children is especially relevant in contrast with edna’s statements about motherhood earlier in the novel: “i would give up the unessential; i would give my money, i would give my life for my children; but i wouldn’t give myself ’” (47). in this exchange, edna claims she is willing to give her “life,” the physical act of being alive, for her children but not her “self,” which translates to that autonomy she desires. this decree poses a serious dilemma for edna at the end of the novel: she does not want to give up her authentic life but at the same time cannot negotiate keeping it without having a negative backlash that will affect her children. the only other option for edna is to give up the “unessential”—her physical life—in order to maintain autonomy and not trample her children’s lives. her final choice to take her own life accomplishes her goal of not giving up her autonomy, but suicide is also, as camus states, a “confessing that life it too much for you or that you do not understand it” (497). through her suicide, edna concedes that she can find no answer to her dilemma—that she cannot “understand it.” her inability to reconcile the pressure of sacred womanhood with a search for freedom illustrates the magnitude of what women living in the south had to contend with during this period. like kate chopin, ellen glasgow’s the sheltered life reveals a young woman’s struggle for authentic selfhood. although glasgow’s jenny blair has a much different experience she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 75 than edna, jenny blair’s actions are still marked by existentialist themes. from the beginning of the novel, the central concern is identified as jenny blair’s “discovering her hidden self,” which she articulates, “‘i am this and not that’” (3). even as a child, jenny blair starts to comprehend the difference between herself and the “other,” that she is a separate, sole entity. while jenny blair is starting her development earlier in the novel, the forces she will have to struggle with are present here as well. discussing little women, a book jenny blair is reading, her mother tells her, “i remember i tried to form my character on meg—or it may have been jo” (7). mrs. archbald’s declaration that she tried to live her life as a character in a book and the not so subtle implication that jenny blair should consider doing the same is both a statement about the social norms expected of women and a form of kierkegaard’s despair: “the lowest of all: in despair to will to be someone else, to wish for a new self ” (52-53). to desire to live one’s life as someone else, whether they be fictional or real, is a form of inauthentic existence because one can never truly accomplish this, and in pursuing this goal, one ignores his or her own unique experience. however, despite her mother’s encouragement, jenny blair does not want to live as meg, jo, or anyone else and fall into a life of despair. as a result, from a young age jenny blair feels the need to reaffirm her identity, which she does by repeating a mantra throughout the novel: “‘i’m alive, alive, alive, and i’m jenny blair archbald’” (3). this technique works for jenny blair while she is still a child, but as she starts to get older and begins to understand more about the lives of the people around her, she realizes that maintaining her selfhood requires more than a few words spoken in times of self-doubt. later in life, jenny blair begins to understand that the people closest to her, such as her mother and mrs. birdsong, have all been severely affected by southern tradition and the kind of falsified selves it produces. during a seemingly unimportant moment— dressing for a party—mrs. archbald says something that causes jenny blair to see beyond her façade that she has put up to appease sacred womanhood. jenny blair reacts by saying, “oh, mamma! oh, mamma, i’ve never seen you before!” (69). mrs. archbald dismisses the scene as the eccentric nature of a young girl, but the moment is important for jenny blair because she feels as though, in a moment, her mother becomes a completely new person. the occurrence that triggers this reaction is mrs. archbald’s confiding that she does not wish to go to a party, which goes against sacred womanhood because women were expected to socialize in this era. jenny blair also comes across a more powerful image of the effects of southern tradition in the form of mrs. birdsong, who toward the latter half of the novel is dying of “the long pretense of her life” (153). in the hospital, mrs. birdsong tells jenny blair that “‘you do take trouble if you have a reputation to keep up, and no fame on earth is so exacting as a reputation for beauty. [. . .] i sometimes think there is nothing so terrible for a woman [. . .] as to be loved for her beauty’” (209). mrs. birdsong’s admission is an expression of sartre’s claim that sexual attraction is one of the ways humans go about constructing someone as “other”: “i desire a human being, not an insect or a mollusk, and i desire him (or her) as he is and as i am in situation in the world and as he is an other for me and as i am an other for him” (being and nothingness 360). therefore mrs. birdsong is 76 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research pointing out that valuing a woman for her beauty, as dictated by sacred womanhood, only sets her up to be further distanced from herself by the society that upholds those values. after internalizing these values of beauty and submissiveness, these women find authentic selfhood not only difficult but also seemingly impossible. even seeing the stultifying effects of social norms playing out on those closest to her does not ultimately save jenny blair because according to existentialists, she must save herself. despite her experiences, jenny blair still comes to idolize mr. birdsong so much that he becomes an obsession, a great truth. while camus states that “a single truth, if it is obvious, is enough to guide an existence” (561), jenny blair’s truth does not guide her existence. instead, she lets her obsession with mr. birdsong shut out other parts of her life about which she previously felt strongly. about midway in the novel, jenny blair says, “‘i don’t care about men. all i want to do is to live my own life” (133), which reveals that she is more focused on her selfhood than falling into a patriarchal structure that dictates she find a man and marry. her decision to leave home and move to new york, however, changes as her obsession with mr. birdsong grows stronger, so she essentially abandons the autonomy she felt she needed. even jenny blair’s desire to leave queenborough would not have necessarily provided what she needed, as john explains: “the trouble is we imagine we can change ourselves by changing our scenery. [. . .] it is the same everywhere. people who have tradition are oppressed by tradition, and people who are without it are oppressed by the lack of it—or by whatever else they have put in its place. you want to go to new york and pretend to be unconventional, but nothing is more cramping than the effort to be unconventional when you weren’t born so. it is as hard on the nerves as pretending, like cousin eva, to be an ideal.” (217) john tells jenny blair that simply leaving will not be enough and that even without southern tradition bearing down on her, she still might find something else to oppress her. he also warns that even in new york, she might find herself pretending to be someone else, the same way mrs. birdsong pretends. john outlines the dual struggle that women face from an existentialist perspective: they must first escape sacred womanhood, but even after accomplishing that, they must not submit themselves to all the other oppressive forces in the world. he also comprehends and tells jenny blair that if she does escape the social norms of the south, it should not be by taking on some other false self since that type of pretending is just as destructive for an individual. at the end of the novel, therefore, when jenny blair witnesses the consequences of her obsession with mr. birdsong and by extension the consequences of sacred womanhood on mrs. birdsong, jenny blair, faced with the sight of mrs. birdsong holding a gun over her husband’s corpse, begins crying, “i didn’t mean anything, [. . .] i didn’t mean anything in the world!” (292). this final dismissal of responsibility for her actions does not suggest a positive future for jenny blair since dismissing her actions allows her to once again become the passive object sacred she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 77 womanhood demands. ultimately whether she continues to pursue authentic selfhood or lets the trauma of the scene paralyze her into a life of submissiveness is left unclear. while jenny blair’s story is cut too short to see how her selfhood ultimately develops or fails to develop, zora neale hurston’s janie in their eyes were watching god finds autonomy. early in the novel, janie is married off by her grandmother in order to “protect” her, though what she actually accomplishes is securing janie under the veil of sacred womanhood. janie eventually runs away from her first husband logan with jody starks, a moment when she begins to truly understand how she will have to contend with social norms. jody wishes to have “a big voice” in his community (28)—a problem for existentialists. according to kierkegaard, the desire to become an important figure in the community has a tendency to lead to an inauthentic existence: surrounded by hordes of men, absorbed in all sorts of secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world—such a person forgets himself, forgets his name divinely understood, does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too hazardous to be himself and far easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, a mass man. [. . .] just by losing himself this way, such a man has gained an increasing capacity for going along superbly in business and social life, indeed, for making a great success in the world. (33-34) jody starks is a “mass man,” one who wishes to become integrated in society; his success in “business and social life” are strong indicators of this. in order for jody to secure his place among the masses, he must have a wife who fulfills the role as well, the role of sacred womanhood. as de beauvoir states, “man defines woman, not in herself, but in relation to himself; she is not considered an autonomous being” (5). since jody can only understand janie as an extension of himself, as wanting the same life of social conformity that he wants, it is not long before jody starts making demands of janie as well, telling “her to dress up and stand in the store all that evening. everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her. she must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang” (41). jody objectifies her, turning her into the “bell-cow,” a commodity that could be traded off just as any other property if need be. jody starts removing janie’s selfhood and autonomy, but unlike jenny blair, janie has a strong spirit and is willing to fight back against her oppression. janie’s fight against the “they,” embodied for her by her husband, begins in small ways. she contradicts her husband, “‘[s]ometimes god gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks his inside business’” (75). eventually the battle grows in scale, and janie ends up emasculating jody in front of the town, which for a mass man, is the greatest transgression she could perform. he shuns her from that point on, even through his terminal sickness. after jody’s death, a change takes place in janie. one of the first things she does is “let down her plentiful hair,” which as a part of a woman’s body, had to be carefully restrained and monitored by jody. it is not surprising that jody’s death has such an impact on janie; 78 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research aside from freeing her from his control, his death also has existential significance. death brings one closer to an authentic existence because [o]nly by taking my death into myself [. . .] does an authentic existence become possible for me. [. . .] it frees us from servitude to the petty cares that threaten to engulf our daily life and thereby opens us to the essential projects by which we can make our lives personally and significantly our own. (barrett 225-226) after jody’s death, janie feels “free” to pursue the project that is her life. one of her first decisions is to distance herself from the town and seek solitude, similar to what edna did in the awakening. while janie is negotiating her new freedom and possibilities for selfhood, she meets tea cake, who offers her a perspective that reinforces what she is just beginning to understand, similar to what robert was for edna. as janie eventually comes to understand, tea cake is the antithesis of jody. where jody wished to give janie a set of instructions to follow, tea cake is interested in freedom. janie was unable to learn checkers under jody, but tea cake tells her, “‘you gointuh be uh good player too, after while’” (96). he also contradicts the tenet that women should be weak, insisting that janie could walk the seven miles he walks: “‘but ah’m seen women walk further’n dat. you could too, if yuh had it tuh do’” (97). unlike jody who attempted to make janie passive, tea cake pushes her to be active and break free of the stereotypes of sacred womanhood. janie could have come to these realizations on her own, but through exposure to her husbands and grandmother, she has come to internalize what women “are.” tea cake not only offers the idea that it is possible for a woman to do all these things, he encourages janie to do them, which if nothing else helps janie resist some of the hegemony inflicted upon her. as their relationship develops, janie begins to comprehend the difference between jody and tea cake: “tea cake ain’t no jody starks, and if he tried tuh be, it would be uh complete flommuck. [. . .] dis ain’t no business proposition, and no race after property and titles’” (114). janie differentiates between jody’s social life, in the form of “business propositions,” and what she sees in tea cake, whose attraction is that he does not force anything on her but instead lets her decide her fate. at the same time, however, not all is perfect between the two. tea cake becomes jealous of another man and the possibility, though unfounded, that janie may run away with him. in response he “whipped janie. not because her behavior justified his jealousy, but it relieved that awful fear inside him. being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (147). tea cake is experiencing a frustration that is common to existentialists; sartre points out that one cannot force the “other” to be or act a certain way, though the desire to do so still exists (being and nothingness 385). at times, this frustration comes out in the form of violence, which is what happens to tea cake. he wants to force janie not to leave him for another man, but since it is impossible, he lashes out in violence. if he could succeed in removing janie’s freedom, she would become an object, which is why tea cake feels reassured in his possession. despite the problems that come up along the way, janie’s relationship with tea she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 79 cake is one that helps her achieve a more authentic life. although the novel ends tragically (and absurdly3), janie is ultimately a richer person for the experiences. perhaps more so than hurston, glasgow, or chopin, carson mccullers, with her connection to the french existentialists, presents women coming to terms with the oppression of their sex. in the member of the wedding, mccullers creates frankie, a young girl who “belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world” (3). this statement seems positive in that it acknowledges that frankie has not joined in the social world; the problem is frankie wants to be a part of the world—wants it to the point of obsession. she adheres to kierkegaard’s definition of despair, or “to will to be someone else” (52-53), which frankie actually articulates herself: “‘i wish i was somebody else except me’” (7). frankie has internalized social norms so fully that she believes if she does not find a place in society and fit into a role dictated for her, she will become like the freaks at the circus, who in her mind, whisper, “we know you” (17). she associates herself with outcasts, but she seems unable to view being an outcast in any sort of positive way. the concept that she would have freedom without society’s forcing tradition on her never occurs to her. since she does not value authentic selfhood, obtaining it is nearly impossible for her. the fact that frankie does not value autonomy like other characters in the works of women writers could be because she is young, though jenny blair takes the opposite view to frankie’s. although both jenny blair and frankie come to understand their separateness from the rest of the world at a young age, jenny blair attempts to reaffirm her unique identity while frankie attempts to find a way to work herself into a social group. like jenny blair, frankie also realizes that “[t]hey were them [. . .], and she was her” (24), but frankie, in discussion about her brother and his fiancée, attempts to twist this idea into something new: “they are the we of me” (35). similar to the existentialists, frankie has turned social groups into a construction. instead of the “they” of existentialism, frankie uses the inclusive “we,” because she does not wish to be a separate and unique identity. she does not want to be “suddenly alone and without help” in the world—a problem that follows her throughout the novel (existentialism and human emotions 57). frankie’s desire to be one of kierkegaard’s “mass men” manifests in many ways, particularly the fact that she “forgets [her] name divinely understood” (33). throughout the novel, frankie goes by three names: frankie, f. jasmine, and frances. frankie does not comprehend the significance of names or the identity they point to even after bernice explains it to her: “‘because things accumulate around your name [. . .] so that soon the name begins to have a meaning’” (93). frankie dismisses bernice’s explanation because she does not value the freedom and self represented by her name and instead wishes something would “happen” to her. this happening that frankie wants is some public event that will be 3 this word is not being used according to its normal definition. in existential thought, absurdity is an acknowledgement of the meaninglessness of the world, so if a person continues living despite this meaninglessness, he/she is said to be living in absurdity. at the end of the novel, after having lost the love of her life to the circumstances of an uncaring world (an accidental attack by a rabid dog in an freak storm), janie continues living despite her suffering. 80 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research acknowledged by the town. since it has not happened, she instead decides to create new names which make her feel a part of her “we,” making her get lost in the social world. although frankie seems to be wholly concerned with her “we,” she does manage to articulate, with the help of bernice, some of the problems she is facing. before she leaves for the wedding, bernice tells frankie about the existential state into which all people enter: we all of us somehow caught. we born this way or that way and we don’t know why. but we caught anyhow. i born bernice. you born frankie. john henry born john henry. and maybe we wants to widen and bust free. but no matter what we do we still caught. me is me and you is you and he is he. we each one of us somehow caught all by ourself.” (98) bernice’s description of everyone being “caught” is a reflection of the oppression imposed by social norms. she even acknowledges that people wish to “widen and bust free” from these constraints, although freedom is difficult to achieve. finally, she also articulates the existential concept that everyone is a separate being. although we may interact and have a relationship, we cannot truly share the experiences that make up our consciousness. frankie seems to understand what bernice tells her and even adds to the existentialist ideas, using the word loose instead of caught singularly: “‘you don’t know where they all came from, or where they’re going to. [. . .] people loose and at the same time caught. caught and loose.’” (99). frankie’s claim that people are both caught and loose is particularly relevant in existential terms because while people suffer oppression under social norms, they also have absolute freedom. as sartre states, “there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom” (existentialism is a humanism 29). frankie seems to understand this because she realizes that she cannot understand “where they’re going to.” it is this very realization on the part of bernice and frankie that likely results in the silent crying session between them and john henry, all of whom realize what camus regularly referred to as the “absurdity” of the world. however, while frankie experiences this moment of clarity, she does not learn anything significant from it. she continues her obsession with becoming part of the wedding party and running off with her brother and his new wife, which does not pan out. she remains “in a jail you could not see” even after returning home and attempting to run away again (128). the fact that frankie has not made any progress toward escaping the oppressive forces around her is revealed toward the end of the novel through frankie’s assertion that her previous life seemed like it belonged to “a stranger” (127). this observation echoes camus’s statement that “[f ]or ever i shall be a stranger to myself ” (508). although tragic, frankie’s greatest opportunity to pull away from the “they” and focus on herself comes in the form of john henry’s death. it is possible that by experiencing the death of another, frankie may begin to pursue an authentic life for herself, similar to what janie experienced in their eyes were watching god. unfortunately, mccullers ends the novel before this possibility for frankie can be explored, leaving her still an inauthentic person. the burden of sacred womanhood is a force that is difficult for the southern woman to combat, since she must fight against its internalization in order to find autonomy. this battle against sacred womanhood mirrors the existentialist battle against the confining she is she: existentialist themes in the works of women writers of the southern renaissance middle tennessee state university 81 and stultifying effects of the “they;” therefore, many actions taken by women—such as a search for solitude, a reaffirmation of separateness, and growth through experiences of death—all have existential ramifications that illuminate somewhat ambiguous or seemingly inconsequential events. women writers of the southern renaissance regularly deal with these themes, although each of their characters reacts differently. chopin’s edna feels that although she makes progress toward autonomy, she cannot escape sacred womanhood completely and therefore kills herself as her only viable option. like edna, glasgow’s jenny blair makes progress through observing the people around her and how southern tradition affects them, but that same observation results in a traumatic experience that leaves jenny blair’s future search for selfhood uncertain. more so than glasgow or chopin, hurston presents a woman who eventually lives an authentic life in the form of janie; despite the tragic ending, janie’s life seems to be impacted for the better. finally, mccullers gives the reader frankie, who even at a young age is so obsessed with becoming part of the “they” that she is unable to even acknowledge the value of her own individuality. by illustrating the wide range of possible effects that southern tradition could have on a woman during the time period, these women writers honestly present the complexity of social constructions and reveal the difficulties of coming to terms with a seemingly simple concept: she is “she.” by resisting the rigid assignment to constructed identities of “they” and “us,” southern women subjected to the demands of sacred womanhood can be empowered to embody their fullest sense of self as individuals equal to the challenges society levels against them. 82 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research works cited barrett, william. irrational man. new york: anchor, 1990. print. camus, albert. the plague, the fall, exile and the kingdom, and selected essays. new york: knopf, 2004. print. chopin, kate. the awakening. new york: dover, 1993. print. de beauvoir, simone. the second sex. trans. constance borde and sheila malovany-chevallier. new york: knopf, 2010. print. glasgow, ellen. the sheltered life. charlottesville: the up of virginia, 1994. print. heidegger, martin. being and time. new york: harper and row, 1962. print. hurston, zora neale. their eyes were watching god. new york: harper perennial, 2006. print. jones, anne goodwyn. tomorrow is another day: the woman writer in the south, 1859-1936. baton rouge: louisiana state up, 1981. print. kierkegaard, søren. the sickness unto death: a christian psychological exposition for upbuilding and awakening. trans. howard hong and edna hong. princeton: princeton up, 1983. print. le doeuff, michèle. “simone de beauvoir and existentialism.” feminist studies 6.2 (summer, 1980): 277289. jstor. web. 21 nov. 2010. manning, carol. “the real beginning of the southern renaissance.” the female tradition in southern literature. ed. carol s. manning. urbana: u of illinois p, 1993. 37-56. print. mccullers, carson. the member of the wedding. boston: houghton, mifflin, 1946. print. sartre, jean-paul. being and nothingness: a phenomenological essay on ontology. trans. hazel e. barnes. new york: citadel, 2001. print. ---. existentialism and human emotions. new york: citadel, 2000. print. ---. existentialism is a humanism. new haven: yale up, 2007. print. smith, lillian. killers of the dream. new york: norton, 1994. print. tulloch, doreen. “sartrian existentialism.” the philosophical quarterly 2.6 (1952): 31-52. jstor. web. 4 dec. 2010. vintges, karen. “simone de beauvoir: a feminist thinker for our times.” hypatia 14.4 (autumn, 1999): 133-144. jstor. web. 21 nov. 2010. “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 153 “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence morgan hanson abstract scholars have long analyzed chaucer’s use of rhetoric in the canterbury tales in regards to either stylistic or historical concerns. much of the discussion, then, only touches on the superficial nature of rhetoric in the canterbury tales, for those concerned with style examine the tropes employed by chaucer, and those concerned with history seek to prove which rhetorical sources with which chaucer was familiar. however, discussions of chaucer and rhetoric need to return to the key debate in which rhetoric has been involved since its inception in ancient greece: the debate between philosophy and rhetoric. in this paper, i examine the relationship between philosophy and language as presented in the knight’s use of rhetoric and the squire’s use of rhetoric in their respective tales, specifically through the rhetorical device occupatio. the knight imparts both his philosophy on nobility and rhetorical eloquence to his son through the occupationes in his tale, and the squire shows his humble attempt at acquiring his father’s philosophy and eloquence through the telling of his own tale. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 154 spring 2016 “really, now you ask me,” said alice, very much confused, “i don’t think—” “then you shouldn’t talk,” said the hatter. –carroll, alice’s adventures in wonderland (66) in one letter to a friend, the famed italian humanist francesco pe-trarch explores the eloquent expression of the virtuous man’s virtuous thoughts. to petrarch, a man virtuous in action and in speech will lead to personal improvement, which in turn leads to a stronger society. petrarch argues that thought and speech have a mutually dependent relationship, since while the mind guides and adorns speech, speech “declares what the mind is like” (15). this symbiotic relationship, though, does not happen by chance. rather, the virtuous man must carefully manage mind and speech both; or, as petrarch writes, the “mind may learn to be reasonably severe in managing speech [while] speech may learn to be truthfully magnificent in expressing the mind” (15). eloquence, then, becomes petrarch’s recommendation for the virtuous man. this eloquence comes not only from the writings of cicero and other classical rhetoricians (who petrarch believes merely teach ornate speaking) but also through the improvement of the mind. indeed, petrarch thinks ornamental rhetoric creates speech that is charming, sweet, and lofty, but rarely leads to speech that is also grave, wise, and consistent (15). furthermore, even though virtuous actions can demonstrate a man’s personal virtue as well as inspire his acquaintances to virtue, virtuous speech can inspire people to virtue both now and in the future, since speech can be recorded in writing. finally, in a seemingly last-ditch effort to sway his audience, petrarch notes that eloquence—this careful management of thought and speech—benefits the self. in his canterbury tales, geoffrey chaucer appears to view the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy in the same way as petrarch, a contemporary whom chaucer revered. of course, this is no surprise. chaucer spent much time in italy in the service of king edward iii, and david wallace speculates that, in chaucer’s trips to italy, he “gained sophisticated, first-hand knowledge of the social and political settings from which the writings of dante, boccaccio, and petrarch had emerged” (36). william rossiter agrees, noting that chaucer not only translated two of petrarch’s works but also may have been influenced by petrarch in other aspects of his writing (2). perhaps a petrarchan influence extends to chaucer’s own use of rhetoric, since chaucer shows a concern with the connection between the thoughts, words, and actions of men, especially as evidenced by the knight and his tale in relation to the squire and his tale. however, much of the scholarship on chaucer’s use of rhetoric tends “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 155 to focus on rhetoric as a style guide rather than as a means to convey ethical ideas to others. while chaucer’s use of rhetoric has been studied for centuries, the first modern (and most frequently cited) study of chaucer’s use of rhetoric is john manly’s “chaucer and the rhetoricians” (1926).1 manly asserts that chaucer relied on rhetoric early in his writing career as a stylistic device for either expanding or abbreviating his text; however, chaucer later used his imagination rather than rhetoric as a means to expand upon his ideas. manly, then, concludes that chaucer was familiar with treatises on rhetoric, especially since he uses several rhetorical figures within his writing, and he surmises that chaucer may have been familiar with the three main classical texts of rhetoric that were used in the middle ages: pseudo-cicero’s rhetorica ad herennium, cicero’s de inventione, and horace’s ars poetica. in addition, chaucer may have used two contemporary rhetoricians: matthieu de vendome and gaufred de vinsauf (manly 273). manly does acknowledge that this is merely an assumption, for there is no proof of chaucer’s knowledge of these rhetoricians (aside from the reference to vinsauf in the “nun’s priest’s tale”), and it is this assumption that is at the crux of the debate regarding chaucer’s use of rhetoric. however, manly feels quite comfortable with making this assumption since chaucer demonstrates such a vast knowledge of several subjects and, at the time of his writing of the article, there was more proof to indicate that chaucer had been educated at the inns of court, which was a highly liberal education (272). in a direct response to manly, murphy reports that “concrete evidence of the teaching of formal rhetoric in english universities does not appear until 1431, while lower schools apparently taught no rhetoric until the fifteenth century” (2). murphy argues that chaucer and his contemporaries most likely followed a grammatical tradition instead of a rhetorical one, since there is very little evidence for a rhetorical tradition in england during chaucer’s lifetime (4). even though chaucer could have encountered rhetoric through his reading of continental works, murphy argues, instead, that chaucer must have “possessed only a very general concept of rhetoric” 1. most current scholarship follows manly’s lead as viewing chaucer’s use of rhetoric as a creative tool to more effectively reach his audience. like manly, russell sees chaucer as using rhetoric creatively, as chaucer seems to dance the line regarding the practical use of rhetoric and the infamous misconceptions of rhetoric (53). similarly, payne views chaucer as moving from the prevalent contemporary concept of a two-way relationship between idea and poem to the more classical idea, an idea that first began with aristotle, of the three-way relationship between idea and poem to the more classical idea, an idea that first began with aristotle, of the three-way relationship between speaker, language, and audience (272). this model, as payne sees it, makes for a more “organic” poem since the speaker takes account of his language in order to best influence his audience (285). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 156 spring 2016 (8). if chaucer did read of these rhetorical figures, he may have read of them only from “the ordinary grammar texts or from his french models, without ever resorting to rhetorical treatises or the medieval manuals” (15). although at this point it is impossible to conclude which rhetoric texts chaucer was familiar with, if he were familiar with any at all, a general discussion of chaucer’s use of rhetoric may still be beneficial. however, this general discussion needs to extend beyond a mere stylistic examination of chaucer’s use of rhetorical figures. rather, this discussion needs to return to the key debate in which rhetoric has been involved since rhetoric’s inception in ancient greece: the debate between dialectic and rhetoric. largely, the debate centers on the superiority of the one over the other.2 confronting scholars like murphy, rita copeland asserts that medieval understanding of rhetoric extended beyond “narrow technical rules” (124), since chaucer and other medieval writers did not see philosophy and rhetoric in binary opposition, but, rather, “they worked with that binary, using rhetoric as the site from which they would negotiate the conflicting claims over the authority of knowledge and the power of representation” (125). rhetoric, then, serves to allow thought, through language, to reach a wider audience: “it is through rhetoric that one thinks about language, truth, form, embodiment, time, history, intention, authority, the social construction of meaning, and the very human problem of being in the world” (139). rhetoric, through language, can give form to philosophical thought. while rhetoric certainly plays a large part in the entirety of the canterbury tales, the relationship between the knight’s and squire’s use of rhetoric demonstrates quite clearly the connection between philosophy and language. rather than severing the ties between philosophy and rhetoric, chaucer demonstrates the link between the two through both the knight’s and the squire’s use of rhetoric, particularly the rhetorical figure occupatio, or false omission. for example, the knight uses occupatio seventeen lines into his tale: and certes, if it nere to long to heere, i wolde have toold yow fully the manere how wonnen was the regne of femenye by theseus and by his chivalrye. 2. in plato’s gorgias, socrates comments on the lack of ethics in sophistic rhetoric, especially in regards to the potential corruption of the youth that can occur through the sophistic use of language. he argues that a rhetor does not need to know the truth about the topic at hand; he merely needs to know the best way to persuade his audience (458c-459c). “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 157 [and certainly, if it were not too long to hear, i would have told you fully the manner how the reign of femininity was won by theseus and by his chivalry.] (i.875-78) chaucer says he will not tell of the story, but he does, and the tale continues for eleven lines. this device is a particular favorite of chaucer’s, as he can quickly provide the full details of a seemingly tangential tale without overwhelming his audience. often, though, these secondary narratives serve to highlight a character trait or to heighten the pathos of a scene. as the chief educator of the squire, the knight instructs his son in the ways of being a knight. for the knight, a true knight is one who is virtuous in both word and deed. the knight, then, can be seen as an educator in the art of rhetoric, particularly when rhetoric is viewed in a petrarchan sense of control of the mind and speech, to his son the squire. the knight stresses the importance of control in terms of thought and action through his narrative, but he further emphasizes this theme of control in thought through his own use of occupatio, in which he uses the device to stress a knightly virtue as a quick aside so as to not overwhelm his audience. the squire, as a knight-in-training, lacks the eloquence of his father. he rambles his way through his tale, and he is unceremoniously interrupted by the franklin, who graciously saves the audience of pilgrims from having to endure a seemingly ceaseless and wandering narrative. the squire, unlike his father, lacks the ability to control his thoughts in an eloquent manner, and his failure is especially noticeable by his inept use of occupatio. the squire says he will not tell of a topic, but instead of using occupatio correctly, he goes on at great length on the very topic he just promised not to tell, and often, the topic is one of opulence rather than virtue. the knight imparts both his philosophy on nobility and rhetorical eloquence to his son through the occupationes in his tale, and the squire shows his humble attempt at acquiring his father’s philosophy and eloquence through the telling of his own tale. “i wolde have toold yow…”: the knight’s instruction in nobility and occupatio chaucer scholars have long viewed chaucer’s knight as a noble character, primarily centering on the knight’s virtuous disposition. schofield nicely explains why the knight has received such lavish praise from scholars when he writes that “[the knight] was not simply a man of great scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 158 spring 2016 physical courage and brilliant achievement in war, but the embodiment of very high spiritual excellence” (35). the knight, as many scholars have also noted, desires to extend his chivalric ideals to the rest of the world through the telling of his tale. muscatine, when considering the structure, form, and meaning of the tale, submits that “the knight’s tale is essentially neither a story, nor a static picture, but a poetic pageant, and that all its materials are organized and contributory to a complex design expressing the nature of the noble life” (919). furthermore, scholars also tend to agree that the knight tries to create order within the world. kahrl reads the knight as celebrating “classical order in the chivalric world” (195). the knight lives the very values he wishes his son to inherit: worthiness and wisdom. any reader of the canterbury tales would not have to go too far in order to see why the knight has been described as a paragon of virtue. in the “general prologue,” chaucer highlights the knight’s appreciation for virtue and chivalry within the first four lines of his description of the knight: a knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, that fro the tyme that he first bigan to riden out, he loved chivalrie, trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie. [a knight there was, and he was a worthy man, that from the time that he first began to ride out, he loved chivalry, truth and honor, freedom and courtesy.](i. 43-46) firstly, the knight is a “worthy man” (i. 43), a word that chaucer uses five times in some form to describe his knight. this excessive use of the word worthy seems to indicate that the knight comes from a class of aristocratic knights, and perhaps not a mercenary knight as terry jones reads him, since worthy seems to indicate that the knight has earned the epithet. furthermore, this knight is worthy in that he has practiced the rules of chivalry since he first became a knight. chaucer, thankfully, supplies his readers with his perception of the qualities of chivalry: “trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie” (i. 46). the knight celebrates key virtues that an officer of the peace, as many knights were, would encourage. like the parson, as schofield notes, the knight first practices what he preaches (35). chaucer then describes the battles in which the knight has participated. no matter the knight’s reason for entering into battle, whether as “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 159 a faithful follower of his lord or a self-serving mercenary, chaucer uses the battles to further expound upon the knight’s worthiness. the knight, again, is a worthy man when he fights in “his lords werre” [his lord’s war] (i. 47), and in this war, he is “evere honoured for his worthynesse” (i. 50). he rode in more raids than any other “cristen man so ofte of his degree” [christian man of his degree so often] (i. 55), and he faithfully worked for his lord, which earned him a “sovereyn prys” [highest prize] (i. 67). chaucer holds his knight in such high esteem that he gives the knight a great reputation amongst his peers. but chaucer has not finished elaborating on the knight’s worthiness. this knight is also “wys” [wise] (i. 68) and “as meke as is a mayde” [as meek as a maid] (i. 69), and “[h]e nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde” [he never yet said any villainy] (i. 70). chaucer concludes his description of the knight’s character with the oft-quoted “he was a verray, parfit gentil knyght” [he was a true, perfect gentle knight] (i. 72). the word gentil deserves the most attention here. the word is glossed as “noble” in the riverside chaucer (24), but the word extends beyond mere nobility on the battlefield or in the court. peterson views the gentillesse of the knight as “grounded in worthy deeds and spiritual values” (68). terry jones describes the gentil knight on more general terms, interpreting him as “a man of culture as well as a soldier” (11). even though jones believes that chaucer’s knight operates as a mercenary, chaucer’s description of the knight matches this general description of gentillesse that jones provides. the knight is clearly cultured, for he has traveled over christendom in the service of his lord in order to protect the virtues of chivalry, and he clearly supports peace with his proper language, wisdom, and humility. if the knight behaves in such a manner, then surely he would wish for his son, his own squire, to learn these true traits of knighthood. chiefly, the knight is concerned with noble thoughts and noble deeds, as evidenced by the content of his tale, but he also understands the importance of eloquence. through his expert use of occupatio, the knight can highlight his message of self-control without getting bogged down in the details of his tale all in an effort to teach his son how to show control in his speech. russell particularly emphasizes the connection between the “knight’s tale” and the knight’s use of rhetoric. to russell, “the knight’s tale is manifestly the story told by a person who has ostentatiously embraced traditional chivalric virtues,” which he wishes to impart to his son the squire through the telling of the tale (100). russell particularly emphasizes the words and deeds of the men in the “knight’s tale,” and he sees the occupationes in the tale as chaucer’s way to revise boccaccio’s teseida so scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 160 spring 2016 that the knight could stress both the irrational behavior of youth and the rational nature of adulthood (100). to russell, the knight employs occupatio so that the frivolous details of the boccaccio’s teseida may be left far from the knight’s well-controlled tale. russell seems to read the knight as exacting a cold control over life.3 the knight certainly desires for control in the world, and one form of control is that between thoughts and words. since the knight desires to teach his son to be a virtuous knight, he must teach his son both in the actions and eloquence of a knight. he teaches the squire the proper actions through the plot, as russell observes, but the knight both stresses his philosophy on nobility and teaches his son the importance of eloquence through his controlled occupationes. the knight, by my count, uses the trope eight times, while his son uses it only five times. the knight’s frequent use of occupatio allows him to tell the tale in full without compromising his main plot. rather than completely omitting the details, he nicely provides his audience with a brief summary of the action that he will not elaborate on, so even though the knight says he will not tell of it, he tells enough to satisfy his audience without ruining the message of his own tale. the knight seems to employ occupatio on two main occasions. firstly, the knight uses the device to tell of a heroic venture or courtly life that does not quite fit with his overall message. this is the most frequent use of occupatio in the “knight’s tale,” and thus, the knight can impart his philosophy of nobility as an earned rather than an inherited trait through eloquent asides. secondly, the knight employs occupatio in order to highlight the pathos of a scene, which demonstrates the knight’s awareness of his audience. throughout his tale, the knight tells of peripheral heroic qualities via occupationes as a way to further instruct the squire in the truly gentil life, and all of these occupationes concern theseus’s character in order not to detract from the main plot of arcite and palamon. the first occupatio within the tale belongs to this first type of occupatio, and it occurs seventeen lines into his tale. here, the knight refuses to describe theseus’s conquering of the amazons (i. 875-85). the knight says that he will not tell how theseus won “the regne of femenye” [the reign of femininity] (i. 877), nor will he tell of the “grete bataille for the nones” [great battle of the time] (i. 879); he will not tell “how asseged was ypolita” [how hippolyta was as3. russell is not the only scholar to see the knight as attempting to exert control over the action in the tale. jones reads the knight’s use of occupatio in the tournament scene as a way to strip the tournament of “every vestige of chivalry or romance” (178). helterman takes an even more cynical approach to the knight’s use of occupatio by reading the knight’s use of occupationes as a way to be truthful, a virtue adored by the knight, while still exacting control in the world (504). “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 161 sailed] (i. 881), and he will not share the details about the “feste that was at hir weddynge” [feast that was at their wedding] (i. 883) or of “the tempest at hir hoom-comynge” [the tempest during their homecoming] (i. 884). although he does not provide elaborate details on theseus’s conquest, the knight does provide his audience with enough information so as to not leave his audience wanting more. clearly, this scene has nothing to do with the story of palamon and arcite, but it does show a “heroic” venture of conquest. even though he conquered a tribe of women (a questionable act even by medieval standards), and even though the deed causes the reader to question theseus’s martial abilities, the deed could still be read as heroic, for theseus sought to conquer, and he did, and he also gained a renowned bride in the process. of course, the knight could gloss over this event so as to appease his audience (who would be familiar with theseus’s conquest of the amazons) while still trying to uphold theseus’s nobility. either way, the knight paints a picture of a conquering hero, which serves as a description for his son, but he does not dwell on it so that he can focus on the palamon and arcite’s plight. the knight uses occupatio to highlight the virtuous quality of loyal friendship through the quick note on the relationship between theseus and perotheus. theseus loved his friend so much, that when perotheus died, theseus sought his friend in hell (i. 1198-1201). the knight seems to suggest that a noble man would do anything for his friends, even venture to the depths of hell, and this quality further elaborates on the virtuous man that the knight desires for his son to become. this swift mention of true friendship occurs immediately before the strife between arcite and palamon, and so the quarrel between the two knights is magnified. the knight’s brief reference of a good friendship provides a striking note of virtue within the current cacophonous strife in the tale. the knight again uses occupatio to stress theseus’s worthiness as a knight, which echoes the knight’s own worthiness (i. 2197-2207). the knight describes theseus as “this worthy knyght” (i. 2190), and even though this description happens a few lines before the actual occupatio, the details of the occupatio are concerned with theseus’s worthiness. the knight omits the feast given before the tournament, but the knight does so only so that he might move on with the plot. as the squire later proves, one can wax on about feasting for far too long, for much happens at a feast, and so the knight only gives the highlights. but the knight must give the details of the feast, for the audience has not seen theseus as a gracious host, which further elaborates on his virtuous character. theseus provides minstrels and good service (i. 2197) and “grete yiftes to the meeste and scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 162 spring 2016 leeste” [great gifts to the most and least] (i. 2198) of his guests. dancing, talk of love, and hunting animals also grace the feast, which provide entertainment for all, but through these events, knights can further display their proper knightly behavior. the knight declares that even though he plans to make no mention of the feast, he does desire to give “th’effect” of the feast, which he quickly does. like the other instances of occupationes involving theseus, the knight elaborates on another quality of noble worthiness that his son can learn to emulate. in the final example of occupatio as a tool to expand on proper heroic behavior, the knight does not discuss emelye’s preparations to go to the temple of diana (i. 2282-86). no mention of theseus and his heroic deeds or worthiness is mentioned here. instead, the knight seems to be imparting another aspect of nobility that he holds important: modesty. rather than going on about her preparations for the day, he simply tells his audience, “hir body wessh with water of a welle. / but hou she dide hir ryte i dar nat telle, / but it be any thing in general” [she washed her body with the water from a well. / but how she did her rite, i dare not tell, / unless it were any thing in general] (i. 2283-85). instead of saying he will not tell, as is his usual device, the knight instead says he “dar nat telle” (i. 2284). with this statement, the knight indicates that it is immodest to discuss a woman’s preparation, and so he gives the basic details to it so that the audience can see a small detail in the life of a courtly woman while the knight can still maintain his modesty and preserve hers. the knight also uses occupatio in order to emphasize the pathos of a scene. the knight first uses this type of occupatio when he describes the mourning of the widows as they watch their husbands honorably burn on the funeral pyre early in the tale (i. 994-1000). this scene demonstrates the honorable actions of the women, for they mourned for their husbands, and the scene also shows the importance of dying in a noble fashion, in this case, battle. the men deserved a proper burial, and theseus provides them with that, but truly no more needs to be said of the mourning. his brief summary, however, is eloquently done. the knight succinctly describes the “grete clamour and the waymentynge” [great clamor and lamenting] of the women (i. 995), he only mentions the “brennynge / of the bodies” [burning / of the bodies] (i.996-97), and he quickly reminds the audience of “the grete honour / that theseus, the noble conquerour, / dooth to the ladyes” [the great honor / that theseus, the noble conqueror, / does to the ladies] (i. 997-99). theseus, again, performs an honorable task, but while that is a focus of the scene, the mourning of the women, though briefly mentioned, seems to be heightened. the knight does not have the “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 163 time, and perhaps he does not have the words, to describe their lamenting. the knight quickly gives his readers an emotional moment without overwhelming them. since the strife between arcite and palamon shows how a knight should not behave, it is no wonder then that the knight would use occupatio to show the emotion of the strife. in the shortest occupatio in the “knight’s tale,” the knight quickly summarizes in only three lines the strife between arcite and palamon after they have declared their love for emelye while imprisoned: “greet was the strif and long bitwix hem tweye, / if that i hadde leyser for to seye; / but to th’effect” [great was the strife and was long between the two of them, / if i had less to say; / but to the effect] (i. 1187-89). this occupatio comes after arcite and palamon have argued about who loved emelye first, and so it serves to heighten the emotion of the scene. if they have spent almost 100 lines declaring their love for emelye and then arguing about who loves her more, then it would not be hard for the knight’s audience to imagine how much longer this argument could have lasted. the knight and his audience both know that since palamon and arcite are enchained in a prison that the two most likely have little else to discuss than their love of emelye and their worthiness for her hand, and the knight confirms that suspicion with a telling and succinct occupatio. the knight, in his seventh form of occupatio (i. 281726), turns again to emelye, but instead of showing one of theseus’s virtues, he instead glosses over emelye’s sorrow: “what helpeth it to tarien forth the day / to tellen how she weep bothe eve and morwe” [what helps it to tarry away the day / to tell how she wept both evening and morning] (i. 2817-18). he then moves from the specific, emelye’s grief, to the general by describing how widows experience sorrow that can ultimately lead to a “maladye” (i. 2825) and death (i. 2826). with this expansion to widows in general, the knight both heightens and clarifies emelye’s grief. she shares in the pain with many women; her grief is not insufficient, nor is it melodramatic. the universal pain that she shares might resonate more with the pilgrims, and so the knight can appeal to their emotions without diverting from the tale. the knight makes his final use of occupatio his longest; the passage extends for forty-eight lines (i. 2919-66). here, the knight says he will not discuss arcite’s funeral, but with this occupatio, the knight provides great details of the funeral. the occupatio begins with: but how the fyr was maked upon highte ne eek the names that the trees highte, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 164 spring 2016 as ook, firrre, birch, aspe, alder, holm, popler, wylugh, elm, plane, assh, box, chasteyn, lynde, laurer, mapul, thorn, bech, hasel, ew, whippeltree— how they weren feld shal nat be toold for me. [but how the fire was made up high nor also the names that the trees are called such as oak, fir, birch, aspen, alder, holm, poplar, willow, elm, plane, ash, box, chestnut, linden, laurel, maple, thorn, beech, hazel, yew, dogwood— how they were fell shall not be told by me.] (i. 2919-24) here, the knight first says that he will not name the trees, but then he proceeds to name not one tree, but one and twenty trees. this brief sample from the forty-eight-line occupatio provides a good example of the rest of the section, for the knight continues to remind his audience that he will not tell of an aspect of the funeral by placing “ne” at the beginning of the line in order to remind his audience, a tactic he uses fifteen times. in this lengthy occupatio, the knight plays to the pathos of the scene in an effort to stress an honorable burial for a good knight. his initial refusal to state these claims emphasizes the burial for his audience. when the knight has said in the past that he will not tell of a certain event, his audience had become accustomed to a concise summary of the event. by continuing to mention that he will not tell of aspects of the funeral, he further emphasizes the importance of the event by continuing to do the opposite of what his audience has come to expect with his occupationes. in a sense, he has a reverse occupatio. by saying he will not call attention to it, he in fact draws more attention to this scene. with this device, the knight shows his son the glory a worthy knight receives in burial, the earthly ultimate desire for a virtuous knight. even though the knight provides clear examples of noble worthiness in the tale proper for both his son and his audience, the knight can further direct his son in noble virtues through the use of occupationes. the squire, as a student of rhetoric, would be alerted to these nods from his father, and he could learn of eloquence through observing the construction of a proper occupatio. furthermore, a few of the occupationes enhance the emotions within the tale, which heightens the tale from a tale of virtue to a romance. the knight can both instruct his son and please his general audience through his use of rhetoric. “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 165 “…but i wol seye as i kan”: the squire’s noble attempt at occupatio like his father, the squire has received much scholarly attention, largely focusing on either the tale’s exotic setting and its connection to contemporary travel narratives or the aspects of courtly love and life found in the tale. regarding the squire’s telling of the tale, scholars have responded fairly negatively to his use of rhetoric. the squire, unlike the knight, acts as an exuberantly romantic courtier. because of his youth, the squire does not have the same control in thought and words as his father. however, several scholars have noted that the squire understands rhetoric and that he makes an honest attempt at practicing the rhetoric of his father the knight, particularly the occupatio trope. peterson describes the squire as a “wonderfully bad storyteller, and his efforts keep recoiling against him” (66). however, peterson sees the squire’s telling of the tale as revealing “his snobbery, his ineptness, and his essential cupidity” (68). francis argues that the squire uses rhetoric to make fun of his father: “the squire takes after his father in his fondness for the occupatio, but where the knight is solemn, as befits his character and station, the squire gently pokes fun at the device—and perhaps indulges in a bit of mild parody of his earnest parent” (1140). berger reads the squire has having the “inability to keep his story moving, his tendency to use the fable as an excuse to entertain his own preferences, his feeling that every detail should be fully described and explained” (91). berger does not condemn the squire’s performance, though: “the performance is fresh, charming and immediate: we see the various and not quite clearly distinguished ideals by which the squire is moved, and we see also his youthful, therefore callow, interpretation of them” (93). the squire, even though he has good intentions, often lets his mind and language wander to the material and romantic lives at court. haller views the squire in a similar manner, noting his flawed use of rhetoric. however, like berger, haller interprets the squire as learning the art of expression from his father since such eloquence was important in knighthood: “as an aspirant to knighthood and member of a court society, he would be expected to have the grace of writing pleasing and socially correct songs. his training in the art would be not only a part of manners but also a preparation for the formal rhetorical skill required in diplomatic correspondence, should he ever hold high office” (286). haller determines that rhetoric would make him a gentil man, and so the squire displays those skills so that he might be perceived as the kind of knight he aspires to be. however, the squire does not correctly use rhetoric like his father. haller confirms that the knight uses occupatio to move the narrative along, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 166 spring 2016 while the squire’s incorrect use of the device delays the narration (288). the squire, although he revels in the joys of youth, strives to practice the virtue of eloquence so that he might mature into as “worthy” a knight as his father. berger further elaborates on the squire’s youthful exuberance in relation to his father’s sober worthiness: “…the squire is a potential knight, the knight was once perhaps like the squire. if the squire needs experience and discipline, the knight must surely have depended on that springtime energy which, while still unbridled, canters self-confidently toward half-understood goals and wrong conclusions” (93). indeed, in the “general prologue,” chaucer presents squire as the polar opposite of his father. instead of focusing on virtue and nobility in battle, the squire’s love for romance takes center stage in the second line of the squire’s description: “a lovyere and lusty bacheler” [a lover and lusty bachelor] (v. 80). also unlike with the knight’s description, a description that largely focused on the knight’s virtuous aspects, the narrator describes the squire’s physical appearance: with lokkes crulle as they were leyd in presse. of twenty yer of age he was, i gesse. of his stature he was of evene lengthe, and wonderly delyvere, and of greet strengthe. [with locks curled as if they were laid in a press. he was twenty years old, i guess. of his stature he was of even length, and wonderfully agile, and of great strength.] (v. 81-84) the squire is the paragon of a young lover. he is young, he has lovely curly locks, his body is well made, and he is agile and strong. the narrator then turns to the battles in which the squire has participated with his father (v.86), and here the squire resembles his father, since the narrator mentions that the squire “born hym weel, as of so little space” [bore himself well, for so little space of time] (v. 87). however, the squire’s motives are not the same as his father’s. while his father fights for his lord(s), the squire fights “[i]n hope to stonden in his lady grace” [with the hope to stand in his lady’s grace] (v. 88). the squire participates adequately in battle, but he does it for the love of a lady instead of loyalty to a lord, as he aspires to be a good courtly lover. to earn the love of a lady, the squire spends his days “[s]yngynge” [singing] (v. 91) and “floytynge” [fluting] “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 167 (v. 91), and he dresses in the courtly fashion of the day (v. 93). the narrator further describes the squire as “fresh as is the month of may” (v. 92), which is very different from the “verray, parfit gentil knight” (i. 72). the narrator further observes the squire’s love for composition. though the squire practices this activity for the same reasons he goes to war, his love for speaking and writing predisposes him towards the philosophical and rhetorical life his father wishes the squire to attain. in an effort to save this romantic picture of the squire from slipping into total frivolity, the narrator concludes the squire’s description with a note of praise: “curteis he was, lowely, and servysable, / and carf biforn his fader at the table” [courteous he was, lowly and humble, / and carved before his father at the table] (v. 99-100). even though the squire desires to serve the ladies, he also knows that he should serve his father, too. the squire, then, appears to be in quite the liminal space. he is not a young man fully consumed by the fires of love, even though he does desire to fight and obtain the grace of a lady, but he hasn’t accepted totally the somber responsibilities and virtues of full adulthood/knighthood. he seems to be in a position of “two steps forward, one step back.” he makes great strides in learning the craft of knighthood, but his love for romance often pulls him back from the virtuous life of worthy knighthood and into the fantastic arms of romance and imagination. the squire’s use of occupatio highlights his liminal space. as a student of his father, he practices the language and virtues of knighthood, but as a lover of the ladies and the world of the court, his focus often returns to material, and perhaps even carnal, thoughts, as peterson suggests (74). although the squire lacks complete eloquence in thought and words, he does desire to practice his skills. the author of rhetorica ad herennium states that the five faculties of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) can only be acquired by three means: theory, imitation, and practice (1. 3). the knight provides the squire with the theory and the tale for imitation, and so, in the spirit of rhetorical training, the squire must practice his skills. the specific lesson for the day is occupatio. the knight demonstrates the theory of occupatio, that it is a device used to enhance a story’s message through asides that do not distract from the story itself, and so the squire must practice occupatio through imitation. largely, though, the squire fails in his attempt at occupatio. rather than highlighting his tale, his rhetoric detracts from the tale since the occupatio often returns to the squire’s own interests, as berger also notes (91). the squire, though, knows of his limitations in speech. when the host requests for the squire to tell a tale, the squire immediately acknowledges scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 168 spring 2016 his lack of eloquence with a humility topos: …but i wol seye as i kan with hertly wyl, for i wol not rebelle agayn youre lust, a tale wol i telle have me excused if i speke amys; my wyl is good, and lo, my tale is this. [...but i will say as i can with a hearty will, for i will not rebel against your lust, a tale will i tell excuse me if i speak amiss; my will is good, and lo, my tale is this.] (v. 4-8) even though the squire knows he cannot tell a tale as well as other pilgrims, especially his father the knight, he will still do his best. because his intent is good, the pilgrims should excuse his missteps in his use of language. the squire understands the connection between thought and speech, and he is also aware that he has not yet learned how to have his speech reflect and then present his thoughts. through this acknowledgement of his lack of skill and then his honest attempt at speaking before a group, the squire presents a level of maturity that was not seen within his description in the “general prologue.” the squire performs the humility topos again within the first forty lines of his tale (after he has accurately applied the descriptio trope in his presentation of cambyuskan): it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng; i dar nat undertake so heigh a thyng. myn englissh eek is insufficient. it moste been a rhetor excellent that koude his coulours longynge for that art, if he sholde hire discryven every part. i am noon swich, i moot speke as i kan. [it lies not in my tongue, nor in my cunning; i dare not undertake so high a thing. my english also is insufficient. it must be a rhetor excellent that knows his rhetorical devices belonging to that art, “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 169 if he should write here every part. i am not such an one, i must speak as i can.] (v. 35-41) again, the squire admits his insufficiency in speech, but his admittance in this humility topos expands his original admittance in his introduction. here, the squire connects his language use to rhetoric, and he admits that only a “rhetor excellent” could provide an accurate description of cambyuskan’s (genghis khan’s) daughter’s beauty. he echoes his first humility trope that he will do his best, but when used in a humility trope, this admission proves that the squire is practicing his skills, and that he clearly understands rhetorical devices. while this trope could be read as insecurity, the squire perseveres by continuing to tell the story, which further demonstrates strength in character. the squire’s use of the rhetorical occupatio, however, does not go over as smoothly as his uses of the description and humility tropes. when he tells the audience that he will not, or, in some cases cannot, tell, he appears to spend far more time telling his audience what he cannot tell rather than expanding on the main story line. the real problem, though, seems to stem from two contrasting story lines in his head. the first story line seems to be an epic romance that covers two damsels in distress, theodora and canacee, and the men who must rescue them via the aid of the three magical gifts brought by the strange knight (v. 663-69). the second tale is the only complete tale the squire tells: the story of the wronged female falcon. because he has not shaped his thoughts, his tale comes out a jumbled mess. the one thing that can connect his two competing tales is the “quick” mention of courtly life through occupationes, for courtly life and romance play into both the competing narratives, and yet these visions of courtly life disrupt his narrative rather than complete it. fortunately, the squire only uses the device four times before the franklin mercifully interrupts him. like his father, the squire uses occupatio to describe a feast. unlike his father, the squire’s description of the feast focuses only on the food rather than the actions of the court (v. 63-75). he does seem to indicate the exotic aspects of cambyuskan’s court, but because he has presented only the exotic physical descriptions of the court instead of descriptions of cambyuskan’s purpose in the tale, this first instance of occupatio contains no moral or virtuous aspect as his father’s description of the feast does. in the second—and lengthiest—occupatio (it spans an impressive sixtythree lines), the squire presents the strange knight’s speech (v. 105-67). here, the squire uses the device incorrectly. he begins by correctly using another humility trope (this trope must have been an earlier lesson for the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 170 spring 2016 squire), but this trope quickly takes on the form of an occupatio when he indicates that he will summarize the knight’s words: …i kan nat sowne his style, ne kan nat clymben over so heigh a style, yet seye i this, as to commune entente: thus much amounteth al that evere he mente, if it so be that i have it in mynde. [...i can not sound his style, nor can i climb over so high a style, yet i say this, as to communicate intent: thus much amounts all that ever he meant, if it be so that i have it in mind.](v. 105-09). while not in the true fashion of an occupatio, the content indicates that the squire, because he cannot imitate the style, will not present the speech. rather, he will provide a summary, which often occurs in an occupatio. however, the squire gives the strange knight’s whole speech rather than a brief summary. the speech greatly interrupts the flow of the tale, but the squire does indeed affect the high style, and so perhaps the squire uses this space to practice more of his rhetorical training. like the first use of occupatio, the squire’s third use of the trope focuses on the dancing and jealous glancing that occurs at the court (v. 283-90). the squire’s use of occupatio more closely matches his father’s use of the device. the squire briefly summarizes an aspect of court life while trying to play to the audience’s emotions. unfortunately, his attempt at pathos is a tad melodramatic. the squire believes that only lancelot could adequately describe this courtly scene, but alas, “launcelot is deed” [lancelot is dead] (v. 287). haller views the squire’s mention of lancelot as demonstrating the squire’s devotion to the knights of old romances instead of to his father, the realistic portrayal of knighthood (289). but haller does not blame the squire for preferring lancelot and gawain over his father, for haller recognizes the squire’s youthful exuberance (289). by making an aside about lancelot and his capabilities for describing courtly love, the squire does indeed prove his youth, but since he tries to emulate his father’s use of occupatio in both form and content, the squire demonstrates willingness to learn to be an eloquent knight like his father. the squire uses occupatio to exercise modesty when he refuses to describe the dreams of the court (v. 357-59). while this could be a modesty “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 171 element, like his father’s refusal to describe emelye’s preparations for the temple of diana, the squire just does not want to explain the dreams because there are no dreams. the courtiers are too drunk to have any dreams of “charge” (v. 359). the squire must have hoped the dreams would have been of courtly love and romance, but after a night of feasting, there are no dreams to report. the squire would have been better served not to mention this fact, but he does, and it detracts from his narrative because of its triviality. the squire “concludes” his tale with an occupatio, and this occupatio inspires the franklin to interrupt the squire, for the squire lists the things he does not have the time to discuss because he would rather tell of other tales (v. 650-60). in this occupatio he says that he will not tell of canacee’s ring and the falcon’s regaining of her love via cambalus. he then adds all that he will tell of the tale of algarsif ’s rescuing of theodora before he will return to cambalo and canacee (v. 661-670). the squire’s audience has a clue as to how long this tale will take. if it has taken the squire 650 lines just to describe cambyuskan’s court, the strange knight and his gifts, and canacee and the falcon, then his final tale in full must extend to an extravagant length. this final occupatio appears to be the last straw for the franklin, who interrupts the squire after he has only told the first two lines of his new tale. because of the rambling that has occurred due to his incorrect use of rhetorical devices, particularly occupatio, the narrative must end. the “squire’s tale” is not incomplete; chaucer purposefully created a fragment so that the squire’s lengthy tale might end. the “squire’s tale” has served its purpose: the squire had the ability to practice the rhetoric device occupatio while also perfecting his skills in descriptio and the humility topos. throughout the telling of his tale, the squire proves that he is learning eloquence. his occupationes move from trivial descriptors to attempts at describing knightly virtue (the lancelot scene) and modesty (the dreams of the courtiers). although he ultimately fails in his storytelling, his practice in eloquence was not done in vain. “…ther is noon that is heere / of eloquence that shal be they peere”: the franklin and chaucer’s prediction for the squire’s future the franklin kindly interrupts the squire by praising the squire’s use of rhetoric: “in faith, squier, thow hast thee well yquite / and gentilly. i preise well thy wit” [in faith, squire, you have acquitted yourself well / and gently. i praise your wit well] (v. 673-74). the franklin qualifies the squire’s success, though, by remarking that his success is good for his scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 172 spring 2016 youth (v. 675). to the franklin, the squire has performed as a studentknight should, and his performance appears to be gentil, which proves that the squire is beginning to attain the nobility that his father desires for him. the franklin’s qualification of the squire’s skill, though, is not negative, for the franklin declares that eventually the squire will have no peer in eloquence later in life (v. 677-79). furthermore, the franklin indicates the successful instruction by the knight when he says that his son does not have the same values as the squire, and so the franklin has “snybbed” [rebuked] (v. 688) his son because of his fondness for gambling and his lack of “gentillesse” (v. 694). the franklin’s praise of the squire and the squire’s future continues into the “franklin’s tale.” in the tale, the franklin shows the great lengths that aurelius, the “lusty squier, servant to venus” [lusty squire, servant to venus], goes to in an effort to win the married dorigen’s heart (v. 937). aurelius, like chaucer’s squire, pines for dorigen for two years, and he only expresses his love through writing songs (v. 940-50). when he does confess his love for dorigen, dorigen gives him the great task of removing all the rocks from the coast of brittany as the feat he must complete to win her (v. 992-98). aurelius accomplishes the task through the help of a clerk who studies “magyk natureel” [natural magic] (v. 1125). the squire goes to dorigen and exclaims that she must keep her promise to him (v. 131138). dorigen tells her husband averagus of her promise, and averagus, a knight who believes in the high virtue of keeping a promise (not unlike chaucer’s knight), tells her to follow through with her promise to aurelius. when dorigen offers herself to aurelius, aurelius releases her from her promise, for aurelius now sees averagus’s “grete gentillesse / to yow” [great gentleness / to you] (v. 1527-28). in the end, aurelius the squire finally says and does the right thing; he gives up his own dream of courtly love in order to preserve the marriage of the woman he loves. through the telling of this tale, the franklin proves that chaucer’s squire will possess eventually the skills of eloquence that will allow him to say and do virtuous deeds like aurelius, and like aurelius, the squire will earn nobility. chaucer displays a full picture of the squire’s education in the proper thoughts and words of a knight of the court, reflecting a petrarchan-esque view of rhetoric. through the “knight’s tale,” “the squire’s tale,” and the “franklin’s tale,” chaucer proves that even though the squire still immaturely obsesses over courtly romance, he will eventually attain the nobility of his father. schofield interprets the squire’s “gentle, feeling speech” as evidence of the squire’s eventual donning of knightly virtues: “the squire had evidently taken to heart the idealistic precepts of the order of “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 173 chivalry, which he was later to adorn” (46). perhaps chaucer’s education of the squire extends beyond these three tales. many of the stories in the canterbury tales provide moral messages that seem to be directed towards the young, particularly young men. the pardoner presents a tale of three greedy young men who meet death because of their greed. the wife of bath instructs a young knight in “what women want.” the other marriage pieces when read together provide a view of a happy and mutual marriage (the franklin’s tale seems to convey this portrayal of marriage in the most concise way). finally, the religious tales largely serve as a warning on false love for the church. the canterbury tales could be a manual for the young squires with whom chaucer was familiar. if chaucer truly does appreciate that cultured knight as much as jones thinks he does (11), then he certainly could have written a text for a squire on how to achieve “grete gentillesse” 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chaucer’s knight: the portrait of a medieval mercenary. baton rouge: louisiana up, 1980. print. kahrl, stanley j. “chaucer’s ‘squire’s tale’ and the decline of chivalry.” the chaucer review 7.3 (1973): 194-209. jstor. web. 25 july 2015. lynch, kathryn l. chaucer’s philosophical visions. chaucer studies. vol. 27. cambridge: d. s. brewer, 2000. print. manly, john matthews. “chaucer and the rhetoricians.” the proceedings of the british academy 12 (1926): 95-113. rpt. in chaucer criticism: the canterbury tales. vol. 1. eds. richard j. schoeck and jerome taylor. notre dame: u of notre dame p, 1960. 268-90. print. murphy, james j. “a new look at chaucer and the rhetoricians.” the review of english studies 15.57 (1964): 1-20. jstor. web. 21 july 2015. “it lyth nat in my tonge, n’yn my konnyng”: chaucer’s squire’s instruction in virtue and eloquence middle tennessee state university 175 muscatine, charles. “form, texture, and meaning in chaucer’s knight’s tale.” pmla 65.5 (1950): 911-29. jstor. web. 22 july 2015. payne, robert o. “chaucer’s realization of himself as rhetor.” medieval eloquence: studies in the theory and practice of medieval rhetoric. ed. james j. murphy. berkeley: u of california p, 1978. 270-87. print. peterson, joyce e. “the finished fragment: a reassessment of the ‘squire’s tale.’” the chaucer review 5.1 (1970): 62-74. jstor. web. 26 june 2015. petrarch, francis. “letter to tommaso da massina, concerning the study of eloquence.” renaissance debates on rhetoric. ed. and trans. wayne a. rebhorn. ithaca: cornell up, 2000. 15-17. print. plato. gorgias. trans. james h. nichols, jr. ithaca: cornell up, 1998. print. pseudo-cicero. “rhetorica ad herennium.” readings from classical rhetoric. ed. patricia p. matsen, philip rollinson, and marion sousa. carbondale: southern illinois up, 1990. 163-71. print. rossiter, william t. chaucer and petrarch. cambridge: d. s. brewer, 2010. print. russell, j. stephen. chaucer and the trivium: the mindsong of the canterbury tales. gainesville: up of florida, 1998. print. schofield, william henry. chivalry in english literature: chaucer, malory, spenser, and shakespeare. harvard studies in comparative literature. vol. 2. cambridge: harvard up, 1912. print. wallace, david. “chaucer’s italian inheritance.” the cambridge companion to chaucer. 2nd ed. ed. piero boitani and jill mann. cambridge: cambridge up, 2003. 36-57. print. middle tennessee state university 13 survey of biological factors affecting the determination of the postmortem interval richard bautista abstract estimating the time since death, or postmortem interval (pmi), is an important component of medicolegal investigations. methods for estimating pmi date as far back as ancient egypt. advances in scientific knowledge have provided additional tools for estimating pmi. a survey of available literature and lectures was conducted to identify biological factors that affect pmi estimation and how they are assessed. the results of this survey showed that a high degree of variability exits within each method that reduces the accuracy of their findings. however, when taken in context with each other and used in conjunction with non-scientific evidence, such as witness statements, pmi estimations can help narrow the range of the pmi to a useful degree. 14 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research introduction medicolegal death investigations are undertaken to determine the cause and manner of death. the postmortem interval (pmi), or the time since death, is one of the most important determinations made during the course of such investigations. it can assist in identifying the cause and manner of death. in a criminal case, it can lead to the identification or elimination of a suspect. it is also one of the most difficult tasks to complete. many different factors influence the accuracy of postmortem interval estimation. at the core of an investigation is the decedent, who provides many clues that may help investigators determine an approximate time of death. biological evidence provided by the decedent involves a number of factors that are assessed and integrated during the course of an investigation. however, it is important to place the role of pmi within a historical context to identify the challenges that death investigators face. historical background methods for estimating the postmortem interval date back to the ancient greeks and egyptians during the fourth and third centuries bce. they understood that dead bodies cooled and became stiff over a period of time after death, even though they did not understand the physiology behind the phenomena they were observing. using a qualitative approach they identified the following traits: • warm and not stiff: dead not more than a couple of hours • warm and stiff: dead between a couple of hours and a half day • cold and stiff: dead between a half day and two days • cold and not stiff: dead more than two days (sachs, 2001). the washing away of wrongs, a chinese forensic handbook written in 1247 ce and believed to be the first such text, described other methods for determining the postmortem interval. observing the degree of decomposition of a body could suggest the time of death depending on the season. for example, in the summer a body that had been dead for three days would have a “foul liquid” purging from the nose and mouth, while such signs could be significantly delayed during the cold weather of winter. it should be noted that estimations of the postmortem interval were limited to a window of one or two days as the time of travel to a death scene could impact accuracy (sachs, 2001). our current system of death investigation can be traced to the old english “crowner,” the origin of our term “coroner.” the crowner was responsible for determining where, when, and how a person died. over time, the advancement of scientific knowledge led to death investigation applications, such as the discovery of livor mortis, the settling of blood after death (sachs, 2001). unfortunately, the value of these scientific advances has led to misperceptions in the media as to forensic pathologists’ capabilities. a survey of biological factors affecting the determination of the postmortem interval middle tennessee state university 15 scene examination even with the current state of science and technology, estimating the postmortem interval can be problematic. an exact time of death often cannot be derived from an analysis of physical evidence. for this reason the postmortem interval is often given as a range of time, for example twelve to twenty-four hours before the body was discovered. it should also be noted that inaccuracy increases as the postmortem interval increases (dimaio & dana, 2007). there are essentially four primary factors that can be identified and assessed at the scene to estimate the postmortem interval: rigor mortis, livor mortis, algor mortis, and advanced decomposition. additional indicators of pmi in advanced stages of decomposition include insect activity, skeletal remains, and botanical evidence. rigor mortis rigor mortis is the stiffening of the body after death. before death, or antemortem, muscles contract and relax due to the actions of two fibers, actin and myosin. when a muscle is stimulated, calcium ions are released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, allowing myosin to bind with actin to contract the muscle. when the stimulation stops, the calcium ions are actively transported back to the sarcoplasmic reticulum. active transportation of the calcium ions requires a substance called adenosine triphosphate, or atp. this causes myosin to release its connection to actin, causing the muscle to relax (saladin, 2010). when a person dies, cellular structures start to break down, releasing more calcium ions into the muscle. at the same time, the body no longer produces atp. without atp, the calcium ions build up in the muscle tissue, causing more of the muscle fibers to contract over time and produce the rigidity we call “rigor mortis” (ribowsky, 2006). rigor mortis is used in estimating the postmortem interval by assessing the degree to which it occurs in the body. rigor becomes evident approximately two to six hours after death. even though rigor mortis occurs simultaneously in all of the body’s muscle tissues, it will be noticeable first in the smaller muscle groups. it begins in the face and hands and moves progressively throughout the rest of the body. after approximately eight to twelve hours, the entire body is rigid. the body will remain rigid for another twelve to twenty-four hours. over the next eight to ten hours, rigor will begin to disappear, leaving the body limp (burch, 2010). the signs of rigor mortis disappear in the same order they appeared, from small muscle groups to larger muscle groups (dimaio & dana, 2007). rigor disappears due to the cells breaking down as a result of decomposition; they are no longer able to maintain the muscular contraction (ribowsky, 2006). determining the extent of rigor involves assessing the range of motion of various joints, including the jaw, wrists, ankles, elbows, and knees, and recording the degree of stiffness of each joint (clark, ernst, haglund, jentzen, 1996). livor mortis livor mortis is sometimes referred to as lividity or postmortem lividity. with the heart no longer pumping blood through the vessels, blood begins to settle in the lowest, or dependent, 16 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research areas of the body due to the effects of gravity. it can be identified by a reddish, purplish-blue discoloration. however, if the dependent areas are pressed against a hard surface, the blood cannot settle there and results in a pale coloration (dimaio & dana, 2007). livor mortis can be seen as early as thirty minutes after death. since lividity results from the heart stopping, it may begin appearing antemortem in decedents who die as a result of cardiac failure. livor becomes more prominent over time (dimaio & dana, 2007). lividity is assessed by the degree of “blanching” in dependent areas. this involves pressing on areas where livor mortis is visible. settled blood will clear the area pressed and leave it pale, or “blanched.” the investigator observes how the blood returns when pressure is lifted. if the area does not blanch, fixed lividity is indicated. lividity becomes fixed when the blood leaches out of the blood vessels and breaks down. this stains the surrounding tissue. lividity usually becomes fixed eight to ten hours after death (wagner, 2009). algor mortis the cooling of the body after death is referred to as algor mortis. under ideal conditions, the body will have no drop in temperature for sixty to ninety minutes after death followed by cooling at the rate of 1 to 1.5 degrees fahrenheit per hour (ernst, 2010). this presupposes that the body was 98.6 degrees fahrenheit at the time of death and the surrounding environment maintained a constant temperature in the range of seventy to seventy-five degrees fahrenheit (dix, 2010). assessing algor mortis is done by taking a variety of temperature readings. body temperature is taken immediately upon arrival. it should also be taken one hour later; a third reading should be taken if possible (ernst, 2010). the most accurate way to record the body reading is by inserting the thermometer probe into the rectum or the liver after making an incision in the abdomen (mcfeely, 1991). a temperature reading of the environment is important. this reading must be taken as close as possible to the surface of the body. this is referred to as the micro-environment, or “micro temp,” reading (ernst, 2010). advanced decomposition rigor mortis, livor mortis, and algor mortis are all examples of the early stages of decomposition. however, their applicability is limited to the first two to three days after death. beyond that, the body can be assessed based on its condition and the surrounding environment. there are basically two biological processes by which a body decomposes: putrefaction and autolysis (dimaio & dana, 2007). putrefaction is the primary cause of decomposition. it involves bacteria, mostly from the digestive tract, breaking down the body’s tissues (dimaio & dana, 2007). autolysis is the process where tissue begins breaking down from the action of intracellular enzymes (2007). within the cells are digestive enzymes that are no longer held in check after death, resulting in self-digestion (burch, 2010). a survey of biological factors affecting the determination of the postmortem interval middle tennessee state university 17 since bacteria from the digestive tract are often the start of the decomposition process, the first outward signs can often be seen in the abdomen as a greenish discoloration. the next stage is identified by a greenish-black discoloration in the face and neck. the features may swell with the eyes and tongue protruding. reddish purge fluid emerges from the nose and mouth. as the body continues to decompose, gases are produced which can cause the body to swell. skin begins to slip. skin color will start changing to green and, eventually, black (dimaio & dana, 2007). two other occurrences are worth noting, mummification and adipocere. in hot, dry conditions, the body can become dehydrated. bacterial growth is hampered as it requires a warm, moist environment. the skin becomes dark, dry, and leathery. a mummified body can be well-preserved for years (wagner, 2009). adipocere may occur in bodies that are in high-moisture environments. fat tissue undergoes saponification, or a change to a soap-like substance. aside from a white, waxy appearance, there is no discoloration as which occurs with decomposition. an adipocere body can be well-preserved for several months (wagner, 2009). additional indicators insect activity forensic entomology can be used to estimate the time of death when other means, such as rigor mortis, are no longer valid. this generally means a postmortem interval greater than seventy-two hours. by identifying the insect species present, the state of growth of the insect(s) found on the body, and their rates of growth, a forensic entomologist can provide a relatively accurate estimate as to when the insects arrived on the body, which in turn can be used to estimate pmi (howe, 2010). insects found on the body are carefully collected and sent to the forensic entomologist. two sets of samples are required, one set consisting of live insects and the other set preserved in a 75% ethyl alcohol solution. additional insect samples are taken from the immediate area of the body, approximately one to three feet away; further away from the body, approximately twenty feet away; and from the soil under the body. data concerning ambient temperatures, the temperature of any insect masses on or in the body, and weather conditions are also recorded, as well as the condition of the body and any clothing present. the live samples are allowed to feed and grow while their rate of development is monitored. once the species is identified, the rate of development of the sample insects can be compared with the known rate of development for that species and the environmental data collected to determine how much time had passed since the insects arrived on the body. insects–particularly blowflies (order diptera)–are known to inhabit bodies soon after death, so pmi can be extrapolated from this data (howe, 2010). 18 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research skeletal remains pmi estimation is often associated with soft tissue, but skeletal remains can also offer clues. forensic taphonomy, a subfield of forensic anthropology, is the study of what occurs to organisms’ remains after death. this includes the effects of animals disarticulating and scattering the remains as well as biological processes (ubelaker, 1997). animals that scavenge remains often follow a pattern, dependent on the particular species. examining tooth marks in disarticulated remains can identify the animal species that scattered them. once the species is identified the disarticulation pattern can be determined. this pattern may include a time component which can be used in estimating pmi (ubelaker, 1997). the decomposition of the remains can aid pmi estimation by analyzing both internal and external chemical changes. one of the constituents of bone is citrate, making up approximately 1.5-2.0 wt%. postmortem citrate levels remain relatively constant for approximately four weeks, after which time the levels decrease linearly over time. by analyzing the citrate content of recovered skeletal remains, it is possible to calculate an approximate time of death (schwarcz, agur, jantz, 2010). decomposition also results in biological chemicals, such as fatty acids from soft tissue, being absorbed by the soil under the remains. analysis of the soil may provide data that can be used in pmi determinations (ubelaker, 1997). botanical evidence another field that can aid in estimating the postmortem interval is forensic botany. this method involves careful documentation and collection of evidence regarding the plant life immediately around, and often underneath, a body. a forensic botanist can assess this evidence and may be able to determine a time frame in which the body had been at the scene by comparing the degree of growth of the plant as well as its growing seasons and patterns. while it may not be able to provide an exact time of death, like many of the other methods described, it may be able to narrow the time frame being sought (wagner, 2009). autopsy examination once the decedent has undergone a preliminary examination at the death scene, the body is generally transported to an autopsy facility. a forensic pathologist will conduct an autopsy and, in conjunction with information provided by the investigator from the scene, will determine the cause and manner of death. part of this determination is pmi. the two primary biological factors involved in pmi estimation based on autopsy findings are gastric emptying and vitreous humor potassium levels. gastric emptying the rate at which the stomach empties its contents has often been used to estimate pmi. an empty stomach typically has a volume of approximately 50ml but can stretch to accommodate food, anywhere from 1-1.5l for a typical meal to 4l for a large meal. a survey of biological factors affecting the determination of the postmortem interval middle tennessee state university 19 however, only 3ml of the stomach’s contents enter the duodenum at a time to allow for the neutralization of stomach acid. the duodenum can also slow the transportation of food from the stomach to give it time for processing before continuing through the rest of the small intestine. a typical meal will be emptied from the stomach in approximately four hours. however, this can vary depending on the size and content of the meal. for example, a meal high in fat may take up to six hours to digest (saladin, 2010). by comparing the composition of the decedent’s last meal and when it was consumed with the amount and nature of food present in the stomach, a forensic pathologist can estimate when the decedent died (dimaio, 2007). vitreous humor vitreous humor is the fluid inside the eye. vitreous humor, or intraocular fluid, is obtained by inserting a syringe into the eye and removing as much of the fluid as possible. saline is then injected into the eye to restore its shape for funerary cosmetic purposes ( jashnani, kale, rupani, 2010). research has shown that potassium levels increase and sodium levels decrease postmortem. most importantly potassium levels increase in a linear manner that is proportional to the time since death. this allows for the determination of pmi by analyzing vitreous humor for potassium levels and applying that data to a mathematical formula ( jashnani, et al., 2010). in addition to vitreous humor analysis, the eyes can provide clues to pmi through changes in their physical appearance. tache noir sclerotique is the appearance of a dark band that forms across the eye. when the eyes are left open postmortem, the corneas can dry out due to exposure to air and the cessation of tear production. the result is a dark area that coincides with the exposed portion of the eyes. tache noir sclerotique can begin within two hours after death up to twenty-four hours (clark, 1997). results all of these methods are affected by a number of variables, internal and external. for example, the progression of rigor mortis can be accelerated if the decedent had a fever before death or the body is found in a hot environment (wagner, 2009). a high level of physical exertion can also accelerate its progression (dimaio & dana, 2007). cold weather, in turn, can slow the progress of rigor (wagner, 2009). as with rigor mortis, a number of variables can influence livor mortis and its assessment. lividity is visible until decomposition discolors the body, but it may be difficult to see in dark-skinned decedents (wagner, 2009). pressure from clothing or other objects can prevent livor from appearing in dependent areas, as can movement of the body after death. compounds in the blood, such as cyanide or carbon monoxide, or cold temperatures can alter the color of lividity, which can impact its visibility (mcfeely, 1991). these factors can make lividity appear to be bright red. extensive blood loss may cause lividity to be light red or, if enough blood has been lost, nonexistent (dix, 2010). it may also be possible to confuse 20 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research livor mortis with bruising, though this is easily rectified with a postmortem analysis of the suspected bruise(s) (dimaio & dana, 2007). while it has traditionally been considered an excellent method for estimating the postmortem interval, algor mortis may be one of the most unreliable methods due to the effects of a wide variety of factors. the decedent’s normal, baseline temperature may not be known antemortem and could vary throughout the course of the day. illness or strenuous activity before death can raise the baseline body temperature. body composition can also affect the rate of cooling, as well as the decedent’s clothing, or lack thereof. weather conditions and ambient temperatures can affect the rate of cooling, or increase the body’s temperature in the event the decedent died where the immediate environment was warmer than his/her baseline body temperature (dix, 2010). infection, decomposition, or drug use can raise a body’s temperature postmortem (mcfeely, 1991). advanced decomposition can be affected by a number of different variables. like the biological processes previously mentioned, body temperature at the time of death, as well as environmental temperatures, can either accelerate or slow the rate of decomposition. insect activity can also affect decomposition (wagner, 2009), as well as the activity of animals (ubelaker, 1997). both adipocere and mummification can inhibit accurate pmi estimation due to their preservative effects; adipocere can preserve tissue for months while mummification can preserve tissue for years, leaving little evidence of the passage of time (wagner, 2009). the application of entomology, anthropology, taphonomy, and botany to pmi estimation has been shown to be accurate, but can be lacking in precision. their findings provide a good approximation of time of death, but the range of time may be too wide to be of use in some investigations. the analysis of gastric contents is another tool that has been shown to be highly unreliable. research has shown that gastric emptying can vary widely not only from meal to meal or from person to person but also from day to day in the same person. stress can also greatly influence gastric emptying, with some decedents having stomachs full of undigested food consumed before experiencing trauma that resulted in hospital stays of several days before dying (dimaio & dana, 2007). of the methods described thus far, vitreous humor analysis holds the most promise. the method is simple and allows for a simple calculation based on potassium levels ( jashnani, et al., 2010). however, even this method is not completely reliable in terms of accuracy and precision. the rate of potassium concentrations increasing are affected not only by time but also the overall rate of decomposition of the body. the result is that conditions that can accelerate or decelerate decomposition can also increase or decrease potassium levels (dimaio & dana, 2007). a survey of biological factors affecting the determination of the postmortem interval middle tennessee state university 21 conclusions a common thread running through the various biological factors that can influence the estimation of the postmortem interval is, in a sense, unreliability. methods which have been touted as accurate were found to be highly variable and unable to establish a precise time of death with any kind of scientific certainty. there is no single marker that can be used to accurately determine the time of death (mcfeely, 1991). however, none of these factors should be used in isolation. medicolegal death investigations are multidisciplinary in nature, not just in terms of scientific disciplines but also in terms of investigative methodologies. a careful investigator will document evidence and conduct a thorough assessment of the body in order to gather as much information as possible. in addition to the biological factors discussed, other types of evidence are valuable to the death investigator. the use of witness interviews can be used to determine when the decedent was last known to be alive. reconstruction of the events leading up to the decedent’s death at the scene can also provide clues as to the time of death. what is required in a thorough death investigation is a careful, deliberate, multidisciplinary approach that will consider all of the evidence, utilizing the skills and knowledge of specialists when needed. by considering all of the available evidence, in context, it is possible in most cases to determine a pmi of sufficient accuracy to assist in medicolegal death investigations. 22 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research references burch p. estimation of time of death [lecture]. medicolegal death investigator training course. st. louis, mo: april 26, 2010. clark ma, worrell mb, pless je. postmortem changes in soft tissues. in: haglund wd, sorg, mh, editors. forensic taphonomy: the postmortem fate of human remains. florida: crc press, 1997. clark sc, ernst mf, haglund wd, jentzen jm. medicolegal death investigator: a systematic training program for the professional death investigator. michigan: occupational research and assessment, inc., 1996. dimaio vjm, dana se. handbook of forensic pathology. 2nd ed. florida: crc press, 2007. dix j. time of death [lecture notes]. cd-rom supplemental. medicolegal death investigator training course. st. louis, mo: april 26-30, 2010. ernst mf. death scene investigation [lecture]. medicolegal death investigator training course. st. louis, mo: april 28, 2010. howe j. collection of entomology evidence for medicolegal investigation [lecture]. medicolegal death investigator training course. st. louis, mo: april 28, 2010. jashnani kd, kale sa, rupani ab. vitreous humor: biochemical constituents in estimation of postmortem interval. journal of forensic sciences 2010 nov; 55(6):1523-27. mcfeely pj. and just how long have you been dead: estimation of time of death. the masters 4 course in death investigation, advanced death investigation conference. st. louis, mo: july 23, 1991. ribowsky s, shachtman t. dead center: behind the scenes at the world’s largest medical examiner’s office. new york: harpercollins, 2006. sachs js. corpse: nature, forensics, and the struggle to pinpoint time of death. massachusetts: perseus publishing, 2001. saladin ks. anatomy and physiology: the unity of form and function. new york: mcgraw-hill, 2010. schwarcz hp, agur k, jantz lm. a new method for determination of postmortem interval: citrate content of bone. journal of forensic sciences 2010 nov; 55(6):1516-22. ubelaker dh. taphonomic applications in forensic anthropology. in: haglund wd, sorg mh, editors. forensic taphonomy: the postmortem fate of human remains. florida: crc press, 1997. wagner, sa. death scene investigation: a field guide. florida: crc press, 2009. middle tennessee state university 23 interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand thammasat university, bangkok, thailand islam in thailand anna yacovone abstract an interfaith dialogue can be loosely defined as a discussion among people from different religious backgrounds who work together in order to achieve a common objective. the appeal behind this peace-building tactic is that such dialogues can be flexible in terms of its purpose and how it is implemented. in addition, because conflicts are often complex and have multiple influencing factors, interfaith dialogues are useful because they provide a multidimensional outlook. one conflict i learned extensively about while studying abroad at thammasat university in bangkok, thailand is occurring in the country’s southern provinces. although religious discord may have been a catalyst in this conflict, other political, socioeconomic and cultural factors also play a significant role. unfortunately, because of the media’s portrayal, many believe the problem stems from differences between the thai buddhists and malay muslims in this region. however, the origins of this conflict delve much deeper and even date back to when part of the pattani kingdom, a former state of malaysia, was annexed under thai rule. as a result, harsh assimilation laws have been passed in order for the malay people to become thai, thus causing friction that has lasted over a century. though southern thailand has seen cycles of civil unrest and instability, the last decade has experienced the worst acts of violence since the country gained five of the pattani states. this paper will explore more thoroughly interfaith dialogues and discuss how such a tactic can be applied to the situation in southern thailand. along with providing a brief historical overview of interfaith dialogues, there will also be a discussion on a mock interfaith dialogue i hosted in an academic setting at thammasat university. afterwards, this paper will look at the presence of interfaith dialogues in thailand since this country’s seemingly tolerant outlook juxtaposes with the reality of what is occurring in the southern provinces. lastly, this paper will address the historical progression of this conflict and then provide nine recommendations if an interfaith dialogue is held in regards to this crisis. 24 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand over the past century, the world has seen what gerhold becker (2006) calls a resurfacing of religion. this powerful shift has challenged what many political theorists have hypothesized about a modern and democratic state requiring secularism (becker, 2006). although most countries in the west prefer to divide religion and politics in order to protect individuals’ rights, religion continues to play a major role in many countries’ governments that strive to be modern and democratic states. one evident example would include several countries in the middle east that fuse government with religion. however, whether a country is considered secular or has an imposed state religion, religion’s influence may be unprecedented because, as many argue, it ultimately satisfies humanity’s need for a divine purpose (becker, 2006). whether this purpose is fulfilled, religious and cultural differences have nonetheless caused clashes for thousands of years. unfortunately, such conflicts have also hallmarked the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the perpetual conflict in the middle east to what this paper will analyze: the conflict in the southern provinces of thailand. fortunately, a promising and increasingly popular method to help combat clashes and ease tensions is the concept of interfaith dialogues. interfaith–or the coming together of people from various religious backgrounds–officially began with the parliament of the world’s religions in 1893. this paper will, however, examine how interfaith dialogue serves more as an umbrella term for any and all discussions related to bridging religious and cultural gaps and instilling harmony. this analysis will also provide a more detailed definition of interfaith dialogues and include a brief historical background. next, the purpose of interfaith dialogues will be discussed, along with a summary of the various types. this paper will then further cite an example of an informal and small-scaled version of an interfaith dialogue hosted by the researcher in an academic classroom. following this will be a discussion on how interfaith dialogues can still be used as a tool in solving conflicts, despite some limitations. next, there will be a historical overview on the present conflict in thailand’s southern provinces in order to provide necessary background for this analysis’s proposal. lastly, the overall current role interfaith dialogues play in thailand will be included, followed by nine recommendations on using interfaith dialogues for thailand’s southern provinces experiencing the conflict. definition and purpose of interfaith dialogues the definition of an interfaith dialogue is a discussion among people from various religious backgrounds who work together in order to achieve a common objective (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). because religious ideology among groups of people can differ substantially, interfaith dialogues are implemented in order to create a safe haven for open, thoughtful and stimulating conversation among groups of people who, in other circumstances, may disagree or not show respect (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). in essence, interfaith dialogues strive peacefully to interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 25 advance relationships and interactions with people from different religious groups, and thus foster a coexisting society that does not tolerate prejudice (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). interfaith dialogues achieve this by hosting a free-flowing exchange of ideas in a supportive setting. consequently, they can reduce misunderstandings, break stereotypes, and, as bagir (2007) cites, “rehumanize” parties involved in complex and volatile disputes. various t ypes, structures, and objectives of interfaith dialogues the phrase interfaith dialogue is more of an umbrella term because there are many ways to carry out a dialogue, and reasons for holding one can vary (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). for example, they can include formal panels, workshops, or conferences held by, or composed of, government or religious leaders (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004; maluleem, 2005). conversely, it can even include informal meetings with religious group members, non-religious group members, and civilians of any social or economic status. the number present at a dialogue can be as few as two people having a conversation. interfaith dialogues can even take place in an academic setting, such as hosting one at a university in a classroom or public forum. the purpose and content of the dialogue varies as well. for some dialogues, the objective is to focus on secular issues typically political or social in nature, such as healthcare or education (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005; garfinkel, 2004). there have been dialogues in the past focused on broad topics, such as peace-building in particular regions of the world, and on specific issues, such as hiv/aids awareness or environmental issues like global warming. interfaith dialogues are used for a variety of issues chiefly because their collaborative nature provides a multidimensional outlook on major world issues (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). this analysis focuses on utilizing interfaith dialogues in order to tackle a complex conflict with a variety of factors that are social, political, and religious in nature. historical background of interfaith dialogues although there has always been interreligious dialogue throughout the ages, the most official interfaith dialogue on a global scale and in modern times was during the world columbian exposition in 1893 set in chicago, illinois (brodeur, 2005; seagar, 1993). during this exposition–which commemorated columbus’s discovery of the americas in 1492– several organized parliaments covered different topics (seagar, 1993). the most famous was the parliament of religions, in which delegates from various religions–though most were only from different christian denominations–met to deliver papers and hold panels on the time’s current religious issues (seager, 1993). admittedly, by today’s standards this conference would be considered heavily biased with very few representatives from religions hailing from the east and absolutely no representation of islam (seagar, 1993). however, this event in terms of interfaith dialogue on a global scale is still considered by 26 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research many religious scholars as a monumental achievement hallmarking the turn of the twentieth century (brodeur, 2005; seager, 1993). during the 1970s and 1980s, according to bagir (2007), there were increased numbers of interfaith dialogues. however, these dialogues were initially imposed by governments in order to influence religious leaders into agreeing upon political agendas, like family planning (bargir, 2007). then in the 1990s, a shift occurred in which the majority of interfaith dialogues were organized by nongovernmental agencies (bagir, 2007). interestingly enough, as the world saw a rise to interfaith dialogues, religious conflicts increased (bagir, 2007). another historical moment for interfaith dialogues was the second meeting of the world’s parliament (brodeur, 2005, young, 2005). again, it took place in chicago and was held in order to hold a global panel of interfaith discussions as well as pay tribute to the centennial of the first parliament (brodeur, 2005; young, 2005). in contrast to the previous parliament, the 1993 assmebly produced a document called “a global ethic,” which highlights major themes various religious officials agreed were pertinent in terms of religion’s role in modern society (young, 2005). such themes included self-accountability, absolute disregard for violence as a problem-solving tactic, selflessness, equality, and many more. (young, 2005). these revolutionary moments have acted as catalysts for several other major and more religiously inclusive world parliament meetings, some of which were held in locations such as cape town, south africa in 1999 or barcelona, spain in 2004 (young, 2005). according to brodeur (2005), the technology revolution has also played a systematic and integral part to the rise of interfaith dialogues hosted by nonprofit organizations. because of the “network culture” that has been linked to the information systems on the internet, organizations in modern society can communicate faster and coordinate more interfaith movements (brodeur, 2005). a small-scaled example of an interfaith dialogue the researcher of this report held a mock interfaith dialogue in april, 2011 in order to further educate students at thammasat university about not only the current conflict in thailand’s southern provinces, but also the concept of interfaith dialogues. the setting for this dialogue was a classroom, and the course was entitled “islam in thailand,” taught by dr. jaran maluleem. the researcher proposed that by hosting her own simulated dialogue, she could not only teach others about the purpose and benefits of interfaith but also gain personal insight and experience. the setup of this dialogue was to analyze two other major religions, christianity and buddhism, in the context of an academic class, which was mainly studying the religion islam. the dialogue was divided into three parts: first, an overview of defining religion and outlining the importance and implications of religions; second, a summary of christianity and buddhism; third, a discussion on interfaith dialogues and how they can be applied to the southern provinces of thailand. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 27 part i of the mock interfaith dialogue in order to explain why it is critical to study religions before analyzing conflicts associating with religious discord, the researcher gave a broad definition of religion. the definition she gave was consistent with that of young (2005), who states that religion is loosely and collectively defined as providing people with a purpose and rationale for the present life and an account for the afterlife, or next phase. it typically includes general guidelines for behavior and can be related to the actuality and presence of angels, demons, spirits, or even spiritual ancestors (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). next, the researcher discussed how there are different methods of studying religion, such as examining religions historically, socially, analytically, etc., followed by a discussion on why people are religious. as mentioned earlier, the researcher discussed how religion satisfies mankind’s needs (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). to elaborate, religion provides a sense of “ultimacy” in which individuals’ psychological needs for identity and purpose are met since religion gives them a reason that transcends him or her to the next phase after this present life (young, 2005). additionally, religion fulfills basic social needs in which strong relationships and groups are formed, thus granting an added layer of belongingness (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). the next topic in the mock-dialogue was a more in-depth review of why religion should be studied. the researcher’s reasons included the strong influence religion has over social, economic, political and even artistic spheres, all of which overlap and consequently complicate any and almost all conflicts associated with religious discordance (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). aside from religions having an overwhelming impact on the world, the researcher also stated how religion is important for individual growth (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). next, the way in which religions perceive themselves and one another was addressed in order to give a perspective on how islam, christianity, and buddhism relate. the first definition that was discussed was exclusivism, which is when member of a religious group ultimately views themselves as the only religion accurate and worthwhile to follow (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). on the other hand, inclusivism is where an individual believes that either there is an absolute truth amongst the religions that has yet to be formed or that in essence, all religions in the end adhere to one purpose (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). lastly, pluralism is the concept of acknowledging that though religions may differ, respecting one another is key to establishing a peaceful and cooperative society (bishop, 1969; young, 2005; yusuf, 2003). part ii of the mock interfaith dialogue the second part of the presentation included a historical overview of christianity and buddhism as well as a general summary of both religions’ basic principles. this included discussing how christianity focuses on the birth, life, and death of jesus of nazareth and how this religion is an extension of judaism, yet for christians, jesus of nazareth is the prophesized messiah and the ultimate sacrifice to god for humanity’s sins (hopfe & 28 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research woodward, 2007; young, 2005). in this discussion, there was mention of the major beliefs of christianity. however, because there are over 34,000 denominations, the researcher emphasized how christianity is difficult historically to analyze, especially given the time limit of this particular dialogue (young, 2005). next, the major tenets of buddhism were summarized, along with a historical overview of its founder, prince siddhartha. the researcher mentioned the four noble truths, the difference between the two branches–theravada and mahayana–and the significance of the eightfold path (hopfe & woodward, 2007; young, 2005). part iii of the mock interfaith dialogue the third portion of the mock dialogue included what was mentioned earlier in this analysis: the definition, purpose, and background behind interfaith dialogues. lastly, the researcher gave recommendations for thailand when implementing interfaith dialogues, those of which will be discussed later in this analysis. demographics and feedback the audience of those at the mock dialogue included six exchange students studying abroad at thammasat university–three of which were from california in the united states, two from japan and one from china. the other audience members present were three local thai students, along with the professor of the class, dr. jaran maluleem. oral feedback from the class included compliments and a growing interest in interfaith dialogues. two students in particular noted that they had never heard of this type of conflict-solving strategy before but appreciated how it strives for tolerance and religious pluralism. conclusion of the mock interfaith dialogue one objective of this small-scale version of an interfaith dialogue was to demonstrate how complex and arduous religions can be, much like the conflicts that involve religious differences. the mock dialogue demonstrated this by discussing two major religions, buddhism and christianity, and how there are many different ways to analyze religions. this dialogue, for example, mainly examined these religions’ historical backgrounds. another objective was to educate the class about how there are many types of interfaith dialogues. one such type the researcher tried to demonstrate was an informal method–but in an academic setting. acknowledging that there are many types of interfaith dialogues is important because a dialogue’s context and setting can affect what is being discussed, who is guiding the dialogue, the participants’ comfort level and the participants’ willingness openly to join in the discussion. if any of these components are negatively affected, then an interfaith dialogue will most likely not yield a successful outcome. interfaith dialogues’ limitations though interfaith dialogues serve as a peaceful means for solving conflicts, there are still three major limitations this analysis will address. first, despite popular belief, interfaith interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 29 dialogues cannot instantaneously resolve conflicts or function as a panacea (bagir, 2007). as many social and political theorists will explain, most conflicts, including the one in thailand’s southern provinces, are multidimensional and often times deal with more than a simple religious disagreement. because religion, culture and politics heavily intertwine with one another, using interfaith dialogue as a way to handle only the religious aspect of the conflict will not lead to long term success (bagir, 2007). interfaith dialogue can instead be utilized as a public tool to start engaging people in discussions and inspiring change, especially at a grassroots level (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005). the next limitation of interfaith dialogue stems from the first. one major barrier that interfaith dialogues cannot directly change is the political structures or governmental policies that can oftentimes sustain conflicts (bagir, 2007). though interfaith dialogues can undoubtedly ignite social movements or bring about grassroots organization within a society, they do not typically encourage political leaders to direct a structural change (bagir, 2007). lastly, one limitation that must not go unnoted is interfaith dialogues’ difficulty–or perhaps inability–to measure success. though interfaith dialogues are capable of empowering people, there has been little concrete evidence to suggest they are infallible or an absolute impetus for change or a resolution for modern conflicts (bagir, 2007). however, as bagir (2007) suggests, perhaps the lack of regularity of interfaith dialogues, along with other factors, may be the root cause as to why this type of peace-building method has not been widely acclaimed or cited as a standard problem-solving strategy. factors such as a lack of regularity will be discussed further in the recommendations section of this analysis. role of interfaith dialogues in thailand internationally because thailand has a seemingly pluralist society that tolerates all religions, the country has been active in hosting countless interfaith dialogues. thailand participates annually in the asia-europe meeting’s (asem) interfaith dialogue, and in 2008, the nation even co-hosted the fourth annual meeting (asia, 2008). to show further support of interfaith dialogues and religious tolerance, bangkok hosted asem’s interfaith cultural youth camp in february, 2009 (asia, 2009). the allure of thailand possessing an overall pluralist society has even drawn other countries to host interfaith dialogues in order to hash out their own political conflicts. for example, religious officials from india and pakistan met in october, 2010 in bangkok to host an interfaith dialogue discussing peace-building strategies in that particular region (interfaith, 2010).1 another example is when in 2010, a japanese, buddhist-based nonprofit organization soka gakkai international (sgi) also hosted its interfaith dialogue in bangkok (soka, 2010). the purpose of this nonprofit is to build stronger connections with buddhists across the world, and according to their website, the dialogue included 1 see figure 1. 30 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research thirty members representing christianity or buddhism and concentrated on issues such as the responsibility religion has in light of the current economic situation happening globally (soka, 2010). figure 1. indian and pakistani religious representatives at an interfaith dialogue discussing peace-building tactics (“interfaith,” 2010). nationally within thailand, the presence of interfaith dialogues is varied and can be seen on a public or private scale. though it is difficult accurately to ascertain when interfaith dialogues launched in thailand, they at least began to increase in the 1990s with the rise of nongovernmental organizations increasing (bagir, 2007; brodeur, 2005). these dialogues hosted by ngos, such as the thousand stars foundation or the international network of engaged buddhists, are considered to be the most common type of interfaith dialogue in thailand (sukrung, 2010). as with the nature of interfaith dialogues, these types cover an array of topics. for instance, in 2006, leaders representing buddhism, islam and christianity met in bangkok in response to the political upheaval and protests against thailand’s former prime minister, thaksin shinawatra (uca news, 2006). another example of thailand hosting different types of dialogue occurred in 2009 when religious leaders from burma, thailand and sri lanka met in bangkok to talk about and promote more peaceful strategies in this particular area of the world (sopaka, 2009)2. 2 see figure 2. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 31 figure 2. religious leaders from myanmar, sri lanka and thailand meeting in thailand to discuss religious tolerance and practical methods to strive for peace in the surround region (sopaka, 2009). interfaith dialogues occur even on a private scale in thailand, during which churches, mosques, and temples regularly schedule meetings with the religious community in order to sustain peace within thailand’s pluralist society. for example, the president of bangkok’s foundation of islamic centre of thailand, dr. pakorn priyakorn, stresses the importance of interfaith dialogues and claims “it is an absolute must” (p. priyakorn, personal communication, april 22, 2010). though these examples may indicate that interfaith dialogue is a successful method for reducing conflicts and building peaceful societies, there is still room for improvement. according to the bangkok post, the public and those not regularly affiliated with religious organizations have little access to these dialogues, and the media does not assertively report their presence (sukrung, 2010). historical background of thailand’s southern provinces before one can address resolution building methods in the south of thailand, it is important first to explain how the current conflict began and how it has progressed. on a surface level, the conflict is thought to be a religious clash between the malay muslims and the thai buddhists (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). however, that notion is premature and does not address several other critical factors that must be considered. the conflict in the south is one social, political, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious in nature (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). although the media produces the view that the conflict surrounds only two religious groups, it ultimately comes down to pressure placed on an ethnic minority, past assimilation policies imposed by the thai government, and a long history between thailand and malaysia’s borders (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). 32 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 3. map of thailand ’s southern provinces. before the anglo-siamese treaty, the kingdom of pattani consisted of satun, songkhla, pattani (the capital at the time), yala, narathiwat, perus, kedah, perak, kelantan, and trengganu. to explain further, in 1909, thailand signed a treaty with great britain called the anglo-siamese treaty (yusuf, 2006). this agreement allowed thailand to control five new malaysian provinces that were once under the pattani kingdom: yala, pattani, narathiwat, songkhla, and satun (yusuf, 2006)3. since this critical point of redefining demarcation lines between countries, and thus affecting cultural groups and ethnicities, there have been countless uprisings over the past century from the ethnic malays against the thai government (bajunid, 2006). the revolts increased during the 1930s and 1940s when the thai government, headed by general luang pibulsonggram and field marshall sarit thanarat, tried to enact strict assimilation laws that infringed upon the ethnically malay-muslim identity (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). such laws included unfair and apparent targeting tactics, such as switching the language of the religious school–pondoks–from malay or arabic to thai (bajunid, 2006), which resulted in unrest. however, the thai evolution towards a democratic state in the 1970s and 1980s, produced general calm (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). unfortunately, when former prime minister thaksin shinawatra came to power, tensions began to resurge at the turn of the twenty-first century due to implementing laws that again targeted the malay-muslim ethnicity (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the zenith of unrest was during 2004, which included the krue se mosque and takbai events (bajunid, 2006; becker, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the thai government subsequently initiated the national reconciliation commission in 2005 to investigate these incidents, yet unfortunately, the report remains futile and few of the suggestions made have been considered (yusuf, 2006). additionally, with the recent political outbreak in 2006, the thai 3 see figure 3. interfaith dialogues: a method to promote peace in southern thailand middle tennessee state university 33 government remained distracted from properly addressing how to solve the uprisings and violence. because of the thai government’s enacted martial law and strong presence of military power in the south, tensions still remain strong between the insurgents and the opposing side. according to omar bajunid (2006), since 2004, there have been “over 3,000 violent events” and countless tragic deaths related to the conflict in southern thailand. lastly, it is important to note that the nature of this conflict is highly complex and consists of years of governmental policies and political turmoil, and the account here is merely a brief historical description. the main concept to underscore is that the issue lies within the people’s ethnicity in addition to their religion. several factors of the malaymuslim identity challenge the thai nation, and these factors primarily include the people’s language and religion (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). the language is first a challenge because most of the citizens in the south are ethnically malay and in turn speak malay, not thai (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). consequently, this ethnicity cannot assimilate fully or effortlessly into thai society, which is considered to be united by the thai language. next, the islamic religion factor, as mentioned earlier, can at times indirectly challenge the constitutional-democratic thai state. for example, because the insurgents practice islam, their allegiance to political leaders is a sensitive matter since their allegiance is always first toward allah. being asked to alter certain modes of their belief system in order for the ethnic malays to assimilate into thai society almost always causes tension (bajunid, 2006; yusuf, 2006). nevertheless, the key concept to focus on is the “ethno-linguistic” feature of this conflict, and not just the religious aspect. recommendations for thailand’s southern provinces according to becker (2003), in order to practice fairness within a society and thus keep the peace, the ruling powers are required to give the public a voice. interfaith dialogues can achieve this necessity because they simply grant individuals the option to speak their opinion in a safe and nurturing forum of free-thinking discussion. in turn, interfaith dialogues can empower individuals, shape movements, and create the change that people in southern thailand want to see (bagir, 2007; garfinkel, 2004). however, in order for interfaith dialogues to work, especially in the context of thailand’s southern provinces, this analysis suggests nine specific recommendations that will be addressed below.4 recommendation one first, when considering who should be present at an interfaith dialogue that addresses the crisis in the south, the answer is simple: everyone (bagir, 2007). although religious leaders and government officials are typically the ones present, it would be beneficial to include a vast range of participants because this situation includes an array of people 4 it is important to acknowledge that although interfaith dialogues are naturally associated with solving religious conflicts, as previously mentioned, in this instance, where using interfaith dialogues would be a tool to reduce conflict in the south, the situation is entirely religious in nature. as mentioned previously, this conflict is politically, socially, and religiously rooted. therefore, interfaith dialogues would be used to address all factors, not just the face-value “buddhism vs. muslim” aspect. 34 spring 2012 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research spanning generations. this includes everyone from all socioeconomic backgrounds and, as bagir (2007) suggests, those with all types of jobs, such as the fishermen, police, and others. this recommendation is critical because it provides a voice not only to those in power presiding over the decisions on the matter; this recommendation hints that those directly affected by and included in the conflict must be involved. recommendation two building on the first recommendation, the ideal location for hosting an interfaith dialogue would not be in thailand’s political capital, bangkok. given the significant distance from the south, in order to include all of those affected by the conflict, it would be logical to host it in a central location. again, the objective is to make sure all parties are equally given an opportunity to speak of their grievances, build relationships, and reduce tension. recommendation three a substantial number of those present at an interfaith dialogue should be from the south. again, it is a matter of providing opportunities to build peace with the parties that are feuding. therefore, not having a considerable number would be futile. along with this, there should be an even number of ethnic thais and malays in order to keep representation balanced. however, it is important to note that there should undoubtedly be representatives from the national thai government so that those parties, too, can learn from firsthand accounts about the conflict and determine what political measures need to be considered. recommendation four. when hosting an interfaith dialogue, each party needs to have a clear objective of what it would like to accomplish (garfinkel, 2004). without outlining a clear purpose for each meeting, there is the risk of not effectively addressing major concerns or issues at hand as well as instilling confusion if each member is not comfortably on the same page (garfinkel, 2004). recommendation five this recommendation calls for each party to possess a deep and most sincere level of honesty (maluleem, 2005). if any member has ulterior motives or deceptive plans at an interfaith dialogue, there is a great possibility for one party to instill more distrust, suspicion, negativity, and animosity. this may cause a greater divide between those feuding in the south, which is the antithetical purpose of an interfaith dialogue. the aim is to move forward through peaceful means and not regress. recommendation six because the subject matter that would be addressed at these particular interfaith dialogues would be sensitive in nature, it is crucial for each member to possess strong levels of maturity. each member should be able to handle hard facts and criticism so that they may learn and grow from the interfaith dialogues (maluleem, 2005). middle tennessee state university 79 safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports amber l. hulsey and dr. c. daniel prather abstract safety management systems (sms), which is the proactive, formalized approach to managing risk and enhancing safety, is not yet mandatory within the aviation industry in the united states.  two pilot sms studies were conducted at a handful of airports nationwide by the federal aviation administration (faa), which examined the feasibility of implementing sms at airports. although sms is not yet mandatory in this country, many in the industry think it will become mandatory in the near future.  this research investigates via a brief, online questionnaire with two additional follow-ups, data analysis, and aggregate reporting of data, the degree to which tennessee airports support sms adoption. the majority of tennessee airports responding to the survey are not too familiar with sms; currently have a proactive safety plan in place other than sms; support a mandatory sms for part 139 airports; may consider implementing an sms if it remains voluntary; would expect some resistance from airport employees, tenants, and users if implementing an sms; and would anticipate needing additional funding to properly develop and implement an sms.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 80 spring 2012 introduction “needless deaths through accidents are a betrayal of our society.” ~worick (1975, p. 7) every accident result from “faulty habits and attitude” (p. 25), and everyone should know what his or her attitude is and how it can be tailored (worick, 1975). most people think engineering is the literal job; however, it can simply be described as way of coming up with how to create a proper system–or in our case systems safety (rodgers, 1971). “safety touches many areas of a man’s life. there are ethical, moral, religious, aesthetic, legal, and many other considerations that involve safety,” (worick, 1975, p.1). according to rodgers (1971), everyone thinks that they understand the meaning of safety. however, it is not until they are asked to write a definition that they cannot do so. there are many ways one can define safety depending on the context (rodgers, p. 3). for example, rodgers (1971) defines safety as the “surety that the environment that personnel or items are subjected to is free from inadvertent or unexpected events which may result in injury to personnel or damage to the items exposed” (p. 2). however, mroz (1978), defines safety as “the prevention of accidents and mitigation of personal injury or property which may result from accidents” (p.7). according to rodgers (1971), “piloting a private airplane is considered relativity safe, to a trained pilot; but, to someone who has never taken flying lessons, it would be a very dangerous and almost certain fatal venture,” (p.1). literature review safety background mroz (1978) claims that the system safety analysis originates from the aerospace industry (p. 19), and according to roland and moriarty, the earliest form of a safety concept came in 1947 from a paper that was presented to the institute of aeronautical sciences entitled “engineering for safety.” the paper states, “safety must be designed and built into airplanes just as are performance, stability, and structural integrity. a safety group must be just as important a part of a manufacturer’s organization as a stress, aerodynamics, or a weights group,” (1983, p. 11). unlike other industries that have been around for some time, having safety as a profession is still new (worick, 1975, p. 254). many safety professionals who now are in the safety/accident prevention career initially planned to become certified in prevention. years ago anyone could perform the job of accident prevention; however, today it is a more strict profession requiring that people are certified in specialty fields (worick, 1975, p. 254). accidents occur daily in this world. some are fatal–such as an airplane accident–and some are non-fatal–such as a broken leg. many accidents could have been prevented by simply implementing a safety management system. the leading cause of death in the united states among individuals from 1 through 38 are from preventable accidents. preventable, safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 81 accidental deaths are the fourth leading cause of death in all age groups (mroz, 1978, p. 1). when presented with this statistical data, it becomes clear that a safety program needs to be proactive rather than reactive; this is the primary goal of safety management systems. florio, alles, and stafford (1979) define safety education as the education of people to prevent accidents (p. 25). they also state that, due to using safety programs in profession, “between 1912 and 1976[,] accident fatality rates dropped by 71 percent,” (florio et al., 1979, p. 429). their findings positively support the impact that a safety program has in the workplace, home, and community. rodgers (1971) states, “safety programs have been established in the past on an afterthe-fact philosophy” (p.2), meaning that previously, something major must occur for an employer to take notice that safety measures must be implemented. for example, many aviation professionals have stated that most of the minimum standards set at airports are usually the result of something that occurred at the airport. this trend is a tragedy; every person should be educated in safety, and rodgers (1971) explains that the mass production of goods post wwii caused the entire industry “to think in terms of systems” (p. 9). as a result, workers began to see a systematic way of carrying out tasks in order to be able to mass produce those items after the war without many problems. pybus (1996) gives many examples of some accidents, the warning signs, and the outcomes. one such accident includes an oil rig accident in the north sea on july 6, 1988 that resulted from leaking gas and an ignition source. the rig was engulfed by flames killing 167 people. during the investigation phase, many issues were uncovered. these issues included a lack of a proper hazard assessment, no proper permits, no written documents, and improper record-keeping of dates and times. furthermore, employees did not receive the proper training; therefore, their safety auditing was not performed correctly, and management ignored previous incidents that occurred on the same oil rig (pybus, pp. 7-11). another well-publicized accident occurred on january 28th, 1986: on 28th january 1986 at 11:38 eastern standard time, the space shuttle challenger was launched from the kennedy space center. seventy three seconds later its flight ended in an explosive burn of hydrogen and oxygen propellants. all seven crew members died. the immediate cause of the disaster was the failure of a rubber o-ring one of the two solid fuel booster rockets, leading to a leak of fuel, which ignited. the flame deflected on to the surface of the external liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen shuttle propellant tank, causing failure of the tank structure and escaping liquid fuels ignited explosively, and the shuttle assembly was destroyed. with this space-age technology, how was it that a simple o-ring failed with such disastrous consequences? the presidential commission of enquiry unearthed significant underlying causes (p. 11). after a thorough investigation of the space shuttle challenger accident, there proved to be four main causes of the accident. the first cause was due to improper design of the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 82 spring 2012 o-ring. it was too sensitive for the environmental conditions in which it would be utilized. at the time of the launch, the temperature was thirty-nine degrees. according to nasa policy, the temperature was not supposed to be lower than fifty-two degrees. interestingly, the design of the challenger’s rocket booster was rated fourth out of all its other competitors (pybus, 1996, p. 12). the second cause of the accident stemmed from the fact that no person who conducted a hazard assessment objected to its questionable yet faulty design. furthermore, employees tended to ignore the problems. as time elapsed through the investigation phase, nasa and the seal manufacturer decided to stick by their initial design choice rather than go back and redesign it in order to avoid more inherent costs on the project. there were also gaps in communications–which is the third cause of the accident–between the people who were conducting the launch and senior management. the fourth cause was due to the high-profile level of the project, the demands of meetings deadlines, and “stretched” resources while “fundamental principles [were] overridden,” (pybus, 1996, p. 13). throughout the entire process, there was evidence against the launching of the space shuttle, but the determination to launch was even greater at the cost of seven lives (pybus, 1996, p. 13). nevertheless, another tragic event occurred due to cost cutting and an improper safety management system (pybus, 1996, p. 12). those seven people lost their lives in an event that was supposed to mark the highlight of their lives, but because no one objected to the defective design in the o-ring, they died as the world was watching. pybus (1996) said, “it was the replacement of a safety-driven culture by a performance-driven culture” (p. 13). safet y management systems “let’s [f ]ace it, safety costs money, doesn’t it? it brings extra bureaucracy and slows things down, doesn’t it? all that red tape; all those constraints on getting with the real job. safety. not a good fit with the modern business image of risk taking, cost cutting and entrepreneurial spirit, is it?” ~pybus (1996, p. 1) “in november of 2005, international civil aviation organization (icao) amended annex 14, volume 1 (aerodrome design and operations) to require member states to have certified international airports establish an sms,” (faa, 2007). to introduce this new system, the faa created advisory circulars to inform aviation personnel of the information, sponsoring guidance and pilot studies. the federal aviation administration released an advisory circular on february 28, 2007 entitled “introduction to safety management systems (sms) for airport operator” (faa, 2007) however, before the final rule implementation in 2010, they wanted to obtain the opinion of the public and make sure they did not have repetition between 14 cfr part 139–which is the certification of airports–and the new program (sms). in addition, they planned to implement, safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 83 training, oversight from the faa and many other factors (faa, 2010). “the application of systematic, proactive, and well defined safety program (as is inherent in a sms) allows an organization producing a product or service to strike a realistic and efficient balance safety and production.” sms overview sms pilot studies two projects have been funded to help further guide the implementation of sms. the faa used these pilot studies to determine the costs and time involved with sms implementation, as well as to develop models for future airports sms projects (federal aviation administration, n.d). funding for this project came from aip planning grant funds; however, airports must meet certain eligibility requirements. the first pilot study results showed that the initial set up for an sms is covered under aip grants while the second pilot study uncovered dissimilar valuable findings (federal aviation administration, n.d). all the airports were in need of a safety management system, all had a safety program in place but not sms, and 14 cfr part 139 did not fully cover what sms did; additional studies needed to be completed, perhaps using smaller airports. the transportation research board’s airport cooperative research program (acrp) funded acrp volume 1: safety management systems overview. it is said that aviation safety had been reactive rather than proactive, and usually human factors are the cause of most accidents. “there will always be hazards and risks in the airport environment. proactive management is needed to identify and control these safety issues before they lead to mishaps” (transportation research board, 2007, p. x). the report says that “sms provides a systemic, explicit, and comprehensive process for managing risks,” and the “faa projections anticipate 1.4 million additional domestic takeoffs and landings each year from 2007 until 2020” (transportation research board, 2007, p. 1). safety management systems have four key principles that include management commitment to safety, proactive identification of hazards, actions taken to manage risks, and evaluation of safety actions. sms should be something that all employees receive from top management to bottom airfield crew with everyone having a proactive approach (transportation research board, 2007, p. 2). sms should not be burdensome to the average employee and is not intended to formulate extra steps in day-to-day activities. it is something that should come as second nature without the employees realizing it. airport management may be wondering how airports and their employees will benefit from having an sms. first, sms will allow the analysis of airport accidents and injuries and provide solutions as they are approaching. appendix 1, courtesy of prather airport solutions, presents the gap analysis and sms manual and implementation plan. next, the cost will be significantly lower if one can recognize the early signs of incidents and accidents and have good company morale with strong communication from top management to each department down to each individual person (transportation research board, 2007, p. 3). other benefits include a track record of good scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 84 spring 2012 safety, learning from mistakes, and overall improving practice (transportation research board, 2007, p. 4). figure: 1 sms components (federal aviation administration, 2009). safety policy there are four distinct pillars or components that make up safety management systems, as shown in figure: 1. they include: safety policy, safety risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion (transportation research board, 2009, p. 9). the first pillar is the safety policy, and it consists of the policy statement, organizational structure, and the procedures (transportation research board, 2007, p. 6). the faa states that an effective sms defines the organization’s overall approach to managing safety (faa, 2007). the policy explains an organization’s vision and its commitment to safety (faa, 2007). the first element of the safety policy pillar is the policy statement, which should include a statement of the company’s dedication to implementing the process, to properly monitoring safety performance, to addressing the issue of employees having fear for reporting certain issues as well as appropriate behavior toward safety, to establishing and evaluating goals, and to dedicating the resources needed (transportation research board, 2007, p. 6). the policy explains an organization’s vision and its commitment to safety (p. 7). the organizational structure represents the second element of the safety policy. the precise organizational structure will depend upon the size of the airport. larger airports may have a more defined structure full of many different parts for each department–such as accounting, human resources, or leasing office–while smaller, general aviation airports may only have an sms director/manager who supervises the implementation and ensures the successful implementation. the third and final element of the safety policy involves the procedures. this document spells out the proper procedures that need to occur and benefit the overall safety of the airport. in any case, when the procedures are changed, such changes must be properly communicated to all those who will encounter them (transportation research board, 2009, p. 6). safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 85 safety risk management safety risk management (srm) is the  second pillar. although it is impossible to eliminate all risks, srm techniques will enable risks to be reduced through the consistency of its three elements–hazard identification, risk assessment, and risk mitigation and tracking. (transportation research board, 2007, p. 8). safety risk management is defined in the advisory circular 150/5200-37 as: a formal process within the sms composed of describing the system, identifying the hazards, assessing the risk, analyzing the risk, and controlling the risk. the srm process is embedded in the operational system [and] is not a separate/distinct process (faa, 2007). the first element and first step is hazard identification (transportation research board, 2007, p. 8). a hazard is defined by the faa as: “any existing or potential condition that can lead to injury, illness, or death to people; damage to or loss of a system, equipment, or property; or damage to the environment. a hazard is a condition that is a prerequisite to an accident or incident” (faa, 2007). one must first take a hard look at what hazards the airport faces and what must be implemented in order to identify what may happen (transportation research board, 2007, p. 8). once the hazard has been identified, a risk assessment must be conducted, which is the second element under safety risk management. the risk assessment addresses the seriousness of the consequences and the likelihood of it happening again. severity likelihood no safety effect minor major hazardous catastrophic frequent probable remote extremely remote extremely improbable high risk medium risk low risk figure: 2 risk management matrix (federal aviation administration, 2007) the risk management matrix, as shown in figure: 2, is often used to measure incident severity (transportation research board, 2007, p. 9). the last element is risk mitigation and tracking. when the hazard is mitigated, it should be fully examined to determine what was the specific cause of the hazard. this can be done through a system that allows one to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 86 spring 2012 “counteract any risks to safe operation.” once a system is in place for mitigating risk, it must then be under constant monitoring to make certain that the risk mitigations currently in place continue to operate as needed (transportation research board, 2007, p. 10). safety assurance safety assurance is the third pillar of safety management systems and also functions as a morale booster (transportation research board, 2007, p. 10). safety assurance is the “process [of ] management functions that systematically provide[s] confidence that organizational products/services meet or exceed safety requirements” (faa, 2007). safety assurance consists of three elements–internal audits, external audits, and corrective action. first, internal audits should be both formal and informal–done by each department–and should be conducted regularly while taking into consideration the effects that program will have both immediately and in the future. the second element is external audits, which are conducted in the same manner as internal audits but with one exception–they must be carried out by an independent agency. corrective action is the third element, carrying consequences to those who are not following proper safety procedures set forth and ensuring that hazards are resolved (transportation research board, 2007, p. 10). safety promotion safety promotion represents the fourth pillar (transportation research board, 2009, p.10), functioning as “a combination of safety culture, training, and data sharing activities that supports the implementation and operation of an sms in an organization (faa, 2007). safety promotion consists of culture, training and communication. sms should not only be the priority of management but also all employees. the culture should be positive and should be integrated into all everyday activities (transportation research board, 2009, p. 10). training  is the second element of safety promotion; it is crucial to provide proper training on policies and procedures to all airport employees.  proper training enables the airport to demonstrate the responsibility that each member of the team brings (transportation research board, 2007, p. 7). the final element is communication, which is the key in any successful situation. written communication should not be the only form of communication; employees must also see that top management is doing all they can to fulfill these new obligations and set the example. the communication process allows for growth in seeing what went wrong, how issues can be fixed, and what lesson each member of the team can take away to ensure that the lessons learned will not reoccur (transportation research board, 2007, p. 8). research has proven that sms is needed with the aviation industry. on july 5, 2000, an air france concorde flying from paris to jfk crashed after takeoff from charles de gaulle international airport. a continental dc-10 departing before the air france concorde lost a 16-inch strip of metal, which caused the concorde to run over it, puncturing a tire and rupturing a fuel tank, killing 113 people. so far, we know that previous incidents could have been prevented had the proper internal audit (which falls under the sms pillar safety safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 87 assurance) been completed (transportation research board, 2007, p. 17). outside the united states, there have been several airports that have successfully implemented safety management systems by using three different approaches of implementation. sms implementation there are three approaches to implementing sms. these approaches are the evolutionary style, the phased methodology approach, and fast track adoption. the first approach, the evolutionary style, takes several years to complete and gradually creates the safety culture. the next, the phased methodology approach, gives the airport milestones to implement and gives organizations a more structured way that is faster to implement. the last approach to implementing sms is the fast track adoption, which is a rapid implementation that does not allow for adjustment; this method can be hard on employees and cause a negative safety culture with much resistance (transportation research board, 2007, p. 23). appendix 2 gives details on each step to implementing an sms entails. airports outside the united states in 2007, interviews were conducted with the civil aviation authority (caa), which discussed the process that certain airports had to go through in order to implement a successful sms. in january 2007 at calgary international airport, mr. paul van den eynden, who is the director of safety management systems, was interviewed, stating that since sms has been implemented, culture and awareness at the airport both have risen, including a “drop of more than 70 percent in incidents, accidents and near misses between 2001 (134) and 2006 (34 as of the end of november 2006)” (caasd, n.d, p.4). some lessons that calgary international airport has learned during the process include implementation in stages as opposed to all at once, and “the true value of safety is demonstrated by its absence.” in january 2007, graeme gamble at cardiff international airport was interviewed regarding its sms–which was developed over a number of years using the evolutionary approach since implementing sms, cardiff international airport has seen some changes, including a decrease in runway incursions, regular auditing, proper documentation, and a monthly meeting where minutes are documented and a meeting agenda are provided; however, cardiff international airports says “there is still more work to do” (caasd, n.d, pp. 7-8). furthermore, william fullerton shed some light on the implantation of sms at jorge chavez international airport ( jcia) in the december/january 2008 issue. in 2001, jcla’s management was taken over by lap officials. they worked to instill “safety as a core value” and make it just as important as maintaining sales. the objectives that lap set forth has proven to be successful, because their sms has moved from a reactive to proactive approach with statistical information showing that incident rates have lowered from higher than 0.42 per 1,000 operations index in 2005 to meeting their goal of 0.38 in 2007. they are very proud of themselves and owe their success to the commitment to sms and safety (fullerton, 2008, p. 43). part of their success is due to having an airport scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 88 spring 2012 safety committee (asc), which “holds bimonthly meetings, reviews safety statistic, hosts joint training sessions, conducts joint inspections, and makes explicit recommendations for coordinated practices in ramp operations that enhance the safety of all operators.” on top of that, the asc regularly holds a round table to discuss the goals and plan of action for the following year. the asc’s subcommittee also works with other airport committees, such as the wildlife hazard committee and facilitation committee (fullerton, 2008). jorge chavez international airport ( jcia) wanted to create a phenomenal safety culture that everyone would embrace and work hard to achieve but also recognized that it would not happen overnight; it would take some time to establish this. airport authorities did so by first developing their human resources department, examining job descriptions, and providing proper training to ensure that their employees understand what hazards to look for and know the extent of their reporting duties consist of. furthermore, they rewarded their employees. after taking care of human resources, jcia turned to operations. they recognized the need for an appropriate reporting system that was active and easily accessible, thus developing a database that housed all of the proper information (fullerton, 2008, p. 44). part of the safety culture is establishing, maintaining, and following through with the proper sanctions as a result of a violation. jcia used “the icao risk management framework” for their risk management (fullerton, 2008, p. 45). as a part of jcia’s safety assurance, they have strict enforcement of the whole sms process from the requirements to the failures. in addition to the traditional enforcement, they follow through with icao’s standards, which are to have an internal and external audit performed annually (fullerton, 2008, p. 46). airports within the united states airports in the united states are currently working on proactive sms plans. one is san antonio international airport. at the american association of airport executive annual conference in may 2010, john chase (sms manager for san antonio) spoke of their interpretation of sms, their plan, and how it worked. first, san antonio international airport currently has a sms program manual. john chase used the faa’s definition to define terms, uses voting and non-voting members on his board, and is very open to receiving feedback from everyone, including the public. furthermore, san antonio puts more focus on the airport’s sms but also wants to see a proactive sms in other aspects of the airport, such as atc and airline. they hope to implement sms into air traffic control in four to five years and believe that it will affect the airport. moreover, san antonio believes that a “one size fits all” take on sms does not work. they strongly believe that sms is sizeable (chase, personal communication, may 16, 2010). after implementing their version of sms, there still are many unanswered questions. for example, will the faa have regulated safety-reporting software, or will it be up to the individual states or airports themselves? where does the accountability really lie? what makes the issue “that bad” before it makes it to washington? how is the fining going to work, and who is regulating it–the authority, airport or the faa? regardless of the many safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 89 unanswered questions, one thing is certain–san antonio has a solid, proactive sms in place. they currently plant safety issues and hold walks to see if their staff can actively seek out the safety issues or hazards. staff members who find the most safety issues or a certain number receive awards and prizes such as chili’s gift cards. nonetheless, san antonio is building a safety culture around willing staff dedication and participation, and that is exactly the kind of sms that should be in place (chase, personal communication, may 16, 2010). another proactive sms currently in place is at seattle-tacoma international airport (sea-tac). safety has always been a focal point for sea-tac, so when the airport discovered safety management systems and the possibility of participating in a pilot study conducted by the faa, they wanted to take part in it. having successfully taken part in the phase i pilot study, they were optimistic about their participation in the phase ii follow-on study. during phase ii they welcomed the help of their consultant, landry consulting, to aid them in the process with making 70 percent of all the work being completed on site in order to guarantee proper testing from findings in phase i, learning to tweak and incorporate it to the environment. upon completion of phase ii, sea-tac and its consultants were surprised to learn that what they predicted from the gap analysis conducted was completely opposite of their findings (coates, 2010, p. 38). however, this discrepancy led them to learn a great deal, such as the fact that the sms should be integrated throughout the airport–from administration to the ground–that people should become involved early, and that “one size does not fit all.” nevertheless, they did discover that having an sms “if implemented correctly, can leverage, build upon, and enhance the safety of the entire airfield” (coates, 2010, p. 39). furthermore, sea-tac has an automated system implemented for the regulation of part139 and also has safety programs addressing communications routes (landry, landry consultants, 2009).with two pilot studies behind them, what is next for sea-tac? seatac has decided fully to implement sms because they “strongly believe in the strength and effectiveness of sms.” the airport also has a greater safety culture environment with an increasing number of staff showing interest by attending meetings. the staff has integrated sms terms more often and is looking forward to having a full sms (coates, 2010). benefits of sms as an airport manager, one may ask what sms will do for the airport. sms allows the anticipation of accidents and provides a way to manage risk situations, thus allowing the airport fully to analyze the occurrence of accidents and learn ways to adapt. the trb states, “the sms approach reduces losses, improves productivity, and is generally good for business” (transportation research board, 2009, p. 7). statement of the problem “safety is not a vague concept. it is who we are and what we do” (caasd, n.d.), yet after two sms pilot studies carried out by the faa, many questions still remain: what lessons were really learned from the pilot studies? what was the underlying purpose? scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 90 spring 2012 what are the perspective of the airports regarding sms? regardless of many unanswered questions, sms clearly has it benefits. additionally, in an effort to determine the degree of support for sms among tennessee airports, a research project was carried out during the summer of 2010. tennessee airport managers were chosen to complete the brief online survey. the researcher’s close proximity was the deciding factor for choosing which airports to survey. research questions to be analyzed in this study include: to what extent are airports familiar with sms? what type of sms is currently in place at the airport? if sms remains voluntary, would airports still consider implementing sms? would airports need additional funding to properly develop and implement sms? methodology according to tennessee department of transportation–aeronautics division (tdot aeronautics) in the state of tennessee, there are currently 75 public-use airports; however, some of those airports did not have an email address. therefore, a paper survey was sent out on june 14, 2010 to twelve airports, and the electronic survey sent june 17, 2010 to fifty-eight airports coincided with airports receiving the online survey. this was done on two different dates, allowing the paper survey time to be received by the airports. on june 24, 2010, the first follow-up email was sent to the forty-nine non-respondent airports. on july 1, 2010 the second follow-up was performed via telephone. a total of forty-seven airports were called to request their participation. after conversations with some of the airport mangers, eight of them requested the survey be resent, which was done. on july 14, 2010 the survey was closed, and there were no additional paper surveys received. the results of the survey include a total of 68 emails, including 27 responses and 41 non-responsive managers. when the initial electronic responses were sent out, 7 of the surveys bounced, and 0 opted out of the survey. of the 12 mailed surveys, 4 paper surveys were mailed back, leaving 8 surveys not mailed back. the final response rate was 38.6%. findings/discussion figure: 3 familiar to sms safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 91 on july 14th, 2010, the survey was complete with the following findings. to begin the survey, referring to figure 3, airport managers where asked how familiar where they with sms. 44.4% of surveyed airport managers said that they were familiar with sms, with a surprising 44.4% stating that they were either unfamiliar or extremely unfamiliar. 11.1% said that they were neither familiar nor unfamiliar with sms, while zero participants skipped this question. figure: 4 current sms figure: 5 voluntary sms as figure 4 illustrates, when asked which safety plan was currently in place at the airport, 53.8% of managers said there was a proactive plan other than sms, 23.1% said their plan was reactive other than sms, and 3.8% said that sms was the safety plan. 19.2% had another form of sms in place, and one airport manager skipped this question. as figure 5 demonstrates, if sms remained voluntary, 23.1% said that they would consider scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 92 spring 2012 implementing sms, leaving 11.5% saying no and 65.4% saying maybe. one participant skipped this question. how supportive would you be for a mandatory sms for:  ** 1 participant skipped this question** high resistance some resistance no resistance airport employees 0% (0) 52% (13) 48 (12) tenants 30.8% (8) 57.7% (15) 11.5% (3) users 19.2% (5) 69.2% (18) 11.5% (3) figure: 6 support mandatory sms as shown in figure 6, the overall consensus was that managers where neither supportive nor unsupportive for sms between the classes of certificated airports.  if sms were implemented at your airport. what degree of resistance would you expect from:   ** 1 participant skipped this question** high resistance some resistance no resistance airport employees 0% (0) 52% (13) 48 (12) tenants 30.8% (8) 57.7% (15) 11.5% (3) users 19.2% (5) 69.2% (18) 11.5% (3) figure: 7 resistances with sms the results shown in figure 7 would not hold any high resistance from the airport employees if sms were implemented; however, 52% said there would be some resistance, and 48% said no resistance. while the majority of tenants would show some resistance at 57.7%, 69.2% of users would show some resistance. one airport manager skipped this question. safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 93 figure 8: in need of funding figure: 9 funding needed with development and implementation of new programs, the cost must be considered, as shown in figure 8. when asked if airports would need additional funding properly to develop and implement and sms, 96.2% of airport managers said that they would need additional funding, and 3.8% said they would not need any additional funding. referring to figure 9, of the airport managers who answered yes to needing additional funding properly to develop and implement sms, 29.2% said they would need less than $50,000, 29.2% needed $50,000 to up to $100,000 and 41.7% needed more than $100,000; three airports managers skipped this question. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 94 spring 2012   figure: 10 demographics-category of airport in order better to understand the size airport size of survey respondents, as represented in figure 10, a question asked which category of airport they represented. 74.1% were general aviation, 22.2% were neither a medium/small hub nor a non-hub primary/non-primary commercial. 3.7% were reliever’s airports. figure: 11 demographicsbased aircraft of the 27 airports that completed the questionnaire, as shown in figure 11, 11.1% stated they have less than 10 aircrafts based at their airport, 37% had between 10 and 30 aircrafts, about 25.9% had between 31 and 70, and 25.9% had more than 70 aircraft based at their airport. the last question on the survey was an open-ended question allowing airport managers share any feedback. four airport managers responded to this question. the following are their thoughts: safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 95 1. “already has an er plan, other plans for certain situations. sms not necessary for ga airports. 139 does need a unique standard across the board–diff in all areas of the country. faa is not happy until everyone else is not happy!”— general aviation airport–extremely unfamiliar with sms 2. “sms is a very good idea, but the operating cost of implementing the plan, annual maintenance/record keeping and liability is a concern”.— small hub airport–neither familiar or unfamiliar with sms 3. “i feel that sms is extremely important to airports, regardless of the category. i think it should be mandatory at all airports with some exceptions made for airports in different categories.”— general aviation airport–familiar with sms 4. “we have developed guidelines for a safe and efficient airport that my employees must read and initial upon initial training and periodically thereafter. i would be reluctant to support mandatory implementation without more specific knowledge on the requirement. government mandates always cost more money and are normally policed by personnel with general knowledge of a program but little practical experience. most of us don’t like to be told how to do our jobs by folks who don’t know, or have never done our jobs. i cannot be here at all times, and cannot personally ensure a safe operation at this airport except by establishing local procedures for my assistant managers and line personnel. whatever system is mandated, or not, each airport must establish and execute their own safety program.”— general aviation airport–unfamiliar with sms the majority of tennessee airports responding to the survey are not too familiar with sms, currently using a proactive safety plan other than sms; supporting a mandatory sms for part 139 airports; may consider implementing an sms if it remains voluntary; would expect some resistance from airport employees, tenants, and users if implementing an sms; and would anticipate needing additional funding to properly develop and implement an sms.  scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 96 spring 2012 conclusion “although aviation is among the safest modes of transportation in the world today, accidents still happen” (stolzer et al., 2008). as air transportation demands rise, so does the need for a formalized safety plan. system safety has eventually evolved from an unregulated system to a regulated system approach. safety has moved from technical issues that needed to be fixed to human performance issues and presently the proactive approach sms. sms has a bright future full of jobs, community building within airports, and prevention of accidents that could have occurred if sms had not been adopted. according an article in airport magazine, “compliance with regulations doesn’t mean it’s an effective sms; sms is about people, processes, and relations” (coates, 2010, p. 39). research in other industries, as well as other countries, have proven sms to be successful. clearly, sms and the safety benefits it provides is not only beneficial for tennessee airports but for airports nationwide and the entire aviation industry; “if compliance guaranteed safety, then we would only need one rule: don’t crash. obviously, it takes a lot more than that” (faa, 2008). safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 97 appendix 1 courtesy of prather airport solutions, murfreesboro,tn work management summary clearly, developing a safety management system is a complex process. the rfq for this project lists nine main requirements and three deliverables that the selected consultant would be responsible for completing. however, as stated in the rfq, these requirements are not all-inclusive. therefore, in determining what tasks will be completed by our firm for this project, and relying upon our expertise in developing safety management systems, we have referred to the statement of work for the 2nd faa sms airport pilot study. as a result, if selected for this project, our firm will complete a detailed gap analysis, as well as an sms manual & implementation plan, containing no less than 21 distinct components. 1. gap analysis 1.1 review of current airport safety management practices, including safety plans and practices of tenants and operators at the airport 1.2 review of current safety-specific airport documents, including airport certification manual, memorandums of understanding/memorandums of agreements, safety during construction plans, surface movement guidance and control system plans, airport emergency plans, and any quality management and/or risk management program 1.3 to be conducted utilizing the unique gap analysis form (appendix e) developed by prather airport solutions, inc. utilizing guidance from tp 14343e and the 2nd faa sms airport pilot study statement of work 2. sms manual & implementation plan 2.1 written safety policy statement and description of how it is communicated to airport employees 2.2 identification and description of the airport safety goals 2.3 a plan for employee sms indoctrination and training, including an outline of proposed curriculum and resources required 2.4 documented process to identify training requirements for systems safety 2.5 plan to validate training effectiveness and the process to gain training feedback, including usable metrics 2.6 defined process to communicate safety policies and objectives throughout the organization, including examples of how information will be communicated and processes for follow-up 2.7 plan and description for employee non-punitive reporting systems, both existing and new scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 98 spring 2012 2.8 organizational chart identifying the names and safety responsibilities of all key personnel, including top management, safety manager, department heads/ managers, and established safety committees and chairpersons 2.9 description of the safety risk management (srm) process, including application of “the five phases of srm,” as discussed in faa ac 150/5200-37 2.10 guidance on the use of srm and trend analysis 2.11 defined process for documenting the results of srm to include a description of how documents will be stored 2.12 description of how top management will follow-up on srm to ensure safety mitigation strategies are appropriate 2.13 description of the airport quality management and/or risk management program (if currently existing) and its integration into the airport sms 2.14 description of a plan to integrate apron safety management into the airport sms, including a description of current apron safety management practices and an explanation of how current apron safety management practices meet the intent of sms 2.15 detailed method to document self-auditing processes and their findings, to include use of airport self-inspection process to address system safety 2.16 detailed method to document self-inspection reviews, analysis, and findings 2.17 description or plan to integrate the tailored sms program into the overall operation of the airport 2.18 documented plan for training and education, safety communication, competency, and continuous improvement processes 2.19 procedures to promote safety awareness and participation in non-punitive reporting systems 2.20 process to document and review lessons learned from within the organization 2.21 schedule for implementation and anticipated associated costs safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 99 appendix 2 courtesy of prather airport solutions, murfreesboro, tn preliminary work plan based on our experience, to effectively produce a safety management system that is usable by the airport and supported by all levels of staff and tenants, certain tasks must take place. in essence, implementing an effective safety management system involves much more than simply writing a safety manual. it requires a concerted effort by the consultant and airport management to bring about real change in the organization. without this effort, any attempts to implement an sms will be met with resistance and will enjoy little success (if not complete defeat). true, there is wide variation in methods and approaches to developing and implementing an sms. icao, transport canada, and faa offer guidance on this, although there appears to be no “one best way.” prather airport solutions, inc., based on past experience and in studying the extensive guidance on this issue, has developed the following work plan: step 1: meet with airport staff to agree upon a work plan and schedule step 2: conduct safety culture survey of a sample of airport employees and management step 3: develop senior management commitment to safety step 4: determine safety manager and members of the sms committee step 5: conduct gap analysis step 6: revise work plan based on gaps identified step 7: develop the sms manual step 8: develop the implementation plan step 9: offer follow-on services to client in the form of training, srm, and on-line non-punitive reporting system step 1: work plan and schedule this step involves the consultant meeting with the client to agree upon the scope of the project, develop a work plan to meet the client’s needs, and develop a schedule which is mutually beneficial. step 2: safety culture survey to determine the current safety culture of the organization, a sample of organization employees and management will be asked to complete a safety culture survey (adopted from transport canada). these results will be analyzed and shared with management. step 3: senior management commitment to safety scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2012 prather airport solutions, inc. will develop a draft senior management commitment to safety and in consultation with senior management, the written commitment will be revised and signed by senior management. this will then be distributed to organization employees so that, early in the process, they will understand the importance of safety and support the move toward a fully functioning sms. step 4: safety manager and members of the sms committee the importance of this step cannot be overstated. it is very important for one individual to have responsibility for managing the safety management system and be involved in this process from the beginning. additionally, by appointing members of the sms committee at this early stage, input can be sought for the development of the sms manual and implementation plan, thereby engendering support. step 5: gap analysis due to our knowledge of sms criteria and the requirements for an effective sms program, prather airport solutions, inc. has designed a unique gap analysis form. this gap analysis form guides the firm in conducting a gap analysis for the client, considering both faa requirements and transport canada guidance. this gap analysis involves comparing the 21 components of the sms manual and implementation plan to existing systems at the airport. each gap analysis question is designed for a “yes” or “no” response. “yes” responses indicate that the airport already meets the criteria for that particular sms component. a “no” answer indicates that a gap exists between the stated criteria and the airport’s policies, procedures, or processes. if the response is “yes”, the next column of the gap analysis form can be used to indicate where (in company documentation) the requirement is addressed. if the response is “no”, the same column can be used to indicate how and/or where the policy, procedure, or process will be further developed o bring the airport into compliance with the requirement. step 6: revise work plan clearly, once the gaps are identified, the firm and the client will have a much better understanding of areas where additional work is needed. as a result, it is prudent to meet again and revise the work plan from this step forward. step 7: sms manual at this step, the information gathered thus far, as well as knowledge of the components of the sms manual, are utilized to develop the sms manual. the firm has developed an sms framework (appendix f) to guide this effort. at this stage, all of the resources of the firm are committed to producing this deliverable to the client. safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 101 step 8: implementation plan this final phase involves the development of an implementation plan for the client. as previously stated, the sms manual is only one aspect of a fully functioning safety management system. after the manual is produced, the respective components must be implemented over time. it is important for the client to note that this is not accomplished overnight. to assist with this, phases of implementation have been developed. appendix g contains these phases of implementation step 9: offer follow-on services lastly, once the project is completed, prather airport solutions, inc. always offers additional services to the client to allow the easy realization of a fully functioning sms. for instance, our firm can host an on-line, confidential reporting system for the nonpunitive reporting of safety concerns, as well as training programs, awareness materials, and independent safety audits. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2012 references coates, m. (2010, february/march). the safety management systems at sea-tac international. airport magazine, retrieved from http://issuu.com/aaae/docs/febmarch10?mode=embed&layout=http%3a %2f%2fskin.issuu.com%2fv%2fdark%2flayout.xml&showflipbtn=true federal aviation administration. (2007). advisory circular 150/5200-37: introduction to safety ,anagement systems (sms) for airport operation. retrieved february 2, 2010, from http://rgl.faa.gov/regulatory_ and_guidance_library/rgadvisorycircular.nsf/0/6485143d5ec81aae8625719b0055c9e5/$file/ ac%20120-92.pdf federal aviation administration (2008). airport sms pilot project 1 findings. retrieved february 2, 2010, from http://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/safety_management_systems/external/pilot_ studies/media/1st_sms_pilot_present.pdf federal aviation administration. (2009). safety management systems: components. retrieved august 14th, 2010, from http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/sms/explained/components/ federal aviation administration. (2010). external sms efforts-part 139 rulemaking. retrieved february 2, 2010, from http://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/safety_management_systems/external/ index.cfm?action=rulemaking federal aviation administration. (n.d.). notice of 2nd sms pilot study. retrieved april 30th, 2010, from http://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/safety_management_systems/external/ pilot_studies/media/notice_of_second_pilot_study.pdf florio, a. e., e.d, alles, w. f., ph.d., & stafford, g. t., e.d. (1979). safety education (4th ed.). new york: mcgraw-hill book company. fullerton, w. (2008, december/january). sms implementation at jorge chavez international.airport magazine, retrieved from http://issuu.com/aaae/docs/am0707decjan?mode=embed&document id=080619124012-b1f2aa659d414103aa5eae714863a4d5&layout=grass landry, j, landry consultants. (2009, spring). implementing sms at airports: progress and challenges. airport consulting, retrieved from http://www.acconline.org/am/cm/contentdisplay.cfm?conten tfileid=2707&micrositeid=0&fusepreview=yes mroz, j. h. (1978). safety in everyday living. dubuque, iowa: wm. c. brown company publishers. pybus, r. (1996). safety management: strategy and practice. oxford: butterworth-heinemann. rodgers, w. p. (1971). introduction to system safety engineering. new york: john wiley & sons, inc. roland, h. e., & moriarty, b. (1983). system safety engineering and management. new york: john wiley & sons, inc. stolzer, a. j., halford, c. d., & goglia, j. j. (2008). safety management systems: ashgate publishing company. the mitre corporation’s center for advanced aviation system development (caasd), (n.d). sms implementation at airports outside the united states. retrieved april 30th, 2010 from http://www.atcvantage.com/docs/us_acrp_outside_us_interviews.pdf transportation research board. (2007). acrp report 1: safety management systems for airports. [volume 1: overview]. retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/acrp/acrp_rpt_001a.pdf safety management systems: the perspective of tennessee airports middle tennessee state university 103 transportation research board. (2009). acrp report 1: safety management systems for airports. [volume 2: guidebook]. retrieved from http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/acrp/acrp_rpt_001b.pdf worrick, w. w. (1975). safety education: man, his machines, and his environment. englewood cliffs, new jersey: prenticehall, inc. fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 185 fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model philip routon abstract “fly-by-night” is a derisive term for a firm that appears to be untrustworthy and/or transient. previous studies have focused on general fly-by-night firms’ behavior and their interaction with the credit market, while much less has been done to show how they approach government regulation. after a brief explanation of the importance of studying fly-by-night firms and a discussion of some relevant literature, this paper presents a simple model that permits a liability-holding fly-by-night entrepreneur to choose between complying or not complying with a governmental regulation. though perhaps most useful as a classroom exercise, the model could be used to examine what factors affect the compliance decision and in what way. i find that (i) if we assume fly-by-night firms have relatively lower probabilities of project success, then they are unambiguously less likely to comply with governmental regulations; (ii) an increase in the interest rate on business loans decreases the probability of compliance; and (iii) from a regulatory standpoint, an increase in inspection rates deters non-compliance, but an increase in the noncompliance fine may not exert deterrence if strategic default is an option. jel codes: l29, l59 keywords: fly-by-night firms, regulation, loan default, regulator-agent game 186 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 1. introduction in the world of business, the term “fly-by-night” is typically used to describe a person or firm that is unreliable, untrustworthy, transient, or financially irresponsible—one who runs away to escape debts or one who masks its true quality. such firms can harm consumers, creditors, and the laborers they employ. consumers of fly-by-night goods and services are prone to overpay for these goods, given their true quality. creditors of fly-bynight entrepreneurs are at risk of not being repaid the money they are owed. employees of fly-by-night entrepreneurs are at risk of both having their reputations tarnished and not receiving their due wages. for example, the firm could default and not honor its payroll. thus, studying, detecting, and exposing fly-by-night entrepreneurs can benefit several parties. since it would be naive always to expect a truthful answer when asking firm owners about their true nature or the true quality of their product, we need other tools to help study or detect the presence of fly-by-nights. economic theory is one such tool. modeling the decision-making process of firms can aid in the explanation of these decisions. the current fly-by-night literature has focused on firms’ general behavior and how they interact with the credit market. little has been done to show how these firms deal with government regulation. using a game-theoretic framework, this analysis attempts to do just that. here, a fly-by-night entrepreneur plays a regulator-agent game against a regulatory agent. in this simultaneous-move game, the entrepreneur chooses whether or not to comply with some imposed regulation, and the regulator chooses the level of inspection. the model’s outcome helps demonstrate what factors determine the choice made by the entrepreneur. the rest of the paper is structured in the following manner: section 2 highlights several previous studies within both the fly-by-night and regulation literatures, the basis upon which my model draws some of its assumptions. in section 3, i set up the model, work through it, and perform some comparative statics. section 4 concludes the analysis by discussing the implications of the model. 2. previous studies becker (1968) provided the “benchmark” model, as it were, for regulation compliance. non-compliance fines are treated as any other cost of doing business. the model includes an enforcement agency whose efforts impact the expected penalties. firms make a binary compliance decision and are assumed to act to minimize the sum of expected compliance costs plus expected penalties. the model concludes (somewhat obviously) that increasing either inspection rates or non-compliance penalties raises population compliance. becker’s (1968) benchmark model has a long list of simplifying assumptions, and many authors have expanded upon it and studied other aspects of regulation and compliance. for example, some authors (e.g., heyes (1993)) have focused on inspectability and contested fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 187 enforcement; some (e.g., kaplow and shavell (1994)) self-reporting; some (e.g., harrington (1988)) have extended the model to incorporate multiple periods; some (e.g., sandmo (1998)) have incorporated risk aversion; and some (e.g., bebchuk and kaplow (1992)) have incorporated imperfect information. while the model presented here is abstract enough so that the regulation need not refer to a specific type, the example given is that of an environmental regulation on the production process of the entrepreneur’s project. heyes (2000) provides a good discussion of the literature on the implementation of environmental regulation, its enforcement, and compliance. parallel to the theoretical literature, an empirical literature on the compliance and enforcement of regulations has developed. for example, gray and deily (1996) examine air pollution data from the united states steel industry to estimate plant-level compliance and enforcement functions. the authors find that greater enforcement does indeed lead to greater compliance while greater compliance leads to less enforcement. perhaps more interesting is that they find that firm characteristics (e.g., firm size, diversification, and gross cash flows) have little impact on compliance decisions. feinstein (1989) collects data from over 1000 nuclear regulatory commission inspections and performs a similar study of nuclear power plants while epple and visscher (1984), in a well-known paper, examine the occurrence, detection, and deterrence of marine oil spills. for further studies of this type, consult fuller (1987), harrison (1995), laplante and rilstone (1996), and regens et al. (1997). the literature on fly-by-night firms is quite scant. faulhaber and yao (1989) explain the effect of information asymmetry on the number of fly-by-night firms in an industry or an economy. the authors note that the lower the information asymmetry in an industry, the higher the quality becomes, and thus allowing fewer fly-by-night firms to enter. while their analysis mainly focused on the information asymmetry between the firms and consumers, faulhaber and yao also discussed the effect of asymmetry between firms and lenders. in certain markets, those with high levels of information asymmetry, lenders may loan to risky firms at the same or a similar rate as they loan to nearly riskless firms. if the lender is aware of the likelihood of a project’s success, however, then he or she will take this information into account when determining the interest rate on the loan. in the model presented here, the entrepreneur is assumed to have already received a business loan to finance a project. boyd and ingberman (2003) assert that premature dissolution is common among flyby-nights and is actually a rational corporate response to the threat of future liability. by definition, fly-by-night firms often engage in risky projects. such a firm could choose to dissolve or default if they find themselves facing a large future liability. i incorporate this realization into my model by assuming the entrepreneurs have the option of dissolution/ default if the risky business project they are engaging in fails or if they receive a noncompliance fine from a regulatory agent that is greater than their expected profits. 3. the model 188 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 3.1 assumptions and variable definitions the model begins with an entrepreneur who has already decided to take on a single project in the pursuit of profit. this project has some probability of success p where 0 < p < 1 and, thus, a (1-p) probability of failure. a failed project yields zero revenue for the entrepreneur. a successful project results in r revenue for the entrepreneur. revenue here refers to its strict definition (income a firm receives from its business activities) and is not to be confused with profit (which is revenue minus all business costs). the entrepreneur is assumed to be initially assetless and therefore must take out a loan to pay for the project’s production inputs. the loan amount is denoted by variable k and the interest rate on the loan denoted by r. the market for loans is assumed to be perfectly competitive, and this assumption also negates the need for a third player, the loan officer. if the project fails, the entrepreneur will default and not repay the loan or the interest. assume also that there exists some sort of regulation pertaining to the production process of the project. an example of such a regulation could be a government-imposed environmental regulation such as one requiring the entrepreneur to use scrubbers on smoke stacks.1 the variable c will represent the entrepreneur’s cost of complying with the regulation. keeping with the environmental regulation example, this would include the cost of buying, installing, and maintaining the scrubbers. the entrepreneur has to decide whether or not to comply with the regulation. as we assume away any moral cost2 of compliance, the entrepreneur will only consider the expected profits of each option when deciding whether or not to comply. if he or she decides not to comply, there is some probability m where 0 < m < 1 that they will be caught and, thus, probability (1-m) they will “get away” with noncompliance. for simplicity, assume that if the entrepreneur is inspected, then the chance of getting caught is 100 percent. thus, m can now be thought of as the probability of being inspected by the regulator.3 if caught, the entrepreneur must pay a fine of some monetary amount f which is assumed to be some value such that f > r – (1+r)k. in words, the fine is larger than the entrepreneur’s profit since r is revenue and (1+r)k is the amount of the loan repayment or costs. since this would incur a net loss on the entrepreneur, if he is caught, he will default and receive a net profit of zero. the variable b will denote the overall bonus or reward given to the regulatory agent in charge of inspection for catching and turning in an entrepreneur who did not comply and is common to regulator-agent games. this could include, but is 1 scrubber systems are air pollution control devices that are used to remove some of the particulates and/or gases from industrial exhaust streams. 2 in this context, moral cost refers to the non-monetary (emotional/psychological) costs of not abiding by the regulation. 3 this point is made because a few regulator-agent models in the literature allow for the possibility of being inspected and still not getting caught. for the purposes of this analysis, allowing for this scenario would further complicate the mathematics while not adding much to the results. fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 189 not limited to, a simple monetary bonus, an increase in funding, or simply the benefit of maintaining the current level of funding. 3.2 the entrepreneur’s compliance decision process with the game set and assumptions made, the compliance decision process can now be investigated. since the entrepreneur can simply default if the project fails or if he gets caught not complying with the regulation, the entrepreneur’s decision on whether or not to comply with the regulation can be expressed by the relatively simple inequality (1) if default is not an option, equation (1) would contain more terms.4 the left-hand side of this inequality describes the expected value of compliance while the right-hand side does the same for non-compliance. if the left-hand side of equation (1) is greater than or equal to the right, then the entrepreneur will comply with the regulation. if not, then he will choose not to comply and take the chance of getting caught. this decision can be further examined in terms of the key variables. reducing equation (1) in terms of project revenue yields (2) a high value of r will result in compliance and a value less than the right-hand side of equation (2) will result in non-compliance. a similar simplification can be made for the probability of detection m. solving equation (1) for m yields (3) here, a high value of m results in compliance and a value less than the right-hand side of equation (3) results in non-compliance. since fly-by-night firms are often characterized by a low probability of project success, then it can be especially valuable to look at the compliance decision in terms of p. holding m constant, figure 1 shows the critical value of project success (call it p*) where p* separates those entrepreneurs who will comply with the regulation (those with p > p*) from those who will not (those with p < p*). 4 see the appendix for this full inequality. 190 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 1: compliance and the probability of project success thus, the riskier the project, the more likely the firm will violate the regulation. at the same time, equation (2) shows that relatively larger values of project revenue result in compliance. normally, firms only partake in risky projects when the revenue that success would yield is large. a fly-by-night-minded entrepreneur, however, may act differently and engage in risky projects more readily. 3.3 the loan now, i turn to the credit market. the loan given to the entrepreneur will exhibit the property (4) where α represents the proportion of firms that do not comply with the governmental regulation and 0 < α < 1. this is because a value of k less than the right-hand side of the above equation would result in a loss to the lender. hence, they would not lend in such a scenario. if project failure still yielded some positive revenue (for example, if resources could be sold for scrap) or if the non-compliance fine was not larger than r – (1+r)k, then equation (4) would contain more terms.5 equation (4) is a strict equality since the market for loans was assumed to be perfectly competitive. reducing equation (4) in terms of the gross interest rate (1+r) yields (5) while the lender is not a player (decision maker) in the game, it is important to consider this property of the loan so that it may be applied to the model. looking at the loan in terms of the gross interest rate, as in equation (5), shows that r is negatively correlated with the probability of project success while positively correlated with the inspection rate. i now turn to the second player, the regulator. 5 for this “more complete” loan equation, see the appendix. fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 191 3.4 the regulator like the entrepreneur, the regulator wishes to maximize his or her own “revenue.” the critical decision is how much effort to put into inspection. hence, in this simplistic game, the regulator chooses m. choosing a larger value of m, the regulator both increases the number of potentially caught non-compliers and increases the amount of work they have to do (what one could call the cost of inspection). i assume the regulator’s objective function to be: (6) thus, the regulator chooses the optimal m given b and α. this objective function was chosen because it has the necessary properties. first, increases in the bonus received for catching a non-complier and increases in the percentage of firms that are non-compliers both result in higher optimal inspection rates. second, increases in inspection rates exponentially increase the cost of inspection. lastly, it yields a simple derivative. taking the first order derivative of equation (6) with respect to m and setting this equal to zero, as in equation (7), gives the optimal inspection effort: (7) 3.5 non-compliers writing the entrepreneur’s compliance decision in terms of revenue (r), as in equation (2), as a strict equality gives a critical “comply or not” value of r. i denote this value in the expression: (8) recall that entrepreneurs with values of r below choose not to comply with the regulation, ceteris paribus, and this portion of entrepreneurs is denoted as α. this implies (1-α) denotes the portion of entrepreneurs that comply. name the lower and upper bounds of the critical “comply or not” value of revenue and , respectively. one can normalize the distance (or difference) between these lower and upper bounds ( ) to unity. figure 2 presents a simple visual representation of the portion of complying firms taking into account this normalization. 192 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 2: the portion of firms that will comply in general terms, α is now: (9) plugging the critical value from equation (8) into equation (9) gives: (10) which is a more explicit definition of the portion of firms that will choose not to comply with the regulation. 3.6 combining compliance, inspection, and the loan in this section, i combine what has been learned of the portion of non-compliers, the gross interest rate, and the optimal inspection rate so that comparative statics can be performed in section 3.8. plugging the optimal inspection rate from equation (7) into the previously derived equilibrium gross interest rate, equation (5), gives the formula: (11) then, plugging equation (11) and equation (7) into yields: (12) now we can take this new information and incorporate it into α which gives: (13) notice the normalization was also used to obtain the above formula. thus, we have derived a new expression for the portion of entrepreneurs who will choose not to comply with the regulation that takes into account the decision made by the regulator and the characteristics of the credit market. 3.7 equilibrium inspection and compliance figure 3 displays the equilibrium values of α and m in a graphical framework. recall equation (7) is the regulator’s optimal choice of m given α. as one would expect, the greater the proportion of non-complying firms, the higher the regulator’s optimal m— fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 193 hence the positively sloping curve labeled equation (7). the slope of this line is b. also recall that equation (10) implies that for larger values of α, m must decrease for the lender to lend at the same interest rate—hence the negatively sloping curve labeled equation (10). figure 3: equilibrium compliance and inspection rates the intersection of the two curves gives an equilibrium level of inspection (m*) and an equilibrium portion of non-compliers (α*). 3.8 comparative statics for those less familiar with economic theory, comparative statics is the comparison of two different economic outcomes, before and after a change in some parameter. first, i will examine the impact of a change in the interest rate on business loans on the portion of firms that choose not to comply with regulations, that is, the effect of r on α. the equilibrium gross interest rate from equation (5) can be rewritten as: (14) for further simplicity, we might rewrite the gross interest rate (1+r) as θ. consequently, plugging the regulator›s optimal decision from equation (7) into equation (14) yields: (15) from equation (15), it is easy to see that if the interest rate increases, then, ceteris paribus, α must increase to keep the equality steady. thus, an increase in the interest rate results in an increase in the number of non-complying firms. another important relationship, that was already discussed briefly in section 3.2, is that of the probability of project success and the compliance rate. that is, the impact of a change in p on α. as of section 3.2, the properties of the loan and the regulator›s decision process had not yet entered the model, so it might be prudent to revisit this impact. recall 194 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the value derived previously for from equation (12), here with the bounds dropped from the expression: (16) from equation (16), it can be shown that an increase in the value of p, ceteris paribus, would result in a decrease in α. in words, the higher the probability of project success, the smaller the portion of non-complying firms. 4 discussion this simple model results in three key findings. first, if we assume that fly-by-night firms are those with a low value of project success (p) or define them as such, then, ceteris paribus; fly-by-nights are unambiguously less likely to comply with regulations. this assumes there is some positive financial cost of compliance. second, it has been shown that an increase in the interest rate on commercial loans makes non-compliance even more likely. the third finding is perhaps the most interesting. from a regulatory standpoint, the entrepreneur’s compliance decision shows that an increase in inspection (m) would deter non-compliance but an increase in the fine (f) would not. this results in the following policy implication. to encourage compliance, regulatory agents should increase inspection rates instead of raising the non-compliance penalty. this finding, however, rests heavily on the assumptions of the model; namely that f > r – (1+r)k and, therefore, the entrepreneur can and likely will strategically default if caught being non-compliant. in the framework of this simple model, the way to increase inspection rates is to get policymakers to increase b, the benefit to the regulatory agent of catching a non-complier. while relatively simple, this model could be used as a base for future models. several aspects could be altered to fit more specific scenarios. assumptions like the initial “assetlessness” of the entrepreneur could be relaxed. additional complexities could also be added. for example, an informal credit market could be included increasing the loan options of the entrepreneur. alternatively or additionally, one could allow for corruption on part of the regulator making the payment of bribes an option for the fly-by-night entrepreneur. unchanged, the model can serve as a classroom demonstration, particularly as an example of an extended regulator-agent game. fly-by-night firms, credit, and regulation: a simple model middle tennessee state university 195 appendix the entrepreneur’s decision without strategic default the entrepreneur’s complete compliance decision could have been expressed as p[r-(1+r) k]-(1-p)(1+r)k-c ≥ p(1-m)[r-(1+r)k]-(1-p)(1-m)(1+r)k+pm[r-(1+r)k-f]-(1-p)m[(1+r) k+f] if the option of strategic default had not been allowed. all terms represent monetary amounts. the left side of the inequality refers to regulation compliance while the right side refers to non-compliance. from left to right, the three terms on the left side of the inequality represent project success, project failure, and the cost of compliance. from left to right, the terms on the right side of the inequality represent project success without inspection, project failure without inspection, project success with inspection, and project failure with inspection. since default was allowed in the model presented in the body of the paper, the terms that describe situations of project failure and/or inspection under noncompliance can be reduced to zero and become irrelevant in the entrepreneur’s compliance decision process. reducing this expression along these lines results in equation (1): p[r(1+r)k]-c ≥ p(1-m)[r-(1+r)k]. a more complete loan equation for those interested in a more complete loan equality, it could be expressed as k=p(1-α) (1+r)k+pα(1-m)(1+r)k+(1-p)(1-α)k+(1-p)α(1-m)k+pαmk+(1-p)αmk where k denotes the loan amount. again, the equation is a strict equality under the assumption of a perfectly competitive market for business loans. from left to right, the right-hand-side terms represent project success and regulation compliance, success and non-compliance without inspection, failure and compliance, failure and non-compliance without inspection, success and non-compliance with inspection, and failure and non-compliance with inspection. under the assumption that the entrepreneur will default if either caught not complying with the regulation or project failure, then the last four terms become irrelevant and reduce to zero. thus, the equation can be reduced by multiplying out the zeroed terms and combining some like factors to yield equation (4). 196 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research references bebchuk, l. a. & kaplow, l. (1992). optimal sanctions when individuals are imperfectly informed about the probability of apprehension. journal of legal studies, 11(1), 365-370. becker, g. (1968). crime and punishment: an economic approach. journal of political economy, 76(1), 169-217. boyd, j. & ingberman, d. e. (2003). fly by night or face the music? premature dissolution and the desirability of extended liability. the american law and economics review, 5(1), 189-232. epple, d. & visscher, m. (1984). environmental pollution: modeling occurrence, detection and deterrence. journal of law and economics, 27(1), 29-60. faulhaber, g. r. & yao, d. a. (1989). fly-by-night firms and the market for product reviews. the journal of industrial economics, 37(1), 65-77. feinstein, j. s. (1989). the safety regulation of us nuclear power plants: violations, inspections and abnormal occurrences. journal of political economy, 97(1), 115-154. fuller, d. a. (1987). compliance, avoidance and evasion: emissions control under imperfect enforcement in steam-electric generation. rand journal of economics, 18(1), 124-137. gray, w. b. & deily, m. e. (1996). compliance and enforcement: air pollution regulation in the us steel industry. journal of environmental economics and management, 31(1), 96-111. harrington, w. (1988). enforcement leverage when penalties are restricted. journal of public economics, 37(1), 29-53. harrison, k. (1995). is cooperation the answer? canadian environmental enforcement in comparative context. journal of policy analysis and management 14(2), 221-244. heyes, a. g. (1993). a model of regulatory enforcement when inspectability is endogenous. environmental & resource economics, 4(1), 479-494. heyes, a. g. (2000). implementing environmental regulation: enforcement and compliance. the journal of regulatory economics, 17(2), 107-129. kaplow, l. & shavell, s. (1994). optimal law enforcement with self-reporting of behavior. journal of political economy, 102(3), 583-606. laplante, b. & rilstone, p. (1996). inspections and emissions of the pulp and paper industry in quebec. journal of environmental economics and management, 31(1), 19-36. regens, j. l., seldon, b. j., & elliot, e. (1997). modeling compliance to environmental regulation: evidence from manufacturing industries. journal of policy modeling, 19(6), 683-696. sandmo, a. (1998). efficient environmental policy with imperfect compliance. discussion paper 8/98, norwegian school of economics and business. an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 105 an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university rachael smith and crystal vandalsem abstract this paper analyzes the accumulation of tobacco waste around the perimeter of peck hall. in spite of mtsu’s tobacco ban, a number of students continue to use tobacco-related products on campus, especially along the southeast quadrant of the periphery of peck hall as a result of the placement of an unauthorized “butt bin.” this site is also used as an area for student breaks between classes, with students engaging in a variety of activities at this site. initial research suggests, while in place, the “butt bin” significantly reduced the amount of cigarette related waste in this area specifically (6 butts), and upon removal, a dramatic increase of cigarette butts were found in this same spot (75 butts), a week after. this increase stands in contrast to the more gradual accumulation of butts found around the rest of peck hall. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 106 spring 2013 introduction: this paper discusses research conducted at peck hall on the campus of middle tennessee state university (mtsu), a building housing classrooms, faculty offices, and a small convenience store, and examines the usage patterns of the promenade and perimeter of this building with respect to smoking litter at the site. this research constitutes a garbology project, a means of archaeological inquiry developed by william rathje, which posits the analysis of waste as an effective and insightful means of gaining an understanding of the human condition (rathje and murphy 1992). garbology focuses upon human waste at both the household and landfill levels. this project deviates slightly, relying upon surface collection to examine waste patterns at the chosen site. by counting the individual pieces of smoking related litter at peck hall, we are able to discern how the mtsu community uses this location and how the community disposes of its waste at this site. figure. 1 parking map of middle tennessee state university campus, indicating the location of peck hall (http://www.mtsu.edu/parking/map_2011-2012.pdf ) this research project sought to address a number of research questions: 1. how are smokers using the perimeter of peck hall? 2. where is the greatest concentration of cigarette butts? 3. why do smokers choose to congregate there? 4. what are the effects of the unauthorized smoking receptacle and its subsequent removal? 5. what social patterns can be observed around the perimeter of peck hall? an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 107 the primary question of focus was, “how are smokers using the perimeter of peck hall,” but the other questions allowed us to also inquire about how the perimeter of peck hall is used by a variety of mtsu community members. in the fall of 2011, mtsu banned the use of tobacco products, which became effective january 1, 2012 (gordon 2011). the mtsu community has been enlisted to halt tobacco use while on campus property. mtsu’s political body established a program through student health services to help smokers to quit. in spite of the official ban, however, enforcement has been limited, and individuals continue to smoke on campus. at the beginning of the fall 2012 semester, an unauthorized “butt bin” appeared on the south east side of peck hall, a building located on the western side of campus, housing numerous departments, including humanities and liberal arts. we decided to study this site in regard to said smoking receptacle, which was removed october 3, 2012. this did not stop smokers from continuing to congregate in this southeastern corner. by studying smoking patterns at peck hall, this project provides insight into the efficacy of the ban. additionally, examining the litter present on the mtsu campus allows archaeology to contribute to the overall campus environment. understanding why and where community members congregate and the garbage that they leave behind allows for a more targeted approach to campus beautification. broadly, preeminent garbologist william rathje has discussed the examination of garbage and the benefits of such studies. rathje initially conceived garbology. this method was created as a means to understand human waste patterns as another element of the anthropological goal of interpreting human cultural behavior. the research of rathje and his students was conducted by analyzing fresh garbage from landfills to determine whether or not assumptions about waste disposal were accurate. they overturned many presumed ideas concerning the consumption patterns of the american population. for example, although there is a notion that styrofoam constitutes 25 to 40% of landfill volume, research done by rathje’s team proved that all polystyrene foam represents no more than 1% of total landfill volume. this work has brought to light new truths regarding american consumption and subsequent waste habits by creating a new methodological approach for modern archaeology. applying this methodology to the peck hall perimeter provides insight into how specific usage patterns contribute to patterns of waste. the methodology utilized for this project focuses on surface observation as opposed to collection of tobacco-related waste. instead of counting individual observations in differentiated “piles” of waste, the volume of waste was analyzed. then, the increase of waste over time was observed by comparing the increase of litter. a grid was formed through the use of mapping, constituting the basis of our methodological approach. instead of using a typical archaeological grid, we chose to utilize architectural elements for two reasons. first, upon measuring the perimeter of peck hall it was established, that once divided in half, the preexisting structure was a prime number – unable to be divided into equal segments past this point. if the four larger quadrants were not divided any further, specific data in association to the location of smokers could not be understood. second, scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2013 as a living population’s waste was being observed, it was important to analyze behavior in relation to the architectural elements that organized, and influenced the actions of the “peck hall culture.” site background: peck hall, located on the western edge of campus, is a three-story modernist building. it is cube-shaped with a concrete and brick exterior, and its ground floor is an open breezeway. the ground floor is also surrounded by a promenade that many mtsu community members utilize as a break area. this is mostly likely due to the open yet sheltered nature of the exterior facilities at peck hall. the exterior ground floor contains a small convenience store, numerous bike racks, vending machines, and seven benches. the interior of the building houses such centers as the confucius institute, lab spaces, numerous classrooms, and offices for departments such as political science, archaeology, and history. our specific site was the exterior ground-floor promenade and the grassy perimeter extending roughly two meters around the building, including an extension to mulch patches and eroded areas. days chosen for observation and field study were tuesday and thursday from 1-2 pm, starting tuesday, september 25 and lasting until tuesday, october 23, excluding october 16 and 18 as they fell during mtsu’s annual fall break. while we had an interest in observing the effects of a variety of weather patterns, the weather was mostly sunny, with temperatures ranging from the mid-60s to low 80 degrees fahrenheit. therefore, the weather was virtually uniformly conducive to individuals at mtsu for “break periods.” as weather patterns such as rain or extreme cold were not observed, this negated our ability to analyze its effect on littering habits. in addition to observing the effect of weather, we felt this time period was sufficient. although this project was limited as a class assignment, the relatively high number of fieldwork sessions allowed for a fairly longitudinal and systematic study. prior to beginning this fieldwork, it was expected that there would be less cigarette waste in the east to south east corner, yet more individuals smoking, as a result of the unauthorized smoking receptacle, or “butt bin” (fig. 2). it was hypothesized that the cigarette waste present would consist of discarded cigarette butts, cigarette related packaging (cellophane, boxes, and foil inserts), and the occasional chewing tobacco-related products. we assumed that the “butt bin” would be removed at some point, allowing for data collection on the effect of the “butt bin” on cigarette-related litter. this would not have been possible without an extended period of observation. it was also thought that there would be less tobacco-related waste surrounding the rest of the exterior of peck hall. an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 109 figure 2. sample smoking receptacle, or “butt bin.” this is an area primarily used by students as a space for breaks between classes, though faculty and staff are at times present. additionally, some students use this space for extended periods of time. socialization, individual, and group study behaviors are examples of activities undertaken during this lengthier period of occupation. with this background knowledge, it was expected that the specific location of these individuals would correlate with waste observed. field methods: we began this project with a survey of the area, assessing both the waste present at the site and the appropriate method for laying out a grid on the area of interest. this initial survey of waste revealed high concentrations of cigarette butts and some tobacco packaging. these findings indicated the necessity of bulk counts covering a variety of waste types, including individual cigarette butts. it was also clear that the observation should focus upon a perimeter surrounding the building, rather than a more broad survey extending from the building to the road. we used this as our site primarily because the majority of individuals who utilize peck hall as a break area tend to remain close to the building rather than scattering about the grounds. it was necessary to decide between imposing a grid over the area and basing the grid upon the existing architectural features. originally, we had attempted to establish a grid based on traditional archaeological methods. however, upon measuring the outer perimeter of peck hall, each side equaled 62.22 meters. this number, when divided in half, results in 31.11 meters – a prime number. therefore, it could not be divided into an appropriate grid, consisting of equal increments. if we were to only collect quantified samples in these larger halves or quadrants, the resulting data would not have yielded the focused, patterned information necessitated by the research questions. with these factors in mind, the decision was made to base the grid upon the preexisting architectural features. this provided the added benefit of being analogous to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 110 spring 2013 the ways in which the building was already used. for instance, we used the gridded pattern already present on the concrete promenade, breaking down these sections by the existence of columns. users of this area also tend to sit or stand leaning against the columns, adding a level of predetermination to their choice of location. additionally, concrete lines also bisect these columns; these factors culminated into a preexisting, logical grid for observation, with some modifications. figure 3. grid map of peck hall. after measuring the architectural “grid” features, it was observed that some sections were substantially larger than other sections. in order to impose a uniform size for the grid quadrants, we divided these larger sections in half. in total, each side of peck contained an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 111 sixteen similarly-sized units. these grid units were then extended approximately two meters into the surrounding grassy area, so that litter discarded from the promenade could be included in the analysis. with the addition of these units, we were left with a total of 32 grid units on each side, for a mass total of 128 grid units. no units were any larger than 4.6 meters. as can be seen in figure 4, the white areas represent the area of observation as divided into the units mentioned above. the black and gray areas are shown to gain a spatial understanding of the layout of peck hall. the black areas represent the outer walkways, and the four ground floor sections containing various classrooms, labs, offices and the stairways that lead to the building’s upper levels. the gray areas represent peck hall’s inner walkway, and the surrounding grass not used for this study. the white, oblong sections represent the areas extended to encompass the entirety of five mulch patches, one segment of extreme water erosion, and areas surrounding the two “access ramps” not enclosed by said mulch patches. these exceptions to the established grid were maintained in order to include in the analysis all areas affected by heavy littering. the mulch patches are located in the southeast, southwest, west, and east sides of the building. there was extreme water erosion in the northeast corner, in which cigarette butts and other litter were dragged farther from the building en masse. finally, there were no mulch patches surrounding the access ramps on the south and west sides of the building. however, these ramps were used much like the promenade. therefore, there was a tendency for litter accumulation surrounding the ramps’ exterior. as there was no penetration of the soil, the basic methodology would be considered surface archaeology. surface observation and systematic counting were employed as opposed to surface collection. we first attempted to count and classify each type of trash individually. however, as this proved to be unnecessarily detailed, it was decided to undertake bulk counts in order to analyze volume fluctuations from week to week. we started at opposite corners of the site working towards one another, taking counts of individual cigarette waste in each individual unit of the grid. these counts were marked on printouts of figure 4 to gain a spatial and visual understanding of waste distribution at the site. during these counts, exceptional waste was noted, including writing utensils, newspaper, paper waste related to class work, and the occasional non-toxic medical-related waste (i.e. unused band-aids, cold and sinus products). at the beginning of each observation period community members at the site were marked and counted on the map to gain an understanding of the volume of individuals that would be typically present during periods of observation. this count was not comprehensive due to the constant movement of individuals coming and going at the site. aside from this error, the methods employed were basic and sound for the research questions that we sought to answer. however, with more time, the research could have been expanded to a larger surface area and included gathering of physical samples from the site. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 112 spring 2013 figure 4. sample of tobacco waste – newport pack (weathered). analysis of the sample: analysis of our data consisted of a bulk count and subsequent analysis of fluctuations within the data collected. this analysis method was employed in order to understand how litter varies around the perimeter of peck hall as a result of social dynamics at the site. as such there was a limited classification of the particular types of litter under observation. however, using rathje’s garbage project typology the data collected could be classified based upon the following categories (rathje 2001: 22): table 1. garbage item code list. type code cigarettes (butts) 123 cigarettes (pack) 124 pipe, chewing and loose tobacco 127 table 2 is an example of the raw data gathered on our first extensive day of observation (october 2, 2012). the data here comprises cigarette butt counts for both the inner promenade and outer grass units. these quantities are typical of counts gathered on subsequent observation days. exceptions to this are grass units 2-4 on the east side facing todd hall, the units where the smoking receptacle could be found, where cigarette litter was found in higher concentration, after the removal of the smoking receptacle. this survey was completed a week prior to the removal of the butt bin. as is apparent, the grass by and large contained more bulk waste than the concrete promenade units. higher concentrations can also be noted at the corner units as opposed to the interior units. an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 113 table 2. cigarette butt raw data – october 2, 2012 – grass units. north south units grass prom. grass prom. .5 corner 1 15 0 58 4 2 17 2 37 40 3 11 1 30 3 4 10 1 22 1 5 24 7 32 15 6 21 1 29 2 7 24 1 32 1 stairs/walkway 8 1 0 0 0 stairs/walkway 9 0 0 0 0 10 32 0 0 0 11 35 5 3 5 12 26 3 58 10 13 20 2 20 5 14 32 3 39 3 15 25 16 0 4 .5 corner 16 49 5 70 5 east west grass prom. grass prom. 31 3 36 5 6 7 36 0 22 3 29 1 26 5 16 3 51 12 7 3 47 3 29 6 26 2 29 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 7 0 2 0 0 21 5 39 1 9 1 13 8 17 2 17 5 2 2 21 1 68 3 53 1 table 3 represents data collected a week after the removal of the “butt bin” in grass and promenade units contained to the eastern perimeter. when compared with table 2 above, one can see the substantial increase of smoking waste in units 2-6, which may be attributed to the removal of the unauthorized smoking receptacle. upon analysis of the surface collection data acquired after this date, these units decrease in the exponential accumulation of waste seen in table 3. this does not mean that smoking waste does not increase. however, these units begin to follow a similar pattern seen in all other areas with a higher concentration of smoking litter. this brief massive increase could indicate a negative response to the “butt bins” removal by the peck hall smoking community. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2013 table 3. cigarette butt raw data – east perimeter units – october 9, 2012. units grass promenade .5 corner 1 56 13 2 75 14 3 62 7 4 68 19 5 62 3 6 111 5 7 65 2 stairs/walkway 8 0 1 stairs/walkway 9 4 0 10 31 2 11 7 3 12 41 4 13 16 1 14 18 0 15 23 0 .5 corner 16 92 1 table 4 is a quantified illustration of data gathered in these corner units. there was a specific focus in these areas because during previous cigarette waste counts, a marked increase in the corner units appeared as opposed to more central units. the “butt bin” had been removed at this point (october 3, 2012), which explains our shift in focus to the eastern perimeter where a significant amount of smoking was observed in table 6. as can be seen, there is a dramatic increase in cigarette butt waste within the units observed in this location. to contrast this increase, we focused on units which had, in general, a higher occurrence of smoking traffic. table 4.concentration of corner units – october 9, 2012. north south east west units grass prom. grass prom. grass prom. grass prom. 1 20 0 50 1 56 13 52 6 2 19 1 36 43 75 14 40 0 15 48 3 35 6 23 0 28 1 16 47 4 86 11 92 1 53 1 an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 115 table 5 lists the final count of cigarette data. this table displays a comparison of all units for the entirety of the site. it is clear that there is a substantial increase over time, when compared to previous charts, within the eastern perimeter units. however, units outside of this provenience also display significant accumulations, although we would not conclusively attribute these concentrations to human activity. rather, these concentrations may be more indicative of natural factors such as wind and water depositions of waste. units south 16, east 1, and east 4-7 are examples of the accumulations that occur within patches of mulch. once again, we would not necessarily attribute these accumulations to human activity. rather, the material characteristics of the mulch may result in litter becoming trapped in these areas as they are less likely affected by lawn maintenance (i.e. mowing), and possibly natural causes. table 5. cigarette butt raw data – october 23, 2012 – grass and promenade units. north south units grass prom. grass prom. .5 corner 1 13 0 63 0 2 21 2 33 3 3 9 2 6 3 4 10 1 4 1 5 13 3 12 2 6 17 1 8 3 7 19 0 7 1 stairs/walkway 8 0 0 0 0 stairs/walkway 9 0 0 0 0 10 34 3 0 0 11 50 2 1 0 12 35 0 13 0 13 42 1 13 0 14 68 1 17 1 15 49 1 25 3 .5 corner 16 60 4 90 3 east west grass prom. grass prom. 99 4 60 9 81 5 21 2 113 4 20 4 66 29 14 4 77 7 9 4 93 8 44 2 88 0 8 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 29 1 7 0 8 1 3 1 30 2 39 4 13 5 14 0 15 3 15 0 10 5 24 1 75 4 45 0 though a longer observation period would yield a more comprehensive picture of smoking waste at the site, the data gathered during our course of study provides a strong introduction to the waste patterns at the peck hall site. the tables clearly illustrate scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2013 that cigarette waste continues to be an issue at the site, despite the smoking ban. however, individuals appear to be making some efforts to conceal their behavior or be more courteous, moving away from common walkways (table 5) and refraining from disposing of butts on the building’s promenade (table 2). table 3 indicates that the eastern perimeter has become a fairly popular place in which to engage in smoking activities, as can be seen when table 3 is compared to table 5, though this remains to be seen over a longer period of time. additionally, a comparison of tables 2 and 5 reveal that cigarette butt waste remains fairly constant over the observation period, except along the eastern perimeter. this could indicate that these patterns are fairly stable, though the implications of these data long-term will be discussed further below. interpretation of the sample: the peck hall site is a highly-modified environment composed of the large concrete building, minimal landscaping features, sidewalks and a lawn area. the ground immediately surrounding the building has been subject to fairly substantial erosion as a result of weathering and foot traffic. fieldwork was conducted during the late summer/ early fall and conditions at the site were uniformly sunny or partially cloudy and temperate. there was no rain or extreme temperatures during observation periods. this was conducive to high levels of traffic, with mtsu community members using the area for eating, smoking, studying, and socializing. it should be noted that the lawn surrounding peck hall is used for tailgating purposes, thus, the area of study is also affected by these events. the building is occupied year-round, with a decrease in traffic during the months of the summer session. student, faculty, and staff employ the outer promenade as a break area. individuals have been observed eating, studying, smoking and socializing at the site. individuals who are smoking and/or socializing primarily use the grassy perimeter. this area is subject to a high amount of foot traffic, and, as a result of the building’s structure, much social interaction occurs along the promenade. for instance, smokers have primarily occupied the southeastern perimeter, since the placement and removal of the unauthorized smoking receptacle. individuals at this location appeared to exhibit greater levels of socialization, as they communicated while smoking. in contrast, the western half of the north perimeter displays little to no habitation. the individuals observed here were often eating or studying in isolation, most likely as a result of the reduced noise level. the high concentration of cigarette waste attests to the site’s use as a break area. in fact, the disproportionate amount of cigarette-related waste could lead one to believe the area was a designated smoking area. of course, the tobacco ban hints at the area as a site of rebellion. the previously mentioned western half of the northern perimeter, in its lack of significant waste, could suggest that the area was off-limits, but the lack of a ledge upon which to sit could also explain why individuals choose to congregate there less frequently. the distribution of waste at the site provides clues about the stratification at work in this social area. the concentration of cigarette waste in some units as opposed to areas such as the northern perimeter, where very few cigarette butts were observed, coupled with an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 117 historical knowledge of the social stigmatization of tobacco use, could effectively illustrate the segregation of smokers from non-smokers, and inferences could be drawn about their respective beliefs about one another. without historical knowledge of the area, it could be inferred that smoking was done by members of mainstream society, as evidenced by the heavy accumulation of tobacco-related waste. however, with historical knowledge of the tobacco ban, the presence of tobacco waste would illustrate the flouting of societal rules by a marginalized community. the material evidence present is complicated with respect to indicators of wealth at the site. the high concentration of cigarette butts and such waste as the discarded pack of newport cigarettes (pictured in figure 6), suggests that tobacco was a common good available to the general populace. however, with historical knowledge of the inflated price of tobacco products, coupled with excavation revealing the area as an educational institution, would suggest that tobacco items were valued over food items (found in smaller concentrations than cigarette waste), and that such inflation, perhaps with the intention of reducing this behavior, did not affect individuals’ smoking habits. analysis of the types of cigarette and food waste present at the site could indicate the levels of wealth and stratification at the site. additionally, the accumulation of such waste would also suggest that users of this site were not actively involved in the maintenance of their environment. while most of the artifacts deposited at this site would provide few clues about the racial or ethnic composition of the area, miscellaneous items found, such as an adhesive bandage from japan, could potentially hint at the area having a multicultural occupation. the distribution and types of artifacts can provide clues about the ideologies of this society. the segregation of smokers and non-smokers illustrates the attitude of the society toward this behavior. the evidence that this behavior continued, even when marginalized and banned, suggests a rebellion against dominant societal rules and beliefs, communicating some level of social turmoil. the accumulation of discarded waste at the site provides clues about the society’s relationship to their environment, specifically indicating a neglectful approach. conclusion and recommendations: the perimeter of peck hall is a contested and complicated site. in regard to the primary research question (“how are smokers using the perimeter of peck hall?”), the data would suggest that smokers are heavily utilizing this area, with these activities being concentrated largely in units east 1-7 with a marked increase over time. this increase could be attributed to the removal of the unauthorized smoking receptacle. there is a gradual increase in all other units, especially in the units with high smoking traffic, but it does not compare to the substantial increase of cigarette waste observed on october 9 and 23 in these units. however, during our first extensive cigarette butt count, the area surrounding the butt bin did not have the greatest concentration. initially, it was the northeastern corner that had the most substantial cigarette butt waste. this led us to believe that the “butt bin” was having a positive effect in reducing the amount of litter caused by smokers in the area. however, the removal of the smoking receptacle shortly after initial observation leaves us scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 118 spring 2013 unprepared to draw conclusions about the impact of said smoking receptacle. left in place over time, the “butt bin” would have most likely have resulted in a decrease of cigarette related waste throughout the units specified. however, this would not be a feasible solution due to the tobacco ban. additionally, the presence of a “butt bin” in one localized area has no effect regarding the cigarette waste surrounding the rest of the perimeter of peck hall. regarding the second research question (“why do smokers choose to congregate around peck hall?”), prior to the tobacco ban, individuals at peck hall utilized this area as a place to take a smoke break in between classes. with the 2011 tobacco ban, smoking behavior was said to have decreased at the site, though enforcement of the ban has been inconsistent. the researchers have no evidence whether tobacco use decreased, or subsequently increased as a result of rebellious behavior. yet, with the introduction of an unauthorized smoking receptacle in the southeastern corner, smokers began to congregate in this area primarily. however, upon analysis of the data, it was realized that there was also a heavy concentration of smoking traffic in the northeastern and southwestern corners. this came as a surprise. however, it was understood that the tree coverage at these corners might provide the illusion of privacy, resulting in the more consistent use of these areas for smoking. the southeastern corner also has similar tree coverage, possibly explaining the continued use of this area by smokers after the removal of the butt bin. alternatively, the placement of the unauthorized smoking receptacle could have been seen as an endorsement of the area as a “designated smoking section” by the smoking population of peck hall in spite of the ban, resulting in continued use of the area after the removal of said smoking receptacle. to further research the site, it would be beneficial to collect and analyze samples from the site. this could provide additional information about the nature of waste at this location, such as what brands are more commonly smoked. the level of decomposition of samples could also indicate how long waste remains at the site. these types of questions could provide more pointed information about social stratification at this site. surface archaeology could be conducted in conjunction with trash pulls located within the interior breezeway of peck hall. such comparative data would allow for an understanding of what is being thrown away, as opposed to what is being disposed of on the ground. while tailgating occurs at this site, little material evidence exists to indicate this activity. thus, material culture at this site suggests weekday use (monday through friday), but gives little indication of weekend activities in the observed area (saturday and sunday). this is an incomplete picture as tailgating activities are undertaken by a more inclusive segment of the mtsu population. thus, seeing only weekday litter gives a limited picture of the entirety of “peck hall culture.” the tailgating population could be seen as a temporary migrant community in its influence of peck hall. the effect of these activities upon the site is limited. additionally, waste at this site gives little indication of faculty use. however, pulling the interior trash cans could hint at differences in faculty and staff use of the site. given that there are faculty offices within the interior floods of peck hall, there would most likely be a more visible separation of use found within the data left at the site. an analysis of smoking and tobacco waste patterns at peck hall, middle tennessee state university middle tennessee state university 119 bibliography: gordon, carley. 2011mtsu bans all tobacco products. wsmv 19 july: nashville. rathje, william and cullen murphy. 2001. rubbish! the archaeology of garbage. university of arizona press, tucson. whitefield, joe. 2012 lecture. 26 october: middle tennessee state university. people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 161 people’s republic of china (中华人民共和国): interpersonal relations michael dehoff abstract learning about a new culture can be an intimidating task. there is often so much information that it is easy to become overwhelmed. this is especially true for a culture with such a large history as china. using a distillation of research by various scholars and interviews with chinese people, this paper provides a starting point for understanding chinese culture, with a focus on interpersonal communication concepts such as high versus low context cultures, nonverbal communication, and hofstede’s four value parings. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 162 spring 2013 demographics: name: conventional long form: people’s republic of china conventional short form: china local long form (simplified chinese): zhonghua renmin gongheguo, 中华人民共和国 local short form (simplified chinese): zongguo, 中国 abbreviation: prc borders: north: mongolia, russia; south: bhutan, burma, india, laos, nepal, south china sea, vietnam; east: east china sea, north korea; west: afghanistan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, pakistan, tajikistan age: civilization/recorded history dates back 5,000 years. the dominant culture, the han, can be traced back over 1,000 years. the current government was established in 1949 after a civil war. government: communist state language: official language: standard chinese or mandarin (putonghua – beijing dialect) other languages: yue (cantonese), wu (shanghainese), minbei (fuzhou), minnan (hokkientaiwanese), xiang, gan, tibetan, hakka dialects, various minority languages china is an ancient civilization rich in history and culture. it is a land of contrasts – a place that clings to its past and traditions yet stretches forward into the future. its people are diverse and separated by language, culture, and economy but are united as chinese. of china’s fifty-six different ethnic groups, this paper focuses on the one most people think of when they hear “chinese:” the han. this paper also refers mainly to those living in urban areas, as the gap between urban and rural life in china is so great, the two could almost be different ethnic groups themselves. below i have given a brief history of china and an overview of the chinese interpersonal communication concepts of face and conflict, shame versus guilt cultures, hofstede’s four value parings and high versus low context cultures, time orientation, nonverbal communication, gender roles, religious influences, taboo topics, and discrimination. history china’s recorded history began around 1766 bc with the shang dynasty, making it the world’s oldest country. in the following 3,600 years china underwent a succession of dynastic rulers. china was first unified during the qin dynasty from 221-207 b.c. from 206 b.c.-220 a.d., the han dynasty ruled, and the han culture, the dominant culture in china today, developed. during the tang dynasty, from 618-907, china became the cultural and economic center for asia. european influence reached china during the qing dynasty (1644-1911). with the europeans came opium, to which many chinese soon became addicted. chinese efforts to end the opium trade in 1800 began a long series of wars and conflicts against europeans, particularly the british, as china tried to remove all foreigners. efforts were met with little success, and the chinese government remained weak. student protests on may 4, 1919 began a shift away from traditional confucian beliefs towards socialism, opening the way for the birth of the opposing chinese communist and nationalist parties. people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 163 literacy rate: (age 15 and over can read and write): male: 95.7%, female: 87.6%, total: 91.6% racial makeup: 56 ethnic groups han chinese: 91.5%; zhuang, manchu, hui, miao, uygur, tujia, yi, mongolian, tibetan, bouyei, dong, yao, korean, bai, hani, li, kazak, dai and other ethnicities: 8.5% religion: officially atheist. confucianism endorsed as a moral code, but not as a religion. mandatory military requirement: no major religious or government holidays: the spring festival (new years), the lantern festival (dengjie), the quingming (“pure brilliance” – feast of the dead), the mid-autumn festival (moon festival), the national day of china (founding of the prc) money: renminbi (rmb, ¥): yuan, jiao, and fen front: pre 1999 – portrait of two different ethnic minorities; post 1999 – portrait of mao zedong reverse: a national landmark (great wall, yangtze river, taishan mountain, etc.) in 1931, the japanese took advantage of china’s weakened state to invade and start the sino-japanese war. they did not withdraw all their forces until after world war ii, and many chinese still resent them because of the atrocities committed during this time. on october 1, 1949 the chinese communist party took control under chairman mao zedong and renamed the government zhonghua renmin gongheguo, or the people’s republic of china. they then implemented what is now called the cultural revolution: a large-scale purge of intellectuals and critics of the communist party. mao led china until his death in 1976, and his absence left the country in chaos. in 1977 deng xiaoping, an influential member of the communist party and a significant contributor the creation of the people’s republic, took control and initiated a series of programs to modernize china that paved the way in allowing china to become the economic power it is today (stanford 466-70). individualism/collectivism the concepts of individualism and collectivism presented by hofstede are one of his four dimensions of cultural variability. individualism and collectivism involve the way cultures relate as groups. hofstede defines individualistic cultures as those in which the individual’s needs, desires, and goals are emphasized over those of the group (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 21). in collectivistic cultures, the group’s needs, desires, and goals are emphasized over those of the individual. people in collectivistic cultures tend to belong to only a few in-groups in which they are highly involved (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 21). the values, standards, and beliefs of various ingroups may be considerably different, and the group’s ideals greatly affect its member’s beliefs and behavior in all aspects of life (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 21). members of collectivistic cultures often rely on knowledge of others’ in-groups to predict their behavior. (gao & gundykunst 442) china is very much a collectivistic culture. relationships, or guanxi, are extremely important. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 164 spring 2013 they are the foundation upon which the chinese society is built. family relationships, in particular, have traditionally been very important and are the basis of confucius’s model of government and many of his values. a chinese person is defined by his or her relationships – so much so that it has been argued that the individual cannot even be considered a complete entity in chinese culture (gao 469). each person’s identity is so tightly interwoven with his or her various in-groups that in the chinese mind they are often nearly indistinguishable. along with referring to relationships in general, guanxi also refers to the obligations a person has to others within their in-groups or with whom they have relationships, for in china relationships and obligations are interconnected. if an individual has a relationship with someone, he or she has obligations towards this person. the depth of these obligations depends on the depth and type of the relationship. chinese scholar and social psychologist kwang-kuo hwang distinguishes three different types of relationships in chinese culture (hwang 949-53). the first, what he calls an “expressive tie,” is the kind found among family, close friends, and other similar groups. in these, the point of the relationship is the relationship itself and they are generally longlasting. obligations in these relationships run deep and the individual is expected to help support his or her family and provide assistance when called upon. the second, called an “instrumental tie,” is the kind established in order to gain something, such as with a salesman and customer. this kind of relationship is usually short-lived and does not incur any longterm obligations. the third type is a “mixed tie.” this is the type of relationship formed between people like classmates, neighbors, and coworkers. it is not as close as an expressive tie and contains the possibility of personal gain. it is the most common relationship in china and creates an extremely complicated social network of something like exchanged favors, though they are not quite favors in the western sense. these obligations are taken more seriously than a western favor would be and are absolutely essential to getting things done (hwang 949-53). face the concept of face is extremely important to the chinese and is considered one of the core aspects of chinese culture (chan 5). face is defined as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for him/herself by the line others assume he/she has taken during a particular contact” (chan 3). in other words, it is a person’s positive public image. china has two different types of face: lian and mianzi. lian refers to the moral aspect of face. it represents a person’s character. mianzi refers to person’s image. it is the social aspect of face, the reputation achieved through success (chan 7; gao 468). in individualistic cultures such as the us, face is an individual thing: something belonging to each person and affected by his individual actions. in collectivistic cultures like china, face is communal. an individual’s face is affected by not only his or her actions, but also the actions of any people and groups with whom they are associated. in turn, those same people and groups are affected by the actions of the individual. face can also be shared among friends and group members. the concept of “borrowing someone’s face” is similar people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 165 to how westerners might ask to “use your name;” it is the reputation of the person that is being borrowed. because face is communal and relationships are so important to the chinese, they are very concerned with making sure no one loses face. chinese people will go to great lengths to avoid conflicts and interactions that could cause people to lose face. when conflicts are inevitable, they tend to try to take care of them quickly and quietly with as little damage to everyone’s face as possible. to this end, it is not uncommon for a friend to act as a mediator between two conflicting parties (zheng). shame culture cultures are divided into two different categories in regards to motivation for action: guilt cultures and shame cultures. in guilt cultures, ethics and truths are universal and people’s motivation for behaving correctly comes from inside them. people act correctly because they know what is right and feel guilty if they act otherwise, even if no one else knows. in shame cultures, ethics and truths are situational; they change depending on the people and circumstances. shame cultures are usually also collectivistic, so the opinion of others is very important. correct behavior is enforced through social pressure; people act correctly because they want to fit in (handout high/low context). china is a shame culture. since china is so collectivistic and relationally-based, what others think is extremely important, especially since actions reflect not only on the individual, but also on any group or people with whom they are associated. thus maintaining a good, positive face is important for the sake of both the individual and those they care about. often, people will act in ways they would not otherwise in order to maintain good face (li, wang, and fischer). high/low context high context and low context are terms presented by edward hall to describe the way in which cultures communicate. low context communication is straightforward, and most of the information is expressly stated. high context communication is ambiguous, and much of the information is in the context rather than the words (gundykunst, tingtoomey, and nishida 31). the feelings of the other person or group are emphasized over those of the communicator, and great care is taken to not say something that could be considered offensive and disrupt the group’s solidarity. in hall’s ranking of cultures, china is the second most high context culture, exceeded only by japan (“handout high/low context”). this means a lot of emphasis is placed on what is implied and not said. in order to understand what is being “said,” one must pay careful attention to not only the words, but also who said it, to whom they are speaking, when it is said, how it is said, the situation in which it is said, and what is not said (hall). in many instances, such things can be even more important and telling than the actual words. this subtlety is vital because it helps save face and preserve group harmony. power distance power distance is another of hofstede’s terms and describes “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 166 spring 2013 unequally” (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 45). in other words, it is how much importance and influence is placed on hierarchy and power distribution therein. in low power distance cultures, there is not a great separation between those with power and those without power; people are considered to be generally equal. in high power distance cultures, those with power and those without power are seen as distinctly different. this difference is a fact of life and it is expected that those with less power follow those with more power (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 45). obedience and conformity with the group are valued. for this reason, high power distance cultures are often collectivistic cultures (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 45). things that threaten the group, such as communicating negative emotions, disagreeing with, or contradicting those in charge, are considered unacceptable. those within the group also have more power than outsiders; therefore, less cooperation with outsiders is required (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 45). one of the traditional values china retains is its hierarchical system, making it a high power distance culture. chinese society is divided mainly by occupation, income, age, and gender. males are generally more respected than females. parents and elders are always treated respectfully, but anyone older is typically considered deserving of more respect. occupation and income usually go together and are definitive status differences. people with more prestigious and/or higher ranking – and thus higher paying – jobs are a higher status. anyone who works for the government is always of a higher status than someone who does not. teaching is an extremely respected position. a teacher will always have a higher status than a student or former student, regardless of that student’s background or accomplishments in the future. when meeting someone, one of the first things a chinese person does is try to ascertain what the other’s status is and act accordingly. this generally involves showing respect and deference in speech, treatment, body language, and positioning. higher status people are given the place of honor, wherever that happens to be, and when eating are served and allowed to start eating first (ngai 19; xu). uncertainty avoidance uncertainty avoidance describes the way in which cultures deal with things that are new, different, or strange. low uncertainty avoidance cultures view differences as curiosities to be explored. high uncertainty avoidance cultures view new ideas and people, different behaviors and ways to do things, ambiguity, and other situations which cause uncertainty as dangerous and to be avoided (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 42). people in high uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to have higher levels of stress, worry about the future more, have a lower motivation for achievement, and value loyalty, structure, organization, and predictability (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 42). these cultures often develop clear sets of rules and rituals for dealing with people and situations and try to avoid situations where such rules do not apply (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 42). they prefer to avoid conflict, competition, and risk, but may actually engage in risky behavior faster than people in low uncertainty avoidance cultures simply to reduce ambiguities and people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 167 get it over with, such as confronting someone to establish where exactly they stand with them. (gundykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 42). china has a high uncertainty avoidance culture. although the chinese have now incorporated many western ideas and practices into their society, they are inherently wary of anything new. loyalty within in-groups is extremely important, and out-group members should not necessarily be trusted. conflicts should, if at all possible, be avoided. if conflicts must happen, they should be taken care of quickly and quietly with the fewest number of hard feelings that can be managed (zheng). there is also great pressure to conform (xu). “the nail that sticks out gets hammered” perfectly describes the chinese mindset here. normal and average are good. being different in any way, good or bad, is unadvisable, and if an individual is different, he or she should definitely not emphasize it. this point was driven home to me when a chinese friend of mine was agonizing over whether or not to introduce her new boyfriend to her other chinese friends. when she realized i did not see what the problem with introducing him was, she explained she did not want the other girls to be jealous or think she was showing him off because they did not have boyfriends. masculinity/femininity masculinity/femininity deals with the values cultures emphasize and expect from their members. feminine cultures value people, quality of life, and nurturing, emphasize fluid sex roles, service, and interdependence, and are more concerned with relationships than achievements (gudykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 47). masculine cultures value things, power, and assertiveness and emphasize differentiated sex roles, performance, ambition and independence (gudykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 47). they are more concerned with financial and social achievement and recognition. masculine cultures tend to place a greater difference on the roles of men and women, and many people in these cultures see same-sex non-romantic relationships as more intimate than opposite sex relationships (gudykunst, ting-toomey, and nishida 48). the chinese have no problem being assertive if there is something they want. though they will nod and smile and agree in conversation, they will also continue to relentlessly push their point until their conversant either agrees or makes it clear that he or she will not back down (ngai 19). this, along with china’s traditional differentiated sex roles and social stratification, places china as a masculine culture. monochronic/polychronic the terms monochronic and polychronic refer to how cultures view time. in monochronic cultures, time is linear and concrete. it can be spent, gained, or lost, and it is important that it is not wasted. people are punctual, efficiency is important, and standing in lines is normal. in polychronic cultures time is loose and abstract. deadlines and punctuality are unimportant, bargaining is common, and people do not stand in lines unless forced. china is traditionally polychronic, though western influence has moved some aspects of business more towards monochronic time (culturegrams, zheng). in general, however, things tend to happen when they happen. people move on to the next event when the current one is over and not before. a chinese person might show up thirty minutes later scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 168 spring 2013 than the scheduled time and not think anything of it. stopping to talk to people and build relationships is a must (ramsay, xu). an american friend mentioned a time when he visited china and someone traveled five hours on a bus to visit with him for an hour or so, then got back on the bus and rode five hours back home. this would not happen in a monochronic culture – why would a person waste ten hours of travel time for an hour of conversation when he or she could simply talk over the phone? but in a polychronic culture such as china, this is, while not exactly convenient, not unthinkable either, because the time spent is unimportant compared to the relationship built. past/present/future orientation past, present, and future orientations refer to the period of time cultures emphasize. past-oriented cultures emphasize traditions and implement change slowly. present-oriented cultures believe people should live in the moment and enjoy the day for what it is. futureoriented cultures focus on and plan for the future. china has traditionally been a past-oriented society. great influence was placed on traditional confucian values, governmental and family systems, and ways of doing things. during mao’s time, however, the past was deemphasized, and culture and tradition were set aside. the focus shifted towards the future and things like equality, the country as a whole, and betterment of the people and quality of life. with the cultural revolution, china has returned to some of its traditional values and practices, but it retains its future orientation. family planning, the use of soft power, the emphasis of education, and the importance of children to the lead way into a new era as opposed to carrying on family names and traditions are all examples of how china has shifted its focus towards the future. china still respects its past and is influenced by traditional beliefs and practices, such as confucianism, but is now more focused on moving forward. nonverbal communication confucian philosophy counsels being calm, collected, and controlled (so 1336). this influence can still be seen in chinese nonverbal communication. chinese kinesics (body language) is more restrained than it is in america. it is considered impolite to move around a lot when speaking (so 1347). thus, chinese are less animated when talking (culturegrams). when first meeting, people are usually greeted with a polite nod or bow and occasionally a handshake (culturegrams; ramsay). casual contact is infrequent among people not well known or in formal situations but more common among friends and family. a couple of my sources state that even among friends and family, contact is lower than in the united states (ramsay, zheng), while others (culturegrams; “center for intercultural learning”) state that among family and same sex friends contact is higher. all agree, though, that public displays of affection are discouraged. i have noticed among my own chinese friends that contact is slightly lower than what is typical in america. when i asked one of my friends, linli, what she thought about america after being here a few weeks she remarked, “americans act so friendly! always smile so happy to see me, and give big hug! so different from china!” her friends in china, although just as happy to see her, are not so outwardly demonstrative because along with people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 169 lower haptics, china also has stricter display rules than the u.s. the chinese tend to be more stoic and are especially unlikely to show negative emotions, as these might cause conflict and upset interpersonal harmony (chan 15). emotions – again, especially negative ones – are expressed more subtly, with small changes in body language, silence, or perhaps seemingly innocent comments; and strong emotions are not displayed in public (ramsay). despite an unwillingness to express negative emotions, the chinese do not seem to share the japanese tendency to speak softly, and they are not afraid to interrupt and talk over each other (paralanguage) (ramsay). nor do they always avoid eye contact. among people of the same status, chinese occulesics is similar to that of americans (ramsay; zheng). in formal situations or when talking to someone of a higher status, however, a steady gaze is considered disrespectful (ngai 19). in general, it is considered polite to look, but not stare, at the other person, especially when listening or during a conversation. (ramsay; zheng). proxemics is defined as the distance between two people when they sit or stand. in other words, it is a person’s “space bubble” or personal space. chinese generally have a similar personal space to that of americans. for normal conversation and interaction with others, they tend to stand about the same distance as americans (ramsay; zheng), around 2 to 4 feet for friends and acquaintances and 4 to 12 feet for strangers and formal meetings. for formal interactions this space is even larger. buses, shops, and public areas tend to be much more crowded and in these people will stand much closer (ramsay), though this may be less of a cultural difference and more because most chinese towns and cities are larger and more crowded than those in the us. this is consistent with my own personal experience. all of the chinese people i have met, regardless of how long they have been in the us, appear perfectly comfortable with the typical american personal space. it is also less common in china to invite people to one’s personal home. whereas americans might invite friends over to their house for dinner, chinese will typically treat them at a restaurant. likewise, a chinese child might go over to a friend’s house to play, but such a playdate would never turn into a sleepover (ramsay). artifacts the chinese prefer to dress formally and even when dressed casually they coordinate colors and accessories. high heel shoes are very popular among females and are worn even when the situation makes them impractical (ramsay; “center for intercultural learning”). dragons are an important chinese symbol both historically and in modern times. traditionally the dragon was the symbol of the emperor, and it is still often associated with the strength and power of china. it is considered the most popular spiritual animal and is a common design motif (ramsay). red and gold are the colors of the chinese flag and are the two colors most associated with china. gold symbolizes loyalty, an important chinese value. red symbolizes happiness and good fortune. it is a common color during holidays and is often worn by brides instead of the typical american white, which is a color the chinese traditionally associate with death and mourning (ramsay). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 170 spring 2013 gender like many cultures, china has historically been a male-dominated society. the man was the head of the household and dealt with all outside interactions. the woman’s role was in the home, raising children and taking care of household affairs. women were generally considered unworthy or incapable of education, and thus subservient to men (leung 360). daughters were not valued because they could not inherit or continue the family line. the communist government under mao was the first to abolish this traditional system and enforce and a more gender-neutral system, which encouraged women to work outside the home and participate in social production (leung 365). the current government espouses gender equality, but even though women now have equal rights, traditional influences can still be seen in places, especially in rural areas. women are still associated with the home and expected to take care of the domestic sphere. there is great pressure for women to be married, and sons are still preferred over daughters. high paying jobs, such as government jobs and the upper levels of business, remain mostly dominated by men, and in many cases, men are the preferred employees (leung 371, stanford 476). religion in the past, china was traditionally open and tolerant with different religions. of all of them, confucianism has without a doubt had the greatest impact on chinese society. confucian teaching places a strong emphasis on ethics and correct moral behavior, which still echoes through china today. it also laid out five relationships which became the basis of the chinese government system and interpersonal interactions: ruler to ruled, father to son, husband to wife, elder brother to younger brother, and friend to friend (li, wang, and fischer). when the communist government took over, it initially banned all religions. it now states that an individual is allowed freedom of religion, as long as the group with whom the individual worships is government sanctioned and does not attempt to convert others to their religion (“freedom of religious belief in china”). the government itself is atheist, though it does endorse confucianism as a moral code. taboo topics every culture has certain topics that are best avoided in everyday conversation, and china is no different. the most obvious of these topics is politics (xu). china’s communist government has ears everywhere, and while it allows some measure of free speech, it is none too fond of dissenters. contradicting or criticizing the government and its policies, chinese or not, is a quick ticket to trouble. therefore, the chinese generally avoid talking about politics in normal conversation. the tiananmen square protests and related topics should not ever be brought up in china. the government has banned all information on this topic, and if an individual starts inquiring about it, the police will show up on his or her doorstep. in her interview, linli told me she had a classmate who wrote a paper on tiananmen square and then promptly disappeared for several months. until he returned, no one knew where he had gone, but everyone suspected, and he later confirmed, that the police had taken him for questioning. people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 171 taiwan and tibet are also touchy subjects. both have conflicts with the government, and taiwan’s status is currently in dispute, as it claims autonomy and china claims it is part of china (xu). death and dying are not often discussed in the chinese culture. although they seem to accept it as a part of life, death appears to be something the chinese tend to avoid thinking about, and thus discussing (xu; inglehart, basañez, and moreno). sex is another topic that is not talked about much in chinese culture. the chinese are not as open as many western cultures are about physical and/or intimate relationships. they also do not have as casual a view of sex and relationships, in general, as many western cultures do. conversing about this subject would be highly embarrassing for a chinese person (xu). discrimination with fifty-five specified minorities, china is extremely diverse culturally. the government claims to be proud of this diversity and states that there is no racial discrimination in china (china.org.cn). it is true that while minorities are treated much more fairly than they used to be and that the government is working towards making sure they have the same opportunities as everyone else, there are still many cases where minorities are looked down upon and discriminated against in employment, education, and marriage choice (ramsay, xu). women are also often discriminated against in employment. a woman performing the same job as a man will usually be paid less, and there are some jobs women are generally not hired for (leung 368). people with lower incomes are considered to have a lower social status and are also looked down upon. this is one of the reasons why the chinese like to dress nicely – nice attire means one has the money to afford it. the majority of people living in rural areas fall into this poor category (ramsay; stanford 473). conclusion the chinese people are friendly and value relationships highly, but at the same time they tend to be careful about establishing close relationships. harmony is very important; chinese will go out of their way to avoid conflict, but they can also be firm and aggressive. like any other people or culture, the best way to get to know them is to meet and spend time with them. chinese culture is amazing and unique, and definitely worth taking the time to learn about. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 172 spring 2013 works cited brislin, richard w., and eugene s. kim. “cultural diversity in people’s understanding and uses of time.” applied psychology: an international review 52.3 (2003): 363-82. web. 3 may 2011. the central people’s government of the people’s republic of china. gov.cn; the chinese government’s official web portal. 2005. web. 12 mar 2011. <http://gov.cn/english/>. chan, yanrong. “cultural models of interpersonal communication in the u.s. and china.” conference papers -international communication association. washington d.c., international communication association. 2008. 1-27. web. 2 apr 2011. “china.” culturegrams online edition. proquest, 2011. web. 3 apr 2011. “class handout: communicating in high context cultures & low context cultures.” intercultural communication. spring 2011. dr. linda seward. “class handout: nonverbal communication.” intercultural communication. spring 2011. dr. linda seward. “country insights china.” center for intercultural learning. foreign affairs and international trade canada, 15 oct 2009. web. 15 apr 2011. <http://www.intercultures.ca/cil-cai/overview-apercu-eng. asp?iso=cn>. “china.” the world factbook. united states central intelligence agency, 6 apr 2011. web. 22 apr 2011. <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html#top>. gao, ge, and william b. gundykunst. “attributional confidence, perceived similarity, and network involvement in chinese and american romantic relationships.” communication quarterly 43.4 (1995): 431-45. web. 3 apr 2011. gao, ge. “an initial analysis of the effects of face and concern for “other” in chinese interpersonal communication.” international journal of intercultural relations 22.4 (1998): 467-82. web. 15 mar 2011. gundykunst, w.b., ting-toomey, s., & nishida, t., editors, communication in personal relationships across cultures, (london: sage press), 1996, pp 19-23; 29-34; 41-49. hwang, kwang-kuo “face and favor: the chinese power game.” american journal of sociology 92.4 (1987): 944-974. web. 2 apr 2011. information office of the state council of the people’s republic of china. freedom of religious belief in china. 1997. web. 12 mar 2011. <http://chineseculture.about.com/library/china/whitepaper/ blsreligion.htm>. leung, alicia s.m. “feminism in transition: chinese culture, ideology, and the development of the women’s movement in china.” asia pacific journal of management 20. (2003): 359-74. web. 20 mar 2011. li, jin, lianqin wang, and kurt w. fischer. “the organization of chinese shame concepts.” cognition and emotion 18.6 (2004): 767-97. web. 30 apr 2011. ngai, phyllis bo-yuen. “nonverbal communication behavior in intercultural negotiations: insights and applications based on findings from ethiopia, tanzania, hong kong, and the china mainland.” world communication 29.4 (2000): 5-35. web. 30 apr 2011. people’s republic of china: interpersonal relations middle tennessee state university 173 oetzel, john, stella ting-toomey, tomoko masumoto, yumiko yokochi, xiaohui pan, jiro takai, and richard wilcox. “face and facework in conflict: a cross-cultural comparison of china, germany, japan, and the united states.” communication monographs 68.3 (2001): 235-58. web. 25 mar 2011. “official: china has no racial discrimination.” china.org.cn. xinhua news agency, 30 mar 2007. web. 3 apr 2011. <http://www.china.org.cn/english/china/205320.htm>. ramsay, dinah. personal interview by michael dehoff. 30 apr 2011. so, wing chee. “cross-cultural transfer in gesture frequency in chinese-english bilinguals.” language and cognitive processes 25.10 (2010): 1335-53. web. 30 mar 2011. stanford, eleanor. “china.” countries and their cultures. vol. 1: afghanistan to czech republic. new york, ny: macmillan reference usa, 2001. print. ting-toomey, stella, and atsuko kurogi. “facework competence in intercultural conflict: an updated face-negotiation theory.” international journal of intercultural relations 22.2 (1998): 187-225. web. 1 apr 2011. xu, linli. personal interview by michael dehoff. 23 apr 2011. zheng, guanping. personal interview by michael dehoff. 26 apr 2011. fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 147 fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost margaret johnson abstract in paradise lost, satan falls from the heavenly spheres, plunging through nightmarish limbo for nine days, and landing in the depths of hell. yet, prior to his descent into hell, satan belonged in heaven, an archangel named lucifer, a rational and perfect being created by god. john milton depicts him as a powerful angelic being; as archangel raphael tells adam, lucifer is “of the first, / if not the first arch-angel, great in power, / in favor and preeminence” (i.659-660). lucifer dwells in heavenly paradise, where angels dance and sing, drink “rubied nectar” and eat “angels’ food ” ( v.633), and live on verdant lands covered with flowers and “delicious vines, the growth of heav’n” ( v.635). so why would this favored angel choose to deny his creator? in raphael ’s elucidation to adam about satan’s fall, we learn that god favors his mighty archangel lucifer but not as much as his begotten son, whom god anoints messiah. god decrees that all heavenly beings must bow before his son “and shall confess him lord ” ( v.607-8). milton renders lucifer as envious, with a hardened heart, one who refuses to bow before the son, and by extension, god, his creator. by denying god, lucifer seals his doom and is cast from heaven, “ordain’d without redemption, without end ” ( v.615). while it may appear that the satan of paradise lost is destined to be banished from heaven—to be used by god as a tool, if you will, to effect the salvation of the world in christ—another conception of satan’s role exists. milton uses the satan character to argue against the prevailing calvinist doctrine of his time—double predestination—and to espouse the less damning arminian model of predestination, thus making satan an allegory for a fallen faith in god. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 148 spring 2013 that with reiterated crimes he might heap on himself damnation, while he sought evil to others, and enrag’d might see how all his malice serv’d but to bring forth infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown on man by him seduc’t, but on himself treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d. (paradise lost i.214-220) in paradise lost, satan falls from the heavenly spheres, plunging through nightmarish limbo for nine days, and landing in the depths of hell, where [. . .] now the thought both of lost happiness and lasting pain torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes that witness’d huge affliction and dismay mixt with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. (i.54-58) yet, prior to his descent into hell, satan belonged in heaven, an archangel named lucifer, a rational and perfect being created by god. john milton depicts him as a powerful angelic being; as archangel raphael tells adam, lucifer is “of the first, / if not the first archangel, great in power, / in favor and preeminence” (i.659-660). lucifer dwells in heavenly paradise, where angels dance and sing, drink “rubied nectar” and eat “angels’ food” (v.633), and live on verdant lands covered with flowers and “delicious vines, the growth of heav’n” (v.635). so why would this favored angel choose to deny his creator and suffer in hell for eternity? some readers of paradise lost believe satan’s purpose, his destiny if you will, is to be banished from heaven in order to be used by god as a tool to effect the salvation of the world in christ, but another conception of satan’s role exists. in raphael’s elucidation to adam about satan’s fall, we learn that god favors his mighty archangel lucifer, but not as much as his begotten son, whom god anoints messiah. god decrees that all heavenly beings must bow before his son “and shall confess him lord” (v.607-8). milton renders lucifer as envious, with a hardened heart, one who refuses to bow before the son, and by extension, god, his creator. by denying god, lucifer seals his doom and is cast from heaven, “ordain’d without redemption, without end” (v.615). so in his epic poem, milton uses the satan character to argue against the prevailing calvinist doctrine of his time— double predestination—and to espouse the less damning arminian model of predestination, thus making satan an allegory for a fallen faith in god. puritan milton lived in a highly religious time, but one fraught with deep divisions within protestantism, for he was born less than 100 years after martin luther challenged the teachings of the roman catholic church; denied the papacy; and circulated his famous treatises that emphasized faith and grace over works. in those turbulent years of the reformation, numerous ecclesiastical men struggled to distinguish elements of protestant fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 149 belief to form a “proper” doctrine. luther identified one aspect of the christian faith— predestination—that would later become not only a doctrinal vexation in seventeenthcentury england but a political one as well. predestination generally can be defined as “the divine decree according to which certain persons are infallibly guided to eternal salvation” (“predestination”). predestination presupposes that god’s will alone determines one’s salvation. st. augustine asserted that man’s mind could not comprehend god’s divinity, nor could he fully understand how or why god chose those for salvation; therefore, man must trust in the mystery of predestination and have confidence that god’s choice, “nevertheless, is made in perfect justice.” luther agreed with st. augustine’s tenet but added the dictum of the total depravity of man, in essence decreeing that god predestined some for salvation and some for damnation. this became known as double predestination (“predestination”). other churchly men formulated their own reformed theologies of predestination, among them ulrich zwingli and john calvin. but it was calvin’s theology that “proved for several generations the driving force of the reformation in parts of germany, france, hungary, the netherlands, england and scotland” (“reformation”). england embraced calvinism, which is also known as reformed theology, and its doctrine of double predestination. historian peter white asserts that calvinism became the “‘theological cement’ which held the elizabethan and jacobean church together” (1). yet schisms in doctrine occurred within calvinism itself, creating supralapsarian and sublapsarian believers. supralapsarians believed that “god decreed the election and non-election of individual men before the fall of adam” (“supralapsarian”). sublapsarian believers stated that god’s decree came after the fall of adam (“sublapsarian”). milton, as we shall see, believed in the supralapsarian concept of predestination. and the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw even more dramatic doctrinal controversies centering on reformed theology’s doctrine of double predestination, resulting in nothing less than political shifts in both the english monarchy and parliament. during this time, the writings of dutch reformed theologian jabobus arminius gave rise to what has become known as arminianism. according to the oxford dictionary of the christian church, arminius began to question the theological interpretations of calvin, especially those about double predestination; arminius’ ideas became doctrine only after his death. put simply, arminians renounced the “deterministic logic of calvinism,” instead decreeing “that the divine sovereignty was compatible with a real human free will.” and as can be seen throughout paradise lost, milton fully embraces this arminian view of free will—man chooses whether to sin or not. as to predestination, arminian believers proclaimed that christ died for all, not just the elect, and that no person was predestined to damnation; milton also rejected the calvinist concept of some people being predestined to hell while others were chosen for heaven. followers of arminian doctrine further contended that both the supralapsarian and sublapsarian notions of predestination were not biblically based (“arminianism”). here, milton parted ways with arminianism because, as will be detailed later, he believed in the supralapsarian concept of predestination scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 150 spring 2013 insofar as god’s edict occurred prior to the fall. to contemporary thinkers, arminianism represents a kinder, gentler protestantism, but to calvinists living in early seventeenthcentury england, arminianism was heresy. despite its status as heresy, however, arminianism continued to grow in popularity in england, even within oxford and cambridge and the bishopric, and it became increasingly politicized as well. religious historian dewey d. wallace jr. reports that near the end of his reign, king james i saw little difference between calvinism and puritanism and thought the believers of both sects challenged his divine right to rule (83). clearly, a religious and political shift was beginning to take place. campbell and corns assert that while james i kept a balance between calvinists and arminians, his son, charles i, “allowed and promoted the [. . .] arminians in general, and william laud in particular” (30). laud, an arminian believer, became archbishop of canterbury under charles i and is considered to be the “architect of an ‘arminian’ church renewal in theology, liturgy, and administration” (wallace 84). however, bishop laud came under attack by those who believed he promoted arminianism over calvinism, especially concerning the doctrine of predestination. david como asserts that in enforcing charles’ “royal edicts against discussion of predestination . . . [laud did so] in an unbalanced manner, attacking calvinists while apparently leaving their anti-calvinist opponents untouched” (263). arminians, seemingly under the protection of king charles and bishop laud, considered the king’s decrees to be “a proper and fair means of concluding the debate” about predestination. yet those who believed in double predestination felt obligated to continue preaching what they considered to be the “central part of the gospel of grace” (wallace 91), thus becoming dissenters within their own state church, a situation that further increased religious and political tensions. john milton attended university at cambridge during the laud years, but despite the archbishop’s enforcement of the king’s decrees, milton appears to have been “broadly aligned with laud on major issues,” at least theologically speaking (45). and as he aged, milton’s theology became less calvinistic and increasingly arminian, especially concerning predestination. this theological shift can be seen in his posthumously published christian doctrine, wherein milton uses biblical proof-texts to support his clearly arminian theology. in the christian doctrine chapter entitled “of predestination,” milton states, “it has been the practice of the schools to use the word predestination, not only in the sense of election, but also of reprobation. this is not consistent with the caution necessary on so momentous a subject, since where it is mentioned in scripture, election alone is uniformly intended.” he goes on to cite romans, i corinthians, ephesians, acts, timothy, and i thessalonians to support his contention and then writes that “it does not follow by implication that there are others who are appointed to wrath.” the entire chapter is an exercise in deductive reasoning regarding election and predestination over double predestination, as is clear in his definition of predestination: “the principal special decree of god relating to man is termed predestination, whereby god in pity to mankind, through foreseeing that they would fall of their own accord, predestinated to eternal salvation before the foundation of the world those who should believe and continue in the faith” (emphasis added 916). in this fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 151 succinct definition, he espouses a supralapsarian belief, a doctrine considered unbiblical by arminius, but milton acknowledges mankind’s free will, a hallmark of arminianism. obviously, milton chooses to follow his very own theology in this definition. but what sets this passage apart is the phrase “and continue in the faith.” throughout his christian doctrine, milton emphasizes that belief alone does not merit salvation, continuing to believe constitutes an essential component of saving grace, and falling from faith brings reprobation. milton includes a subsection in his discussion of predestination—“those who should believe, and continue in the faith.” in this subsection, he asserts that god’s decree of election is immutable, and that “the mutability is entirely on the side of them who renounce their faith.” in other words, god grants mankind a free will, and god will damn those who stop believing in him, though they had faith prior to that time. he further explains that “the privilege [of salvation] belongs to all who heartily believe and continue in their belief. . . and that thus the general decree of election becomes personally applicable to each particular believer, and is ratified to all who remain steadfast in the faith” (919). milton here implies that free will determines whether or not a person remains true to his/her faith in god. god predestines all to salvation; individuals choose to continue in their faith or fall from grace. while predestination may not be the sole focus of paradise lost, it certainly plays a weighty part in the poem, especially concerning the character of satan. for centuries, critics have plunged themselves into the rich and vast language of milton’s epic more fully to understand its characters and meaning. one would think tremendous scholarship would involve adam and eve’s expulsion from eden, and to be fair, much has been written about these two. however, milton’s satan appears to be the most controversial character of his poem and the locus of the dispute involves the doctrine of predestination. did god predestine satan to rebel in heaven so adam and eve would fall and god’s son could then redeem the world? or did satan choose to rebel, thus setting the stage for the first couple to sin, fall, and then be redeemed by the son? those who focus on the theology of the poem tend to think of satan in terms of duality, that is, god used satan merely as a tool to realize his grand plan of salvation, or satan is solely responsible for his own fall. critics who study satan from a literary viewpoint also tend to see the character in dual form. john carey refers to these groups as “satanist” (or “pro-satanist”) and “anti-satanist” (161, 167). in his essay, “milton’s satan,” carey discusses whether or not satan is the hero of the poem. he states that the view of satan-as-hero began with dryden and continued throughout the eighteenth century, including the romantics like “blake, byron, shelley, and hazlitt [who] championed satan” (161). andrew escobedo asserts that “post-renaissance interpretations of milton’s satan” show the character as having “psychological depth and dramatic autonomy the romantics frequently interpreted as exemplary of the sublime will” (787). however, many critics believe the satan character to be ill-conceived or an artistic failure, like “johnson, who declared satan’s speeches ‘big with absurdity’” and “coleridge [who] identified him with napoleonic scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 152 spring 2013 pride and sensual indulgence” (carey 161). more current scholars, too, fall into these two specific camps: “anti-satanists such as charles williams, c. s. lewis, s. musgrove, and stanley fish have been opposed by a. j. a. waldock, e. e. stoll, g. rostrevor hamilton, william empson, and others” (161). so did milton write satan to be the hero, a type of sympathetic character, or did he mean for the character to be the epitome of pure evil? carey himself considers satan an ambivalent character, one whose very ambivalence “is a precondition of the poem’s success—a major factor in the attention it has aroused” (161). this theory makes sense in that milton’s satan has been interpreted over the years in dual terms, as either hero or villain, sympathetic or hardhearted. obviously, there can be no consensus about the nature of satan, but perhaps milton intended it this way. maybe milton wrote satan to be approachable to readers, making him sympathetic enough for readers to self-identify with satan’s turmoil and fallen nature while at the same time portraying satan as self-deceived and willful, an author of his own damnation through his arrogance and free will. in this case, then, satan becomes exemplar for milton’s arminian doctrine of predestination and allegory for fallen faith. book iii of the poem shows most overtly milton’s doctrine of predestination. in it, god watches as satan flies from hell to earth. he shows the son his new creation, earth, and tells him of mankind’s fall and the subsequent need for divine justice. the son offers himself as savior of the world, while satan tricks the angel uriel into giving him directions to earth. the book contains two crucial passages about predestination and free will. the first occurs when god tells his son about the fall of adam and eve: so will fall hee and his faithless progeny: whose fault? whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee all he could have; i made him just and right, sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. such i created all th’ ethereal powers and spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d. (iii.95-99) here, milton clearly ascribes to the arminian principle of free will, telling the son that despite adam’s “just and right” nature, he chose to disobey god of his own will and thus must fall. but in the next two lines, milton shows that all his heavenly beings, too, were created “just and right . . . though free to fall,” which means satan chose his path of self destruction. the second passage in book iii related to predestination occurs at lines 173-202. critic maurice kelley asserts that “perhaps no passage . . . is more important than book iii, 173-202, for in these lines milton expounds his doctrine of predestination and its concordance with the mercy, grace, and wisdom of god” (75). kelley compares this passage from the epic poem to milton’s christian doctrine to conclude that the entire poem of paradise lost represents an arminian, not calvinist, view, thus exhibiting milton’s theology of single, not double, predestination. kelley also construes that this section represents milton’s conception of free will as it relates to salvation and reprobation: “paradise lost . . . fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 153 does accord with the arminianism of the de doctrina, which argues that god elects men to everlasting life on the condition of faith and repentance, and rejects only those who refuse to believe and repent” (76). kelley succinctly and sufficiently proves his case that milton’s predestination doctrine is arminian rather than calvinist, but it must be noted that the passage centers on the fall of mankind, not satan’s fall. however, if we combine both parts of book iii, then a picture of milton’s arminian doctrine of predestination, with the concomitant principle of free will, becomes complete: milton’s arminian predestination belongs to mankind and satan. while the theology surrounding satan and his fall continue to intrigue, perplex, and vex readers and critics alike, the literary aspect of the character, too, proves complex and challenging. slotkin declares that “since blake’s infamous comment that milton was of the devil’s party ‘without knowing it,’ critics have tended to see milton’s theological and poetic impulses as mutually antagonistic and to associate these impulses with the characters of god and satan, respectively.” slotkin suggests milton’s poetry makes satan “attractive,” but that his theology creates an “unattractive” satan (101). however, the theological satan and literary satan do not have to be at odds at all. if we read satan as allegory for fallen faith, milton’s theology and poetry blend nicely, indeed. in book v, the angel raphael recounts to adam satan’s fall from heaven. michael leib contends that his fall represents an “uncreation” and that “the immediate act which motivates satan to disobey god is the ‘begetting’ of the son by the father” (81). this day i have begot whom i declare my only son, and on this holy hill him have anointed, whom ye now behold at my right hand; your head i him appoint. (v.603-606) yet, milton does not show satan’s immediate reaction. instead, he provides a narrative wherein the angelic beings spend the remainder of the day singing, dancing, eating, and drinking. when twilight comes, they all retire “where they slept / fann’d with cool winds” (v.654-55). amidst this tranquil scene, milton inserts satan, describing him as “fraught / with envy against the son of god” and so prideful of his own superiority in heaven that he cannot stand to think of the anointed one (v.661-62). in fact, “through pride . . . [satan] thought himself impair’d” (v.664). thus, he resolv’d with all his legions to dislodge, and leave unworshipt, unobey’d the throne supreme, contemptuous. (v.668-671) milton’s narrative delay in showing satan’s envy signifies a person who broods on a perceived affront and concludes he has been treated unjustly. how very human! satan ponders his superior position in heaven and feels, apparently for the first time, pride in his heavenly renown. but his pride leads him to jealousy, to “[d]eep malice,” and finally to disobedience (v.666). once again, satan’s feelings and actions resemble those of human beings. although milton does not specifically record lucifer’s time before his fall, we scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 154 spring 2013 know through raphael that he was a highly placed and mighty archangel. therefore, readers can infer that at one time, lucifer adored and glorified god. but, as stanley fish suggests, satan thinks himself into impairment and by doing so, “the qualities that now constitute him (malice, disdain, envy) are qualities he conceives.” in essence, satan “made himself less by his thoughts” (512). as a result, he resolutely chooses to disobey god, and more importantly, to deny him adoration and glory. in other words, satan loses his faith in god. and satan’s disobedience and loss of faith increase his wickedness as he gathers other heavenly beings to his side through lies and deceit and prepares to battle god’s angels. by the end of book v, readers see satan’s impending doom, and his fate symbolizes the reprobation of those who lose their faith in god. readers can easily identify with satan’s feelings of envy and jealousy, and we all understand how wrath compels some to act malignantly. we can, therefore, read satan allegorically—he represents human fallibility but also mankind’s free will and the consequences of a fallen faith: damnation. in book i, we encounter a fallen satan, a creature at once malevolent and sympathetic. he retains some of his angelic luminescence—“his form had yet not lost / all her original brightness” (i.591-92)—suggesting there may remain some semblance of his heavenly temperament. to further enhance satan’s complexity, milton unites human worry and woe with feelings of vengeance and bravery: but his face deep scars of thunder had intrencht, and care sat on his faded cheek, but under brows of dauntless courage, and considerate pride waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast signs of remorse and passion to behold the fellows of his crime. (i.600-606) milton complicates his character even more when, as satan begins to address his fellow fallen angels, he begins to weep: “thrice he assay’d, and thrice in spite of scorn, / tears such as angels weep, burst forth: at last / words interwove with sighs found out thir way” (i.619-21). here, milton again uses satan as allegory. he intends his readers to empathize, at least somewhat, with satan’s emotional condition. most people identify with the combined feelings of anger and remorse, and readers understand satan’s muddled and confused state. it could be argued that the mere fact it is satan crying means no sympathy should be shown him. satan does, after all, embody evil, and his weeping could easily be a sort of manipulation. yet, in the passage, no apparent reason exists for satan to garner sympathy. true, the passage continues wherein satan briefly recounts their lost war in heaven, which could be interpreted as satan feeling sorry for himself. but lines 605 and 606 indicate satan specifically mourns for his fallen angels, not himself. carey reports that pro-satanist critics see satan’s tears “as magnanimous compassion” (167) and that “by weeping ‘tears such as angels weep’ he seems more grief-stricken than mere human weepers” (168). milton characterizes satan as a mixture of anger and anguish, pride and anxiety to resemble not only the fallen human condition but also as an allegory for those fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 155 who do not continue in the faith. satan’s tears indicate the hopelessness for his fallen state. satan chose to deny god and war against him in heaven, thus his future holds nothing but reprobation and eternal damnation. and that future awaits all who follow in satan’s path. another passage in paradise lost reveals satan as sympathetic and capable of remorse, although his regret and sorrow cannot save him from his state of damnation. once again, his character can be read as an allegory for fallen faith and the consequences associated with that fall. in book iv, when satan espies adam and eve in paradise, the first humans he has ever seen, satan, in the guise of a cormorant, sits in the tree of life and watches them, “two of far nobler shape erect and tall / godlike erect” (iv.288-89). he sees that “in thir looks divine / the image of thir glorious maker shone” (iv.291-92). he continues to observe them as they walk, hand in hand, through the garden, and then he finally speaks to himself, “at length fail’d speech recover’d sad” (iv.357): o hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold, [. . .] creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps, not spirits, yet to heav’nly spirits bright little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue with wonder, and could love, so lively shines in them divine resemblance, and such grace the hand that form’d them on thir shape hath pour’d. (iv.358, 360-65) in pensive sadness, satan compares them to the angelic beings he once knew (and used to be himself ). readers can see satan’s current shape—a cormorant, which is hardly the heavenly being he once was—and imagine how he must feel seeing adam and eve’s gloriously tall, erect bodies compared to his squat sea bird form. he acknowledges god’s divine presence in adam and eve, and admits that he, too, could have loved them like he once loved god; however, satan knows his fall from faith prevents him from ever sharing that love with them or anyone else. thus, he continues to plot the couple’s sin and fall from grace. as allegory, we see satan symbolizing lost love—for his past magnificent life and his creator god—which must be bracketed with fallen faith, for to deny god is to deny love. book iv also contains one of satan’s soliloquies that carey suggests reveals the “true satan.” milton shows satan’s internal debate in which “he vacillates between remorse and defiance” (163). satan begins by calling to god: but with no friendly voice, and add thy name o sun, to tell thee how i hate thy beams that bring to my remembrance from what state i fell, how glorious once above thy sphere. (iv.36-39) readers see satan’s anguish at remembering his former angelic self; yet anger fills him as well, anger he directs at god. in the next lines, satan takes responsibility for his emotions as well as his actions against god and acknowledges that service to the holy one had not been difficult. till pride and worse ambition threw me down scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 156 spring 2013 warring in heav’n against heav’n’s matchless king: ah wherefore! he deserv’d no such return from me, whom he created what i was in that bright eminence, and with his good upbraided none; nor was his service hard. (iv.40-45) milton makes a vital point in this section when satan says, “whom he created what i was,” because we can infer that god created satan unblemished and devout. but we also know through milton’s epic that god also created all beings with free will. therefore, this passage illustrates that satan’s own emotions of pride and ambition compelled him to rebel that god did not create him to sin and rebel. as allegory, we see that his choice to sin, deny god, and rebel caused the dire consequence: his damnation. the soliloquy continues as satan affirms god’s goodness and admits he deserves adoration. and satan also confesses that his boundless ambition further engendered in him a profound desire to achieve greatness, perhaps to be as exalted as god himself, and that in such a narcissistic state, he chose to forget god’s righteousness. ironically, satan immediately laments he had not been created “some inferior angel” so that his ambition would not have been so great (iv.59), thus illustrating his complete egotism. and soon he starts rationalizing his poor choices, positing that if he had not rebelled, surely another angelic being would have done so. once again, milton constructs an all too human character, one that readers can easily recognize in themselves or others, one filled with ambition, inflated ego, and excuses. yet satan at once turns melancholy again, bewailing his sorry state. “me miserable! which way shall i fly / infinite wrath, and infinite despair? / which way i fly is hell; myself am hell” (iv.73-75). here, satan nears his lowest emotional point, a misery with which many readers can relate, for most have felt demoralized at one time or another. he then asks if “there no place / left for repentance, none for pardon left?” (iv.79-80), and he answers his question: “none left but by submission; and that word / disdain forbids me” (iv.81-82). satan’s willfulness prevents him from repenting, which once again illustrates his free choice to deny god. near the end of his inner debate, he expresses his utter hopelessness: “so farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear, / farewell remorse: all good to me is lost; / evil be thou my good” (iv.108-109). but readers see that his hopelessness instantly transforms into a lack of repentance and then willful evil. as allegory, this passage serves as a warning to readers: if you do not continue in your faith, you cannot feel remorse and thus repent; therefore, your fate will be to fall from grace and continue to sin without any hope of salvation. perhaps the most serious warning about fallen faith occurs in book v, when satan challenges abdiel about his creation, denies that god formed him, and claims his own power above god’s: who saw when this creation was? remember’st thou thy making, while the maker gave thee being? we know no time when we were not as now; fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 157 know none before us, self-begot, self-rais’d by our own quick’ning power [. . .] [. . .] our puissance is our own, our own right hand shall teach us highest deeds. (v.856-61, 864-65) this passage, above all others in paradise lost, expresses what, in contemporary terms, we label the arrogant self-made man. satan unequivocally separates himself from god, his creator, his guide, his true source of power. instead, satan claims his life as his own to live as he sees fit, not as god would wish him to do. read as allegory, milton presents a cautionary tale about losing faith in god, the result of which is self-exaltation and total separation from god. the self-made man may glory in his industrious, even magnanimous, nature, but in reality, he only appears this way; satan seems extraordinary, totally in control, when, in fact, he suffers mightily because of his separation from the divine. stanley fish describes this type of empty arrogance: “that is what being satan or any other agent cut off from god means: there is no longer anything in you that corresponds to the virtues you claim to admire or the knowledge from which you have turned away” (49). but milton provides another warning about the allegorical pompous self-made man. near the end of book i, the fallen angels build their version of a heavenly palace in hell, called pandaemonium. they use all the precious metals and materials from the earth to construct “the high capitol / of satan and his peers” (i.756-57), a vision of hellish beauty and the devils’ belief in material riches. obviously, the fallen angels desire to emulate god’s realm, and in building pandaemonium, they attempt to fill their spiritual void with material possessions. read as allegory, the arrogant self-made man, in order to feed his tremendous narcissism, must continually exhibit his prosperity. leib asserts that “satan’s material creations are illusory (nonsubstantial), whereas god’s spiritual creations are real (substantial). in satan’s mode of thought, wealth becomes the substitute for divinity” (91). the arrogant self-made man’s mode of thinking clearly matches that of satan. if we understand this passage to be an allegory, we can easily see how milton might have written this as a warning to his audience to place their whole beings in god’s hands, to give him alone credit for their good fortune. in his epic poem, milton offers readers the opportunity to see themselves not just in the human characters of adam and eve but in satan as well. he creates the satan character as a sympathetic one so his audience may readily identify with the turmoil he feels at having lost his faith. but milton also wrote paradise lost to advance his theodicy, particularly regarding predestination. in his poem, he artfully—and clearly—asserts the arminian doctrine of predestination, several times stating that all are created for salvation but that those who fall from grace do so of their own volition. in the character of satan, milton blends the literary and theological to craft an allegory for fallen faith, which, ultimately, makes paradise lost very much a cautionary tale to remain true to god and continue in the faith, as satan asserts: but what will not ambition and revenge scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 158 spring 2013 descend to? who aspires must down as low as high he soar’d, obnoxious first or last to basest things. (ix.168-71) fallen faith: satan as allegory in milton’s paradise lost middle tennessee state university 159 works cited “arminianism.” the oxford dictionary of the christian church. eds. f. l. cross and e. a. livingstone. oxford up, 2005. oxford reference online. web. 07 nov. 2011. campbell, gordon, and thomas n. corns. john milton: life, work, and thought. oxford: oxford up, 2008. print. carey, john. “milton’s satan.” the cambridge companion to milton. 2nd ed. ed. dennis danielson. cambridge: cambridge up, 1999. 160-174. print. como, david r. “predestination and political conflict in laud’s london.” the historical journal 46.2 ( june 2003): 263-294. jstor. web. 07 nov. 2011. escobedo, andrew. “allegorical agency and the sins of angels.” elh 75.4 (winter 2008): 787-818. project muse. web. 13 nov. 2011. fish, stanley. how milton works. cambridge, ma: the belknap press of harvard up, 2001. print. kelley, maurice. “the theological dogma of paradise lost, iii, 173-202.” pmla 52.1 (mar. 1937): 75-79. jstor. web. 07 nov. 2011. leib, michael. the dialectics of creation: patterns of birth & regeneration in paradise lost. amherst: the university of massachusetts press, 1970. print. milton, john. the christian doctrine. john milton: complete poems and major prose. ed. merritt y. hughes. indianapolis: hackett publishing co., 1957. 903-1020. print. ---. paradise lost. john milton: complete poems and major prose. ed. merritt y. hughes. indianapolis: hackett publishing co., 1957. 173-469. print. “predestination.” the oxford dictionary of the christian church. eds. f. l. cross and e. a. livingstone. oxford up, 2005. oxford reference online. web. 07 nov. 2011. “reformation.” the oxford dictionary of the christian church. eds. f. l. cross and e. a. livingstone. oxford up. oxford reference online. web. 07 nov. 2011. slotkin, joel. “poetic justice: divine punishment and augustinian chiaroscuro in paradise lost.” milton quarterly 38.2 (may 2004): 100-127. wiley online library. web. 07 nov. 2011. “sublapsarian.” the oxford dictionary of the christian church. eds. f. l. cross and e. a. livingstone. oxford up. oxford reference online. web. 22 nov. 2011. “supralapsarian.” the oxford dictionary of the christian church. eds. f. l. cross and e. a. livingstone. oxford up. oxford reference online. web. 22 nov. 2011. wallace, dewey d., jr. puritans and predestination: grace in english protestant theology 1525-1695. chapel hill: the university of north carolina press, 1982. print. white, peter. predestination, policy and polemic: conflict and consensus in the english church from the reformation to the civil war. cambridge: cambridge up, 1992. print. invisible americans middle tennessee state university 133 invisible americans: exploring asian parents’ perception about school discrimination in the u.s. hyeryon kim and yang soo kim abstract as american schools have become increasingly diverse, school-based discrimination toward immigrant students has gained wide scholarly attention. while asian americans are the second fastest-growing racial group in the nation and need closer attention, the study of asian americans has been limited, perhaps because of a “model minority” misconception. the present study explores school-based discrimination toward asian american students in the u.s., as perceived by their parents. the data was collected using three means: (1) preliminary content analysis of korean american parents’ community weblogs, (2) self-reported structured questionnaire surveys, and (3) in-depth personal interviews. the survey participants were 67 korean american parents in the u.s. eight of those 67 participants were interviewed. the results show that korean american parents perceive discrimination by school staff, unfair punishment, and improper handling of complaints. examining asian parents’ perceptions of their children’s educational experiences provides a unique view of the challenges faced by asian american youth and insight into possible interventions schools could put in place to reduce discrimination and to enhance immigrant students’ well-being and academic achievement. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 134 spring 2013 introduction american schools are becoming more diverse racially and culturally. according to census data for 1940 to 1960, non-white students accounted for only 1112% of the total enrollment. by 1996, non-white enrollment was at 36%, and by 2020, the population of minority students is expected to reach 46% in public schools in the u.s. (ford & harris, 1999). asian americans are the second fastest-growing racial group in the nation, growing 63.24% from 1990-2000, and recent data projected almost one in ten residents will be of asian descent by 2050 (u.s. census bureau, 2004). surprisingly, asian american issues have gained little attention (nakanishi, 1988; ong, 2000). the common “model minority” misconception depicts asian americans as educationally successful, overrepresented in higher education, and generally a “successful or model minority” (hacker, 1992; takagi, 1992). this myth creates a significant barrier to understanding the depth of discrimination against asian americans (chow, 2011). asian students do, in fact, face discrimination and unequal treatment in educational settings (teranishi, 2002). recent empirical literature on discrimination issues of asian american high school students (fischer, wallace, & fenton, 2000), asian american college students (lee, 2003; liang, li, & kim, 2004), and chinese american college students (ying, lee, & tsai, 2004) provide clear empirical support to the finding that perceived discrimination has a negative impact on mental health. school-based discrimination, especially, has been found adversely to affect academic achievement among minority children in general (fischer et al., 2000) and children of immigrants in particular (padilla & duran, 1995; stone & han, 2005; szalacha et al., 2003), including those of asian descent (fist & carrera, 1988; olsen, 1988). because of the importance of academic achievement for higher education and a student’s future life, asian american students’ experiences at school need to be adequately examined (farkas, 1996). among the 50 distinct asian american ethnic groups, korean americans are one of the fastest growing. approximately 1.1 million korean americans lived in the united states at the time of the 2001 census (u.s. bureau of the census, 2001). one-third of this population was made up of children and adolescents. the rapid growth of the korean american population and the limited study of this group also demonstrate the need for more scholarly attention. thus, the present study is to explore school-based discrimination toward korean american students, as perceived by their parents. although it is important to distinguish between perceived and actual discrimination, how an individual perceives his or her environment may be more important than “objective reality,” in that one’s perceptions will influence how one responds to the environment (bronfrenbrenner, 1979). if parents perceive unfair treatment, then that perception could be their reality (marcus et al., 1991). recognizing the importance of the above issues, the following research questions are formulated: invisible americans middle tennessee state university 135 rq1. what type of school-based discrimination toward their children do korean parents perceive? rq2. according to the parents’ perspective, how does perceived school-based discrimination impact korean american students? korean americans tend to place young immigrants into two different categories. the “1.5 generation” (ilchomose in korean) refers to koreans who immigrated in childhood or adolescence with their parents, having been educated both in korea and in america (hurh, 1998), while “second-generation” refers to those who were born in the u.s. to korean parents. since second generation children generally have more competence in the english language and american culture than 1.5ers, many people assume that they would be less likely to experience discrimination in school. however, many asians are still perceived as foreigners, no matter how many generations their families have lived in the u.s. (mineta, 1997). thus, the following research question is formulated: rq3. how does the level of perceived discrimination vary between u.s.-born students (“second generation”) and immigrant students (“1.5ers”) ? methods & procedures the present study used three means of data collection to address the research questions: (1) preliminary analysis of the content of korean american parents’ community weblogs, (2) self-reported structured questionnaire surveys, and (3) in-depth follow-up personal interviews. preliminary content analysis two major korean american parents’ community weblogs (missyusa.com and mizville. com) were selected and content-analyzed, specifically the sections where parents share their children’s school experiences. the purpose of this analysis was to find common issues of school discrimination among korean americans arising in public schools. in terms of parent testimonials, the authors could focus more on issues that are closer to the reality of korean americans. while researchers must have some reservations about taking websites as truthful records because one cannot verify the accuracy of the web contents or the identity of the writers, blogs do fascinatingly allow researchers to examine and enter a new realm of communication and self-representation (ibrahim, 2006). the author chose these two particular websites because they are widely known among korean american parents and they allow members only after strict identity confirmation procedures. any cases of perceived school-based discrimination posted on the two websites between january and december 2008 have been selected and content-analyzed for this study. during this period, a total of 40 parents posted on these two websites their experiences of school-based discrimination and racial incidents toward their children at scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 136 spring 2013 schools. following standard practice for deriving emic categories/patterns (miller et al., 2003), the authors reviewed and re-reviewed the 40 posted testimonials. then the data were grouped into common categories based on emerging themes. in case of contradictory and ambiguous themes, the authors discussed and refined the themes based on mutual agreement. the data was originally written in korean, and the major themes were translated into english. common major themes found included unequal treatment, unfair grading, and unfair disciplinary action. all these themes were used to design survey and interview questions. in addition, important cases were also presented in the result section. questionnaire survey because of the difficulty of obtaining a reliable complete list of korean immigrants in the area, this study employed convenience sampling combined with a snowball technique to recruit participants. the investigator contacted korean church leaders and parents in the central tennessee area and asked them to encourage participation in the study. upon the participants’ written consent, the questionnaires were administered and collected by the investigator in person. the respondents were then asked to suggest other potential participants for the survey. in total, 100 questionnaires were administered and 67 were returned, resulting in a 67% return rate. out of these 67 parents, 25 were male (37.3%), 40 were female (59.7%), and two did not answer the question about gender (3.0%). of the 67 children, 40 were male (59.7%) and 27 were female (40.3%). the average parents’ age was 41.92 years (sd = 5.43), while the average age of the children was 11.64 years (sd = 4.04). thirty-one of the children were born in the u.s. (46.3%), while 36 were not born in the u.s. (53.7%). in the case of the children who were not born in the u.s., the average age when the child first came to the u.s. was 7.17 years (sd = 4.78). the survey questionnaire was originally written in english and was translated into korean by a korean american bilingual interpreter. then, following brislin’s (1980) suggestion, the korean language version was back-translated into english again by the bilingual interpreter to ensure equivalence of meanings across the two language systems. in all cases, the respondents chose to complete the korean version. it took 25-30 minutes to compete the survey. the questionnaire consisted of two sections. the first section included nine items assessing perceived school-based discrimination (e.g., unequal treatment, unfair grading, and disciplinary action). three items about unfair disciplinary action and unfair treatment were adapted from the study of ruck and wortly (2002) and modified. the rest of the items were created by the investigator after consulting with other parents prior to the research and based on prior preliminary content analysis. the format was a 5-point likerttype scale (1 = strongly agree; 5 = strongly disagree); the smaller number indicated a higher degree of perceived unfair treatment or school discrimination. there were three open-ended questions, dealing with whether parents had perceived any discrimination, invisible americans middle tennessee state university 137 more details about it, and how they dealt with those issues. the last part of the survey was comprised of the personal demographics section for both parents and children. in-depth personal interviews the questionnaire survey was followed by in-depth personal interviews of eight of the participants, based on their availability. the average age of the interviewees was 47.4 years old (sd = 2.61; range 44-52 years). two interviewees were male, and six were female. all interviews were conducted by the author in korean. the shared background of the interviewer with the interviewees (same ethnic origin and experience of having schoolaged children of asian minority) helped to draw more frank and candid opinions. all interviews were audiotaped and transcribed in their entirety with the consent of the interviewees. among the topics covered in the interview were open-ended interview questions that dealt with types of perceived discrimination toward their children, any effects of those discriminatory actions, and the parents’ reaction. based on the responses, follow-up questions were used to elicit specific incidents, typical experiences, and their reflections on the issues. in analyzing the qualitative interview data, the same procedure was used as with the weblog content analysis. all of the questions and responses to open-ended questions were transcribed in their entirety by the investigator and then were grouped into common categories based on emerging themes. before being presented, the findings from the korean interviews were translated back into english by the investigator and verified by a korean bilingual. results upon grouping the results of the preliminary weblog content analysis, the questionnaire surveys, and the in-depth interviews, three major themes developed, namely unfair treatment by school staff, disproportionate disciplinary action, and improper handling of complaints/ injuries. to analyze the difference between the experiences of u.s-born children (“second generation”) and non-u.s.-born children (“1.5ers”), a crosstab analysis was conducted. the analysis showed no significant difference between these two groups for all three issues. unfair treatment by school staff the most common type of discrimination perceived by parents of asian american students dealt with what they saw as unfair treatment by teachers and other school staff. in the survey, all five questions regarding unequal treatment of asian students showed significant agreement by the parents, ranging from 22.4% (“diminishing students’ accomplishments”) up to 40.3% (“unwillingness to give a referral to gifted program”). in response to the open-ended questions, 14 parents (20.9%) disclosed the specific type of treatment, and seven of them described it as unequal opportunities. eight parents out of 31 who had u.s.-born children showed agreement that they perceived unfair treatment, while 10 out of 36 parents who have non-u.s.-born children scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 138 spring 2013 reported the same experience (pearson x2 (13, n =67) =16.3, p =.23). this finding suggests that there is no significant difference between perceived discrimination toward korean american students who came to the u.s. at an earlier age ( “1.5ers”) and those who were born in the u.s. (“second generation”). the personal interviews revealed cases of unfair treatment. one interviewee explains: when my son was in high school, the counselor was not kind at all. if my son had questions, the counselor would say that he didn’t need to know. the counselor acted like the student could not even approach him, but he was very kind to others [white students]. another interviewee reported her experience: when we asked if my daughter was eligible for the gifted program, the teacher said that my child would get into the program if her grades were good enough. however the teacher did not even look at my child’s grade or score; neither did she explain what the criteria were. later in another school, my child was admitted into the gifted program. a respondent explains her child’s experience of perceived unfair grading: the teacher gave a zero twice because she could not find my child’s assignment. however, my child was sure about turning in the assignment. even my child’s classmates saw her turn it in. the same respondent describes how the teacher alienated her daughter: the teacher treated my child as a total stranger….as stupid and incapable…. she once cried during school [after mistreatment by another student], and the teacher stated that in american culture, you are only allowed to cry when your parents die…. the teacher would not listen to my child’s story. she only listened to the other student’s versions of the story. one interviewee reports unequal treatment regarding school athletic activities: my son was recommended for american league baseball because he had talent. even though his credentials had been evidenced by this objective criteria, he didn’t even make the school baseball team…. he was very disappointed, hurt, and lost interest in sports for the rest of his school days. in the blog, two cases of unequal treatment are presented here: my middle school student c’s teacher doesn’t like korean students, especially those who study hard. whenever c asked a question of the teacher, she ignored it or said “i’m too busy to answer.” when c asked for her grade, the teacher said she couldn’t answer that. but a few seconds later, white students asked for their grades and she answered them all one by one. when d ran for vice president in his school he had to give a speech. all the kids made a video of their speech. however, when d made and gave invisible americans middle tennessee state university 139 it, they played all of them except for d’s. the teacher said that she was sorry and had forgotten. the teacher said that his homeroom teacher would later play it in class, but he didn’t give it to the homeroom teacher, so the homeroom teacher was unable to play it. disproportionate disciplinary action a second major theme dealt with parents’ perceptions that their children had received harsher punishment than non-asian students. in the survey, in response to related survey questions, 17 parents (25.4%) indicated that they perceived heavier punishment being given to asian students, and 16 parents (23.9%) felt that lighter punishment was given to white students, specifically. on the openended questions, among the 14 parents who explained what type of unfair treatment they perceived, seven described it as unfair disciplinary action toward their children. seven parents who have u.s.-born children reported that they had experienced this, while 11 parents of non-u.s.-born children reported unfair/disproportionate disciplinary action (pearson x2 (15, n =67) =11.76, p =.69). this shows that there is no significant difference between perceived discrimination toward korean american students who came to the u.s. at an earlier age ( “1.5ers”) and those who were born in the u.s. (“second generation”). in the personal interviews, the same sentiment about unfair discipline was revealed, as one parent described: my child was in kindergarten and was going to music class in a portable. the door shut before he got to it, and he was unable to open it. the music teacher did nothing about the other children’s comments of ‘k is not here.’ for the entire class period k was outside, unable to get in. when the substitute teacher came to pick up the class and found him outside, she immediately sent him to the guidance counselor. the counselor was under the assumption that k had “boycotted music class” and refused to go in, so she gave him a stern talk. another incident of unfair punishment is reported as such: for several weeks a student was bothering my child by pulling his shirt and kicking his foot. the student hit my child’s stomach so he hit back in self-defense, but the school only gave my child iss. in the blog, a parent reported: during lunch hour, b and friends played cards. they were a group of koreans with one white student. they all received iss except for the white student, even though the white student had brought cards also. improper handling of complaints/injuries the third major issue involved schools not properly handling asian students’ mistreatment by other students. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 140 spring 2013 in the surveys, nine parents (13.4%) agreed with a question about unfair handling of personal injury to asian students, and 23 parents (34.3%) showed their agreement regarding a lack of concern for minority students’ safety. in the personal interview, findings also revealed cases of asian students being injured at school and the school handling the case improperly or unfairly. one parent mentions his experience: my child was playing basketball and jumped up for a shot. he was intentionally pushed in the back by another student, fell head-first onto the asphalt, and scraped up his face. the teacher came over and even received evidence from a kindergarten parent (who had been watching) that he had been intentionally pushed. for some reason, the school nurse was not available and the school only called the student’s father’s office but did not leave any messages. they did not try to call home, although that was one of three emergency contact numbers in the student’s records. later, the school downplayed the incident in its accident report to the school board. also, the school did not even punish the child who pushed my son. another parent also reported an incident of injury: during pe class, my child was playing basketball and was hit with a ball and broke his glasses. however, my child wasn’t sent to the school nurse, and no notification ever reached us [the parents]. the limited number of these cases reported is reflective of the common asian cultural trait of “saving face.” the author (himself asian) assumes that the parents felt that such experiences would reflect negatively on their children. also, limited english ability might be another factor that discouraged them from raising their concerns with the school authorities. in the blog, only one case was described (in the time period that was analyzed), saying that the school did not take any steps when the parent reported that her son had been called “idiot” and other bad names all semester long. effects of the discrimination the parents in this study reported adverse effects on their children’s confidence, selfimage, and academic/activity goals. most asian immigrant students come from racially homogeneous countries and, therefore, may find being discriminated against very confusing (levy-warren, 1996), which magnifies the negative impacts. in the personal interviews, one parent who experienced a teacher’s unfair treatment, explained how the case affected his child’s self-esteem: my daughter once said to me, “dad, i never realized that i was smart, i thought i was just an average student.” i was shocked and was able to see how discriminating teachers can seriously influence the lower selfesteem of my child. invisible americans middle tennessee state university 141 the parents felt it serious enough that they eventually transferred their daughter to another school. another parent who experienced unfair treatment in the area of athletic activity also commented about the effect on his future goal: later, i realized that it made a really serious impact on my son’s life… he was very disappointed, hurt, and lost interest in sports for the rest of his school days. in case of unfair disciplinary action, one father said it “took quite some time and energy for the child to recover from the shock.” discussion the present study examined korean parents’ perceived discrimination toward their children in school settings. preliminary analysis of korean american parents’ weblogs, surveys, and personal interviews were used to collect the data. in contrast to the notion that asian americans are free from discrimination, the findings reveal that korean american parents perceive prevalent and varying types of school-based discrimination toward their children. regarding perceived patterns of discrimination, the most significant form of discrimination was found to be “unwillingness” to give referrals to the gifted program; 27 participants (41.5%) out of 67 parents reported this problem. this finding is consistent with existing literature indicating that children of color are underrepresented in gifted education programs (ford & harris, 1999) while being overrepresented in special education programs (artiles & trent, 1994; harry & anderson, 1994). failure to give correct grades and/or recognition to asian students was also revealed, which could be an example of luken’s (1978) theory of communicative distances between majority (dominant) and minority (non-dominant) groups. luken illustrates that when the majority group sees a serious threat from an ethnic minority group which succeeds in higher achievements than the dominant group (e.g., academic performance, position, and status), the majority group tends to display “disparagement,” which is related to intense ethnocentrism, ethnophaulism, and belittling/deriding outgroup members (refer to luken (1978)). regarding disproportionate disciplinary action, the present findings suggest that korean american students sometimes receive harsher disciplinary action than white students do. this is consistent with a study suggesting zero-tolerance policies are applied inequitably to ethnic/racial minority students (e.g., verdugo, 2002). research shows that there are many instances of disproportionate discipline issues involving minority students (“opportunities suspended,” 2000; skiba, 2000; cartledge, johnson, & tillman, 2001; ruck & wortley, 2002). ethnic/racial minority students have higher numbers of office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions than do whites (koch, 2000; mendez, knoff & ferron, 2002). while a white, middle-class youth caught in possession of drugs is likely to be referred to scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 142 spring 2013 counseling and rehabilitation, an immigrant youth convicted of the same offense is likely to be deported (e.g., suarez-orozco, 2000, p.22). regarding improper handling of complaints/injuries, in the cases of personal injuries presented here, the interview findings indicate the lack of interest of school authorities for minority students’ well-being. research also shows that schools tend not to pay attention to immigrant students, their parents or their needs (lee, 2006; cabrera, 2006). even if parents complain, some issues are never resolved (louie, 2001). regarding the effects of this perceived discrimination, the parents in this study clearly reported negative impacts on their children. studies suggest that perceived discrimination has been related to violent behavior (caldwell, kohn-wood, scheelk-cone, chavous & zimmerman, 2004), substance use (gibbons et al., 2004), and increased depression levels and reduced academic achievement in early adolescence (ying & han, 2006). particularly, improper disciplinary action of schools can ruin minority students’ academic careers (“opportunities suspended,” 2000). contrary to the researcher’s expectations, the findings of the present study showed no significant difference between perceived discrimination toward korean american students who came to the u.s. at an earlier age ( “1.5ers”) and those who were born in the u.s. (“second generation”). since second-generation immigrants generally have more language competence and cultural assimilation and therefore should be more accepted into the dominant society, this finding is interesting and needs revisiting in future research. limitations and suggestions for future research the present study explored school-based discrimination toward asian minority students as perceived through the eyes of their parents. because of the exploratory nature of the study, with the small sample size (67 survey participants and 8 interviews), the present findings are to be interpreted and generalized with some caution. future research would be richer if it involved a larger sample size and surveys/interviews with asian students themselves. future study could also be expanded to other asian minority groups (e.g., japanese, chinese, or laotian). practical considerations for multicultural school settings by examining korean american students’ educational experiences at school through their parents’ responses, the present study provides a unique view of the challenges they face and a better understanding of the attitudes of asian parents and students towards public education. this exploratory study will prompt further research of the overlooked (“invisible”) asian population and will provide insights into possible interventions schools could put in place to reduce discrimination and to enhance asian minority students’ wellbeing and academic achievement. only when educators understand how asian students’ experiences affect their quality of life and learning at school can they take pedagogically sensitive actions to help the asian children become successful members of the school community. invisible americans middle tennessee state university 143 schools can do two things to tackle these issues. first, districts should provide more cultural sensitivity training for school staff and students to reduce prejudice toward minority students. second, schools need to establish more services for minority students so that their needs and concerns could be heard and handled properly. this could include, for example, a social worker or counselor specifically assigned to minority students. conclusion the present study shows that asian minority students are frequently underserved because they are overlooked, prompting the term “invisible americans.” educators often fail to provide effective interventions to asian american students, assuming they are well adjusted and do not face racism like other minority groups. all students should be able to have faith in school systems’ seeing that justice is served and should be given proper respect and protection from any harmful factors, regardless of their ethnic/racial backgrounds. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 144 spring 2013 references artiles, a. & trent, s. 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(2004). psychometric properties of the intergenerational congruence in immigrant families-child scale in chinese americans. journal of comparative family studies, 35, 91-103. bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women rebecca clippard abstract through bram stoker’s dracula, this essay illustrates the anxieties concerning what was known as the “woman question.” during the victorian era, the more independently-minded new woman arose as a figure representing a rebellion from social norms, and the question of women’s place in society, whether in the domestic or the business spheres, was debated. by examining the male protagonists’ reactions to mina harker as well as lucy westenra’s vampiric transformations, the works and theories of stoker critics, as well as dracula’s relevant historical background combined with a feminist reading of the book, can broaden our understanding of the emancipation of women in the victorian era. ultimately, two reactions to the new woman will be analyzed based on the two female protagonists. by examining reactions to lucy, as well as the theories of other critics, vampirism becomes not just a transformation of the body but a representation of the fears of victorian men. with lucy, who embraced her independence, the male characters focus on her destruction. through her death, stoker offers one solution to the problem of the new woman. upon analyzing mina harker, stoker reveals his other, more likely, solution. rather than revulsion and violence, mina’s transformation emphasizes how victorian women should also contribute in upholding the patriarchal values. dracula is stoker’s answer to the “women question.” middle tennessee state university 67 in dracula, bram stoker clearly illustrates his and victorian society’s anxieties about the role of women as the dissimilar fates of lucy westenra and mina harker reveal. stoker wrote dracula during the late victorian period, a time of rapidly changing roles for women. this was not change, however, without resistance. “the woman question,” as the debate over the roles of women was known, troubled many who considered whether women should work the same jobs as men or whether they should continue to be caretaker of the family and home. many victorians, stoker among them, disagreed that women should be given more freedom and instead believed that such pivotal change would be the downfall of society. wishing to make his conservative views more palatable, stoker conceals them within his two female protagonists. while the horror genre as a whole typically restricts men and women to specific gender roles, stoker ventures further by suggesting possible solutions to his great fear that women will abandon their proper station. the conservative consensus seemed to be that womanhood “was under threat from the unwomanly woman” (crozier-de rosa 418). despite the increase in factory-labor jobs, women were still confined to fitting jobs such as seamstress or governess. if a woman did assert more independence than commonly thought appropriate, she was referred to as a “new woman.” the new woman debate “encompassed issues such as property ownership, marriage contracts, inheritance law, and female sexuality, among others” (swartzlevine 345). the confident and assertive new woman figures were not readily accepted into victorian society and were often thought to be going against nature’s intentions. the phrase “nature’s intentions,” of course, refers to the ability of women to have children and take on the role of family caregiver. the perceived danger of the new woman was her challenge to the strict societal guidelines. carol senf writes of the new woman that she not only “chose financial independence and personal fulfillment as alternatives to marriage and motherhood” but that also “when it came to sex the new woman was more frank and open than her predecessors. she felt free to initiate sexual relationships [and] to explore alternatives to marriage and motherhood” (35). with the strict focus on paternal lineage, the sexually free new woman had the potential to upheave victorian society through sexual intercourse and a rejection of idyllic motherhood. the agitation surrounding “the woman question” influenced stoker, and he embedded his anxious opinion through his only two female characters, lucy westenra and mina harker, and their contrasting vampiric transformations. 68 spring 2017 bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women from the very beginning of dracula, stoker describes lucy westenra as a new woman, even before she is transformed into a vampire. the new woman of victorian society was a sexually independent woman assertive in decision-making. from her correspondence with mina, we understand lucy to have three suitors and, rather than submitting to her father’s selection of a husband, lucy takes the matter into her own hands. her death opens a whole new set of possibilities. vampiric lucy ventures out alone at night and rejects the role of motherhood. when the men witness lucy’s return to her tomb, they see her fling “to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast” (stoker 188). she has clearly chosen independence and personal fulfillment over motherly obligations, even to the point of violence. stoker emphasizes the terror of the new woman by having lucy drink from children. rather than a caregiver, a vampiric lucy only has the parasitic urge to take sustenance from children in a reversal of familial roles. mina harker’s complacency regarding her nurturing role contrasts with lucy’s desire for independence. with her male-dependent actions, mina exhibits the behavior of an anti-new woman. when writing to lucy, mina says, “i have been working very hard lately, because i want to keep up with jonathan’s studies, and i have been practising shorthand very assiduously. when we are married i shall be able to be useful to jonathan” (55). mina has a very different concept of her place in society. already she spends much of her time learning to be “useful” to her fiancé and studying only what interests him. just as stoker created a stereotypical new woman in lucy westenra, he writes mina harker as the motherly victorian woman, one who is extremely content in her societally pressured role. to further confirm the accepted role of caregiving women, stoker utilizes the physicality of the vampire transformation to connect the new woman with the concept of monstrosity. as a vampire, lucy exhibits typically masculine behavior, thus emasculating stoker’s male characters and illustrating society’s anxieties concerning the new woman. he emphasizes much of lucy’s perceived negative alterations through color. when the male protagonists open lucy’s coffin in the graveyard, they note that her lips were “crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe” (187). white, often associated with the purity of wedding night sheets, is ironically paired with lucy’s death robes. stoker’s use of the word “purity” makes the implication even clearer. as a vampire, lucy’s actions are now connected with a loss of virginity and sexual impurity. the use of color to associate the idea of impurity is not limited to the whitemiddle tennessee state university 69 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women red dynamic. as phyllis roth argues, the “facile and stereotypical dichotomy between the dark woman and the fair, the fallen and the idealized, is obvious in dracula” (411). she points out that seward describes lucy’s hair “in its usual sunny ripples” but, later, when the men watch lucy’s return to the tomb, the text describes her as a “dark-haired woman” (qtd. in roth 417). though the juxtaposition between lucy’s fair and dark hair indicates her fallen status to the men, lucy’s descent into vampirism is a physical representation of her taboo as well as a metaphorical one. stoker presented the new woman’s true nature based on the pejorative stereotype that the women’s selfish acts go against nature’s intent. lucy therefore loses her human appearance at the same time she relinquishes her caregiving role. a similar metaphor of transformation can be applied to the men of dracula as well. while women lose their place in society when connected with dracula, men only grow more pure. jonathan harker, the early protagonist who has the most contact with the count, goes from dark to light hair. his changes are the opposite of lucy westenra’s physical alterations. after the events of dracula’s attack on mina harker, dr. seward notes that jonathan’s hair has turned from dark brown to white almost overnight (stoker 263). since jonathan’s encounters with the count leave him with white hair, it can be surmised that he gained, rather than lost, social approval. the contrasting reactions to encounters with dracula resonate with victorian ideas on male and female spheres of influence. in his influential essay “of queens’ gardens”, victorian art critic john ruskin summarizes his opinion of men’s higher place in the victorian social order by stating that the “man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trials” and that men must be “always hardened;” he also writes that a man “guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation” (1587-88). ruskin emphasizes the popular idea that women extend influence only in the home, and only in support of her husband. when her new husband sees the count again for the first time, mina emphasizes her supportive role when she writes, “i do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him he would have sunk down” (stoker 155). unquestioningly cooperative, mina emphasizes the ideal victorian woman in her response to jonathan’s momentary weakness. she considers her husband’s stumble a loss of strength rather than a sign of weakness, and she is more than happy to quietly support him though, had mina stumbled herself, she might have taken it as a character flaw. not realizing the contradictory nature, she is content in the knowledge that without her strength, her husband would have fallen. 70 spring 2017 ruskin goes even further and argues that a man will “guard the women” (1587) from temptation, insinuating that women will not last against the dangers presented by the commercial world. he references the commercial sphere of influence when he discusses the “rough work in open world” with its “perils and trials” as opposed to the female, domestic sphere of the home (1588). men’s strength was in their ability to navigate the business and political side of victorian society, while women were meant to stay tucked away from these masculine dangers. in the popular book the women of england: their social duties and domestic habits, sarah stickney ellis wrote of women that “the sphere of their direct personal influence is central, and consequently small; but its extreme operations are as widely extended as the range of human feeling” (1584). when jonathan stumbled from the shock of seeing dracula in a london street, mina more than happily becomes his emotional support, a role she steadily enforces for the continuation of the story. stoker also presents the concept of domestic and commercial spheres in the form of the transformative hair. jonathan with his white hair has gained experience and age from his encounters with monsters while lucy, having of her own left will the domestic sphere of influence, becomes a woman ill-favored by victorian ideals. feminist readings of dracula often cite lucy’s letter where she asks, “why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her?” and additionally notes that men like “women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, i am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be” (stoker 58, 60). on the surface, this appears to be a different definition of fair, one more connected with popular victorian opinion of women’s place in the home, but stoker’s emphasis on lucy’s darkened hair later connects the two ideas. in noting the place of men and women, lucy ironically stumbles upon her foreshadowed death. having lost her purity and social place, she must not be allowed to live—she is no longer “quite as fair” as she should be both physically and socially. that dracula caused lucy’s transformation is secondary to the discovery that she now represents the opposite of victorian society’s desire in a woman, specifically in a wife. this fact is shown in abraham van helsing’s single-minded focus on lucy before ever mentioning a plan to slay dracula. once lucy has been killed, he says, “now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. but there remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out” (stoker 193). the reference to lucy is curious, considering they have not dealt with the main antagonist (and title of the book). despite calling dracula the middle tennessee state university 71 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women dangerous “author,” lucy is perceived as “the most harrowing” because she represents the independence of a new woman. she is a terrible danger for stoker and his masculine characters because she craves neither child nor escort. their “greater task” is to stamp out the creator of their greatest fear. as she does not require the standard husband to care for her, fair therefore does not just refer to lucy’s now-darkened hair but also to the outward sign of the perceived emotional defects. having discarded the desired characteristics for a husband’s wife, lucy’s brutal subjugation is more easily justified. dr. john seward speaks for the entire group when he writes of his first encounter with the vampiric dark lucy: he recognized the features of lucy westenra. lucy westenra, but yet how changed. the sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. van helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb . . . but lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. at that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, i could have done it with savage delight. (stoker 187) john expresses bewildered shock at seeing such a change in lucy westenra, but there is an underlying sexual reaction as well. he notes with horror her “adamantine” disposition and “heartless cruelty” but also lucy’s “voluptuous wantonness,” a point at which critic phyllis roth observes that “only when lucy becomes a vampire is she allowed to be ‘voluptuous,’ yet she must have been so long before, judging from her effect on men and from mina’s descriptions of her” (414). in other words, only as a new woman is lucy allowed to be “voluptuous,” indicating that, in the masculine sphere, an independent woman is held to a different, and lower, standard than in the home setting. just as lucy has transformed, john’s feelings quickly transform as well, and he seizes upon hatred as an acceptable substitute for his sexual fear. lucy is alluring prior to her transformation, but afterward, her open sexuality is seen as a threat to victorian men. according to critic eric kwan-wai yu, the “perception of lucy’s ‘voluptuousness,’ thus, may be interpreted as the men’s projection of their repressed desire: it is not we who want her, it is she who tempts us” (153). in kwan-wai yu’s interpretation, the men are the victims, unable to overcome their own temptation of a “voluptuous” new woman, an argument supported by the death of dark lucy, which is discussed later. his analysis could explain john seward’s violent reaction to dark lucy. repressed by social standards, none of the men were permitted 72 spring 2017 to imagine lucy in a sexual way unless married to her. once lucy strongly expresses her sexuality, john worries he too will become unrepressed. stoker plays on society’s fears by heavily emphasizing lucy’s rejection of woman’s submissive nature and the helplessness of the men she encounters. stoker purposefully positions his male protagonists in situations of powerlessness. john seward’s immediate hatred for dark lucy is one example, and jonathan harker’s fascination with dracula is another. when attempting to kill dracula in his coffin, jonathan writes that his “eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. the sight seemed to paralyse me” (stoker 53). despite the opportune circumstances, jonathan falters the moment dracula looks at him. stoker creates a scene tense with frantic energy. the mention of the basilisk emphasizes how paralyzed he felt, as basilisks were creatures said to kill with a single glance. at this point, jonathan has realized his danger and understood that dracula’s murder would likely prevent his own, but his body betrayed him once he saw dracula’s eyes. this weakness in the face of dracula is seen once more when mina prevents jonathan from falling to the ground. the count appears to affect the male’s ability to remain always strong in the commercial sphere. critic talia schaffer writes that “dracula’s powerful eyes shift harker/stoker into his attitude of stiff, stony passivity. the eyes give him a thrill of horror at his own sensations of pleasure” and that jonathan’s “body is strainingly retentive” (400). she argues that stoker identifies with his male characters and emphasizes the abnormality of their passivity. though the male characters do have an undercurrent of attraction to vampires, i would argue that stoker emphasizes submissive action to encourage fear of more than just passive men. if it were just the fear of non-dominating males, the novel would have focused solely on male vampiric transformation. in actuality, the count’s time-consuming effort is spent granting victorian women his dominant powers while the men attempt to prevent the newly independence-minded women from harming society. the subverted sexual feelings on the part of the victorian men could be an attempt to reinforce their masculinity and victorian values. unlike schaffer, christopher craft focuses not on the vampire’s eyes, but instead argues extensively for the sexualized “vampire mouth.” when faced with dark lucy, her fiancé arthur holmwood “fell back and hid his face in his hands” (stoker 188), a decidedly uncharacteristic action from the victorian nobleman, almost effeminate in nature. upon hearing her seductive voice call to him, arthur “opened wide his arms” (188). not only is this action the opposite of ruskin and ellis’ spheres of masculine and feminine middle tennessee state university 73 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women influence, arthur opening his arms is also decidedly passive. craft argues that “the vampire mouth fused and confuses what dracula’s civilized nemesis, van helsing and the crew of light, works so hard to separate—the gender-based categories of the penetrating and the receptive” (445). dracula could therefore be argued to deliver not just dominant women, but fear of gender fluidity as well. stoker emphasizes the confusion over strict gender identities by reversing women and men’s sexual roles. this disorientating concept is particularly relevant to the reunion of the vampiric lucy with her fiancé. upon seeing his transformed fiancé, arthur “falls back” and “hid his face in his hands,” gestures more commonly associated with victorian females. this “monstrous” female, the new woman, not only undermines femininity through her actions but also undermines masculinity. from a narrative perspective, the horror of seeing the transformed dark lucy would likely arouse a degree of alarm in anyone. more likely, though, lucy emasculates her fiancé, breaking the constructed societal norms of the day. in connection with the recurring vampire mouth, lucy has now the ability to take penetrating initiative. the teeth of the vampire mouth act as a phallic representation of sexual domination. upon seeing her fiancé in the graveyard, she says “come to me, arthur. leave these others and come to me. my arms are hungry for you. come, and we can rest together. come, my husband, come!” (188). the extended use of the word “come” brings to mind orgasm, but also note the tense of the aforementioned verb. lucy gives an order to her would-be husband, the man that she would normally unquestioningly obey. her behavior signifies the dangerous change that she no longer behaves as a woman should. rather than shame, her transformation has allowed her to embrace a different, more sexual side of herself. it is at this point arthur “opened wide his arms” in agreement of his now more-passive sexual role. her words thus signal the most terrifying part of her transformation, a complete division from patriarchal and strict gender role standards. considering their noble cause is to destroy the now-assertive dark lucy, it is ironic that craft christens the male protagonists the “crew of light,” having, he says, “taken my cue from stoker: lucy, lux, light” (445). in a scene noted for its nonconsensual atmosphere, the male fears of sexual expression are resolved. a long, descriptive paragraph of lucy’s demise sufficiently sates the fears of an emasculated crew of light, as stoker writes: 74 spring 2017 arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. van helsing opened his missal and began to read, and quincey and i followed as well as we could. arthur placed the point over the heart, and as i looked i could see its dint in the white flesh. then he struck with all his might. the thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. the body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. but arthur never faltered. . . . and then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. finally it lay still. (192-93) john seward’s previously-mentioned “savage delight” has now been fulfilled, though dark lucy’s “blood-curdling screech” and her “writhing” and “quivering” ought to give readers pause. the male protagonists even go so far as to refer to lucy as “the thing,” simultaneously revoking her sex and humanity. her pain is always followed by an emphasis on this loss. when she screeches, stoker notes that the sound came from “the opened red lips” and, when she quivered, “sharp white teeth champed together.” the careful lack of feminine pronouns further dissociates the woman from the murder. stoker describes arthur’s face as “set, and high duty seemed to shine through it” (193). the reader is meant to identify with his unfaltering attitude and “high duty” that grants the crew of light courage, but what is this high duty exactly? lucy had neither committed murder nor transformed the children from whom she fed. her saviors seem to be punishing the crime before it had been committed. stoker is emphasizing that dark lucy no longer has the best interests of patriarchal society in mind. desiring her independence, lucy is now a feared woman. calling such a task “high duty,” dracula hides its true purpose and supports the noble-sounding name given to the male protagonists by craft. roth argues that “the central anxiety of the novel is the fear of the devouring women” (419). to extrapolate from this argument, it can therefore be assumed that the non-devouring woman, the woman who allows herself instead to be fed upon, would be an asset. mina harker, for example, has a similar situation to lucy, but the outcome diverges from lucy’s violent death. having been bitten by dracula, the same crew of high duty that righteously destroyed lucy now works hard to protect mina from herself. ultimately they decide the best course of action is to prohibit her middle tennessee state university 75 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women from further involvement. mina does not seem to mind and even writes that “they all agreed that it was best that i should not be drawn further into this awful work, and i acquiesced” (stoker 226). mina’s opinion is secondary to the male protagonists, and without a protest she submits to their authority. their hunt for dracula touches on the dangers that victorian women should be neither independent nor venture into the commercial sphere. for stoker, not only does mina represents all that is ideal about victorian society, but she takes an active role in submitting herself to patriarchal authority. always thinking of her husband first, mina does not voice her complaints aloud. while they scour the city, mina writes in her journal “now i am crying like a silly fool, when i know it comes from my husband’s great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men” (226). stoker writes mina as a stereotypical victorian woman overcome by emotion. despite knowing that intellect is more highly valued, she cannot help but cry at being abandoned. because of this perceived weakness in temperament, she associates crying with fragility and the male figures with both authority and strength. despite her own opinions, she has an overwhelming confidence in the male protagonists’ abilities and “good, good wishes.” through mina, stoker is encouraging not only the men to maintain societal norms, but for women to have an active role in submitting to patriarchal standards. there is an obvious but very crucial difference between mina and lucy: mina gets married. not only does she get married, mina also she spends the first portion of dracula writing about her soon-to-be husband and her desire to be useful to him. mina’s view on the women’s sphere corresponds to ellis and ruskin’s views. thus, it comes as no surprise that mina views sexual freedom with loss, and equates dracula’s actions, not with sexual independence but with betrayal. “unclean, unclean! i must touch him [ jonathan harker] or kiss him no more” is her first reaction upon realizing dracula has forced her to drink his blood (248). equating female sexual freedom with impurity, stoker thus implies that female sexuality will degrade society. despite being the victim, she only orders herself not to touch or kiss her fiancé, as if the dracula connection was contagious. significantly, mina only rejects herself now that she has been associated with dracula. critic stephen arata notes that both vampire sexuality and female sexuality “are represented as primitive and voracious, and both threaten patriarchal hegemony” (468). equating female sexuality with something monstrous and animalistic, stoker thus implies that female sexuality will degrade society but softens his sentiment through a female lens. 76 spring 2017 while lucy westenra embraced her new sexual fluidity, mina harker was content in the domestic sphere. when reminded by abraham van helsing of dracula’s successful attacks on her, mina replies, “no, i shall not forget, for it is well that i remember. . . . now, you must all be going soon. breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong” (stoker 258). mina simultaneously reminds herself of the domestic hemisphere while discussing dracula’s actions to prove her disinterest in his offer. on the subject of women’s natural place in society, john stuart mill argued that “the rule of men over women differs from all these others in not being a rule a rule of force: it is accepted voluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. . . . men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments” (1062). mina has accepted that she will be left behind, but she is so assured of her role that she ensures the men have a hearty breakfast before they venture out into the commercial sphere. dark lucy only takes from society, but mina gives both her emotional and physical support and takes an active role in her own sexual and societal suppression. dracula exemplifies the notion that not only does patriarchal society confine women, but that women often willingly submit to these restrictive measures. in victorian society, women could do very little without the security of husband and marriage. mina takes an active part in the destruction of dracula, the creature that offered lucy sexual and societal independence, because ultimately mrs. harker rejects nonpatriarchal values. not only is she the obedient wife, she also perpetuates the suppression of her sex, fulfilling mill’s observation that men desire not just women’s obedience but also their sentiment. though lonely at being left behind, mina has confidence that “some day jonathan will tell me all” (stoker 226), emphasizing that her needs are secondary to her husband’s wants. from mina and the male protagonists’ perspectives, stoker’s vampires are leeches, feeding off the blood of others while contributing little to society. higher class women paralleled this situation. confined to the home and without the possibility of working, “middle-class victorian women were held up as guardians of the nation’s and the empire’s moral health” (crozier-de rosa 418). in her active role to support her husband, mina ultimately rejects the monstrous vampire lifestyle in favor of society’s approved non-working females. dark lucy emphasizes that some considered the new woman a monstrous abomination, but stoker ultimately parallels mina’s behavior as the ideal for an idle women. that lucy drinks from children is also symbolic, outlining the anxiety that a younger generation will degrade in a society of dominant women middle tennessee state university 77 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women who want neither man nor children and who do not contribute to the social order. lucy’s death is a necessity for stoker to alleviate the reader’s fears of an influx of dark lucys invading in a similar manner as dracula’s attempts to invade london. stoker vividly describes the crucial problem of victorian society through lucy westenra and then offers the solution through her death and mina harker’s repression. ultimately, dracula illustrates a patriarchal society’s anxieties about the emancipation of women from traditional roles and advocates a continuation of the active suppression of women. 78 spring 2017 works cited arata, stephen d. “‘the occidental tourist’: dracula and the anxiety of reverse colonization.” victorian studies (1990): 627-34. jstor. web. 17 mar. 2017. craft, christopher. “‘kiss me with those red lips’: gender and inversion in bram stoker’s dracula.” representations 8 (1984): 107-33. jstor. web. 27 mar. 2017. crozier-de rosa, sharon. “marie corelli’s british new woman: a threat to empire?” the domestic frontier : european colonialism, nationalism and the family. spec. issue of history of the family 4.4 (2009): 416-29. sciencedirect. web. 3 mar. 2017. ellis, sarah stickney. “the women of england: their social duties and domestic habits.” 2006. the norton anthology of english literature: the victorian age. ed. stephen greenblatt and m. h. abrams. 8th ed. vol. e. new york: norton, 2006. 1324-34. print. kwan-wai yu, eric. “productive fear: labor, sexuality, and mimicry in bram stoker’s dracula.” texas studies in literature & language 48.2 (2006): 145-70. academic search premier. web. 18 apr. 2016. mill, john stuart. “the subjugation of women.” 1869. the norton anthology of english literature: the victorian age. ed. stephen greenblatt and m. h. abrams. 8th ed. vol. e. new york: norton, 2006. 1061–70. print. roth, phyllis a. “suddenly sexual women in bram stoker’s dracula.” literature and psychology 27.3 (1977): 113-21. print. ruskin, john. “of queens’ gardens.” 1864. the norton anthology of english literature: the victorian age. ed. stephen greenblatt and m. h. abrams. 8th ed. vol. e. new york: norton, 2006. 1587–88. print. schaffer, talia. “‘a wilde desire took me’: the homoerotic history of dracula.” elh 61.2 (1994): 381-425. project muse. web. 13 jun. 2016. senf, carol a. “dracula: stoker’s response to the new woman.” victorian studies 26.1 (1982): 33-49. academic search premier. web. 12 jun. 2016. stoker, bram. dracula: a norton critical edition. ed. nina auerbach and david j. skal. new york: norton, 1997. print. swartz-levine, jennifer a. “staking salvation: the reclamation of the monstrous female in dracula.” midwest quarterly 57.4 (2016): 345-61. literature resource center. web. 27 mar. 2017. bram stoker’s anxieties concerning the emancipation of women middle tennessee state university 79 does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? mary ellsworth abstract this paper investigates the relationship between criminal background from youth and future labor force participation for prime-age men (25-54 years old) in the united states. since january 1980, the percentage of prime-age males not in the labor force has increased from 5.5% to 12.3%, which coincides with an increasing proportion of previously incarcerated prime-age men due to increased incarceration rates during the 1980s and 1990s. previous studies have shown that supply-side factors, such as disability insurance or working spouses, do not account for most of the decline in prime-age male labor force participation. using nlsy79 data, this study uses linear regression analysis and finds that criminal charges received at a young stage in life are associated with more weeks out of the labor force, even up to 26 years in the future. this sug gests that a large number of previously incarcerated prime-age men may be dropping out of the labor force due to discouragement in finding work. further research, however, is required to imply causality by assessing the extent to which men with criminal backgrounds would have strug gled in the labor market regardless of conflict with the law due to lifestyle or personal attributes. middle tennessee state university 41 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2017 why is an increasing proportion of prime-age american men each year choosing not to work? the labor force participation rate measures the proportion of people age 16 and older who are either working or actively seeking work (hipple, 2016). therefore, people who are unemployed but looking for work are still counted as being in the labor force. sixty years ago, the civilian labor force participation rate for prime-age men (25-54 years old) in the u.s. was over 97% (u.s. bureau of labor statistics), but that number has been dwindling ever since, which can be seen in figure 1. the average rate for 2016, for example, was 88.5%. the u.s. currently has the third lowest labor force participation rate out of all 34 oecd countries (thompson, 2016). the decline in the prime-age labor participation rate is even more concerning than the decline in the overall labor force participation rate since the latter rate is affected by retirees as well as young people who choose not to work for reasons such as schooling. this paper investigates a demand-side explanation for the decline in prime-age male labor force participation, criminal history, and finds that incarceration during one’s youth (23 years old at the latest) corresponds to lower labor force participation even 26 years after reporting having received criminal charges. the u.s. has the highest incarceration rate in the world—about five times the average rate for oecd countries. according to an estimate by the bureau of justice statistics (see anderson & carson, 2016), the u.s. rate of male incarceration in 2015 was 863 per 100,000 males in the population. schmitt and warner (2010) estimated the ex-felon population to be between 12.3 and 13.9 million people. if incarceration and criminal history in general have a significant effect on the ability of individuals to find jobs, this could mean a large number of capable, prime-age men are choosing to drop out of the labor force due to discouragement, since “the stigma of incarceration can reduce demand for the labor services of the formerly incarcerated even years after their reentry into society” (council of economic advisers, 2016, p. 32). it is possible that this stigma can affect demand for an applicant’s services many years after the crime has been committed, depending on how far back into an applicant’s history employers go for their background checks. as the u.s. incarceration rate continues to increase, the proportion of prime-age men susceptible to dropping out of the labor force also increases. why does it matter if prime-age men give up looking for work due to discouragement? one issue is the effect on the validity of unemployment statistics. while the u.s. has had low unemployment rates several years running, these numbers only account for people actively seeking work. therefore, unemployment rates alone provide a misleading representation of the country’s labor market health. if a person drops out of the labor force due to a persistent inability to find a job, the unemployment rate goes down, causing the illusion of an improving economy when in fact the labor market simply forced a citizen to give up seeking employment. juhn and potter (2006) found that dropping out of the labor force, rather than entering unemployment, has become the primary response to poor labor market conditions. another problem with men exiting the labor force due to discouragement is their increased likelihood of turning to desperate measures such as crime in order to survive. according to western (2002), an increase in the length of one’s incarceration contributes to the learning of illegal skills. graves (2014) notes that regardless of the source of decline in prime-age male labor force participation, this decline indicates a problem for economic growth, as historically this is the group that has comprised the largest share of the u.s. workforce. figure 1. the decline in the u.s. prime-age male labor force participation from 1956-2016. literature review the council of economic advisors of the u.s. executive office (2016) argues that the long-term decline in labor participation for prime-age men is not primarily due to changes in labor supply—for example, men choosing not to work due to working wives or public assistance. according to the council, nearly 36% of prime-age men not in the labor force lived in poverty in 2014—casting doubt on the hypothesis that non-participation represents a choice enabled by other personal means or income sources. supply-driven decreases in labor participation are not a cause for concern because they indicate people are choosing to drop out of the labor does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? middle tennessee state university 43 44 spring 2017 force because they have a better alternative. there is reason to believe that demand for labor as well as institutional factors, criminal history in particular, better explain the change in labor force participation for prime-age men. this should cause concern as it leaves both workers and the labor market worse off by eroding human capital and stunting economic growth. black, furman, rackstraw, and rao (2016) claim that labor supply explanations do not account for both declining workforce participation and lower relative wages. if men with a criminal background were simply choosing to work less, wages would increase for their peers who continue participating in the workforce. instead, wages are declining, which suggests the demand curve for labor from formerly incarcerated workers has shifted inward. while few empirical studies focus on the effect of criminal history on labor force participation, the effect of criminal history on labor outcomes other than labor force participation, such as employment and wages, is well documented. using data from over one million unique defendants in a texas county, mueller-smith (2015) finds each additional year of incarceration reduces post-release employment by 3.6%. pettit and lyons (2009) analyzed the age-graded labor market effects of incarceration and found that the negative effect of incarceration on employment was higher among men imprisoned after age 30 while the negative effect on wages was mostly consistent for all ages. western and beckett (1999) found a consistent decrease in weeks worked per year, even after 15 years since having reported being incarcerated, for people incarcerated during youth. on the other hand, some research has found temporary positive effects on employment and wages after release from prison compared to before incarceration. bushway, stoll, and weiman (2007) found immediate spikes in employment after being released from prison, which they attributed to a new mindset about the importance of work and staying out of prison. nonetheless, they also noted that employment rates returned to pre-prison rates within 18 months. kling, weiman, and western (2001) articulate the common endogeneity problem for most research on the economic effects of criminal history: “are the labor market experiences of ex-offenders due to the effects of conviction or incarceration, or are they due to characteristics of offenders that simultaneously place them at risk of arrest and low earnings or employment?” (411). incarceration effects, they note, cannot be wholly reduced to offender behavior since they are also a function of policy choice. for example, the increased incarceration rates in the 1980s and 1990s were not due to behavioral shifts but rather changes in sentencing and post-release supervision polices. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research despite many sources citing criminal history as a likely determinant of labor force participation, no empirical studies specifically test for this relationship for primeage men. i will use data from the 1979 cohort of the national longitudinal survey of youth (nlsy79) to test the impact of criminal history incurred during youth on future labor force participation for prime-age men. data and methodology the bureau of labor statistics has collected the nlsy79 survey data, a nationally representative sample of americans born between 1957-64. respondents were first interviewed in 1979 and were interviewed annually until 1994, after which they were interviewed every two years. for the current analysis, three cross-sectional linear regression models were created to test the relationship between criminal history and future labor force participation for male respondents of the nlsy79, one for each of the following years: 1988, 1998, and 2006. these models measure the impact of criminal history incurred at youth on future labor participation for different periods in the individuals’ lives. in all three years, all men in the cohort are at prime working age (25-54 years old). to measure criminal background, two variables are included: whether the individual has received charges for illegal activity and whether the individual has been stopped by police for anything except a minor traffic offense. the latter variable is included to test whether less serious encounters with the law may be showing up in future background checks, which could affect labor participation. data for both variables is only available for the year 1980, as surveyors only asked respondents in 1980 about their criminal history, at which time all respondents were between the ages of 16 and 23. therefore, these models can only measure the effect of criminal history during youth on future labor force participation. considering the eight-year variation in age of respondents, some respondents had more time to get involved in criminal activity than others. the dependent variable in these linear regression models is weeks out of the labor force. we expect criminal history to correlate positively with weeks per year out of the labor force. control variables to account for variability among respondents include: age in 1980 and dummy variables for black; live in an urban area; live in the south; currently in jail; married; and have a health limitation for work. for the 1988 model, a variable is also included for whether or not the individual in 1980 expected to be working in five years. including this variable attempts to account for people who planned to be in school for an extended length of time, thus affecting their future labor force participation. does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? middle tennessee state university 45 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2017 results descriptive statistics for the 1988 model are shown in table 1, and the regression results are shown in table 2. having received criminal charges in the past produced a significant, positive effect on weeks out of the labor force for individuals in 1988, meaning individuals were less likely to be in the labor force in 1988 if they had received criminal charges by 1980. being stopped by the police for something other than a minor traffic offense by 1980 also added weeks out of the labor force but was not significant under the t-test. we can assume from this result, therefore, that being stopped by the police for something other than a minor traffic offense will not show up on future background checks. the r2 value shows this model explained 14.58% of the variation in male labor force participation in 1988. it is assumed that there is omitted variable bias, as there are other variables that could help explain why these men may be out of the labor force, thus accounting for the relatively low explanatory power of the model. for example, we are not including whether the individual receives disability insurance or any current enrollment in an educational program. except for living in the south, which was surprisingly associated with fewer weeks out of the labor force, all variables produced the expected coefficient signs. variance inflation factors (vifs) were calculated for all variables, all of which were less than 1.2, showing multicollinearity not to be present. the breusch-pagan test revealed heteroskedasticity in the model (p = 0.000), so white’s robust variance-covariance matrix was used to correct the standard errors of the coefficients. with corrected standard errors, the effect of criminal charges received in or before 1980 on labor participation is 2.22 more weeks out of the labor force in 1988. the reset test showed the linear model to be an appropriate specification for the data (p = 0.0018), and the shapiro-wilk test found the residuals are normally distributed (p = 0.000). table 1 descriptive statistics for 1988 min max mean std. dev. lfp88 0 52 7.1531 15.1467 black 0 1 0.2682 0.4431 age 15 23 18.5317 2.2598 charges 0 1 0.1659 0.3720 stoppolice 0 1 0.2862 0.4520 south88 0 1 0.3796 0.4853 work5yrs 0 1 0.9528 0.2122 urban88 0 1 0.7509 0.4325 jail88 0 1 0.0233 0.1509 married88 0 1 0.4461 0.4971 health88 0 1 0.0366 0.1879 table 2 1988 regression results estimate std. error t value pr(>|t|) (intercept) 25.7503 1.9069 13.5039 0.0000*** black 3.6530 0.4867 7.5062 0.0000*** age -0.5594 0.0928 -6.0284 0.0000*** charges 2.2190 0.5884 3.7710 0.0002*** stoppolice 0.6160 0.4801 1.2830 0.1995 south88 -2.5022 0.4422 -5.6578 0.0000*** work5yrs -3.0759 0.9680 -3.1775 0.0015*** urban88 -7.9192 0.4841 -16.3584 0.0000*** jail88 24.2812 1.3871 17.5045 0.0000*** married88 -1.4166 0.4316 -3.2825 0.0010*** health88 3.7954 1.0879 3.4887 0.0005*** note: r2 = 0.1458, n = 4,721 significance codes: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 descriptive statistics for the 1998 model are shown in table 3. results from the 1998 regression model (table 4) were similar to those of the 1988 model (table 2), but the effect of incarceration on labor force participation was even stronger for the 1998 model. receiving a criminal charge during youth had a significant, positive effect on weeks out of the labor force even eighteen years after respondents were asked about having criminal history in 1980. once again, being stopped by the police for something other than a minor traffic offense was not significant under the t-test. heteroskedasticity was also present for this model and, as before, was corrected using white’s method. after correcting the standard errors, having a criminal charge by 1980 led to 3.65 more weeks out of the labor force in the year 1998. this represents an increase of 1.43 weeks out of the labor force from the 1988 model. the 1998 model had an issue of misspecification by the reset test (p = 0.3757), meaning a non-linear model could have fit the data better. the model explained 12.62% of the variation in labor force participation for 1998. table 3 descriptive statistics for 1998 min max mean std. dev. lfp98 0 52 5.9096 15.1212 black 0 1 0.3018 0.4591 age 15 23 18.4740 2.2594 charges 0 1 0.1529 0.3599 stoppolice 0 1 0.2784 0.4483 south98 0 1 0.3828 0.4861 urban98 0 1 0.6911 0.4621 jail98 0 1 0.0312 0.1740 married98 0 1 0.5740 0.4946 health98 0 1 0.0343 0.1820 middle tennessee state university 47 does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2017 table 4 1998 regression results estimate std. error t value pr(>|t|) (intercept) 9.7801 1.9313 5.0640 0.0000*** black 2.5451 0.5300 4.8020 0.0000*** age -0.1355 0.1007 -1.3459 0.1784 charges 3.6467 0.6703 5.4402 0.0000*** stoppolice 0.1540 0.5321 0.2894 0.7723 south98 -1.8096 0.4855 -3.7272 0.0002*** urban98 -1.4398 0.5000 -2.8798 0.0040*** jail98 23.2325 1.3330 17.4288 0.0000*** married98 -3.3242 0.4810 -6.9104 0.0000*** health98 3.9344 1.2432 3.1647 0.0016*** note. r2 = 0.1262, n = 3,937 significance codes: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 descriptive statistics for the 2006 model are shown in table 5. table 6 shows that criminal charges still had a significant positive effect on weeks out of the labor force in 2006, twenty-six or more years after the men had received the charges. despite having fewer total significant explanatory variables, the 2006 model explained 31.52% of the variation in labor force participation for 2006. after correcting for heteroskedasticity, criminal charges received by 1980 led to 2.7 more weeks out of the labor force for men in 2006 compared to those who had not received criminal charges by 1980. overall, criminal charges had the highest effect in the 1998 model, eighteen years after respondents reported having received the charges, but for all models criminal charges correlated with at least a two-week increase in weeks out of the labor force. table 5 descriptive statistics for 2006 min max mean std. dev. lfp06 0 52 6.4605 15.9842 black 0 1 0.3159 0.4649 age 15 23 18.4874 2.2564 charges 0 1 0.1508 0.3579 stoppolice 0 1 0.2779 0.4480 south06 0 1 0.4047 0.4909 urban06 0 1 0.6625 0.4729 jail06 0 1 0.0187 0.1355 married06 0 1 0.1040 0.3053 health06 0 1 0.5809 0.4935 table 6 2006 regression results estimate std. error t value pr(>|t|) (intercept) 6.3057 1.9393 3.2515 0.0012*** black 1.9806 0.5253 3.7706 0.0002*** age -0.1108 0.1008 -1.0991 0.2718 charges 2.7011 0.6777 3.9855 0.0001*** stoppolice -0.3708 0.5355 -0.6925 0.4887 south06 -0.0519 0.4843 -0.1073 0.9146 urban06 0.5045 0.4902 1.0291 0.3035 jail06 21.7622 1.7085 12.7377 0.0000*** married06 25.0577 0.7539 33.2372 0.0000*** health06 -3.5357 0.4834 -7.3141 0.0000*** note. r2 = 0.3152, n = 3,422; significance codes: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 ex-ante discussion there are several issues with using data for criminal history from only during an individual’s youth, as was done in this analysis. we cannot see the individual’s subsequent crimes, if any, which would also affect their labor force participation. bushway and reuter (2001) found that the effects of crime vary over one’s life course. in particular, the negative effects of incarceration are more severe during later periods of life. in addition, some employers only look back a certain number of years when conducting background checks, so possibly charges received as a young adult may not show up in background checks later in one’s career. this being said, the fact that receiving a criminal charge during youth significantly increased weeks out of the labor force up to 26 years later implies that the effect of total criminal charges received over a lifetime would have a very substantial impact for men on their labor force participation. as previously mentioned, omitted variable bias likely affects the models, which could be biasing the significance of criminal charges on labor participation. it would be useful to have data for whether individuals are currently in school or some other institution (other than jail) that would deter or prevent labor participation. there is also a problem of endogeneity—that is, men who have received criminal charges may possess common characteristics that predispose them to non-participation in the labor force. in other words, it could be something about their natural disposition or lifestyle that caused them to be involved in crime, which is also the factor affecting their labor participation rather than the fact that they received criminal charges in the past. future research could be improved by including variables that measure various personality and lifestyle characteristics of individuals. does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? middle tennessee state university 49 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research conclusion losing millions of prime-age workers in the u.s. labor force is a major loss of productive capacity for the economy. this study found that prime-age male labor force participation is negatively affected over one’s lifetime by having received a criminal charge during a young stage in one’s life. however, the relatively less serious matter of being stopped by police for something other than a minor traffic offense did not affect male labor participation in a significant manner. the results for criminal charges present a major problem for our labor market; prime-age u.s. males are being discouraged from participating in the labor force long after their crime was committed. it is likely that this effect grows stronger the later in life one receives charges. as the u.s. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, an increasingly significant portion of our working-age population is being affected. jacobs (2015) proposes criminal justice reform policies as a way to reduce the persistence of this problem. she suggests that while “ban the box” policies that limit employers’ ability to see applicants’ criminal history during the hiring process would be a short-term goal, we need a much more rigorous change in our criminal justice system as a whole to reduce the inflow of prisoners as a long-term solution. for this kind of reform to become a reality, more studies with evidence on the detrimental effects of crime on labor force participation must be done. unfortunately, while criminal justice reform could improve the labor force participation of prime-age men, it would not help the men who have already received charges. therefore, even if reform does happen, it would take years for the effects on labor force participation to show up in data. 50 spring 2017 references anderson, e., & carson, e. a. (2016). prisoners in 2015 (ncj publication no. 250229). retrieved from bureau of justice statistics: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5869 black, s., furman, j., rackstraw, e., & rao, n. (2016). the long-term decline in us primeage male labour force participation. retrieved from http://voxeu.org/article/ long-term-decline-us-prime-age-male-labour-force-participation-andpolicies-address-it bushway, s., & reuter, p. (2002). labor markets and crime. in j. q. wilson & j. petersilia (eds.), crime: public policies for crime control (2nd ed.) (pp. 191-224). oakland, ca: ics press. bushway, s. d., stoll, m. a., & weiman, d. (2007). barriers to reentry? the labor market for released prisoners in post-industrial america. new york: russell sage foundation. council of economic advisers. (2016). the long-term decline in prime-age male labor force participation. retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/ default/files/page/files/20160620_cea_primeage_male_lfp.pdf graves, d. (2014). labor force participation rate: declines, implications and causes. new york: nova science. hipple, s. f. (2016). labor force participation: what has happened since the peak? monthly labor review, 139(9), 1-22. jacobs, e. s. (2015). the declining labor force participation rate: causes, consequences, and the path forward. united states joint economic committee. retrieved from http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/3d9668e5-804e-40dabc6c-0f954b34f80e/jacobs-lfpr-testimony-for-jec-hearing-final.pdf juhn, c., & potter, s. (2006). changes in labor force participation in the united states. the journal of economic perspectives, 20(3), 27-46. kling, j. r., weiman, d. f., & western, b. (2001). the labor market consequences of incarceration. crime & delinquency, 47(3), 410-427. mueller-smith, m. (2015). the criminal and labor market impacts of incarceration. retrieved from sites.lsa.umich.edu/mgms/wp-content/uploads/ sites/283/2015/09/incar.pdf pettit, b., & lyons, c. j. (2009). incarceration and the legitimate labor market: examining age-graded effects on employment and wages. law & society review, 43(4), 725-756. does criminal history impact labor force participation of prime-age men? middle tennessee state university 51 schmitt, j., & warner, k. (2011). ex-offenders and the labor market. workingusa, 14(1), 87-109. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2011.00322.x thompson, d. (2016). the missing men. the atlantic. retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/the-missingmen/488858/ u.s. bureau of labor statistics. (2017). civilian labor force participation rate: 20 to 54 yrs., men [lns11300061]. retrieved from http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ lns11300061 western, b. (2002). the impact of incarceration on wage mobility and inequality. american sociological review, 67(4), 526-546. western, b., & beckett, k. (1999). how unregulated is the u.s. labor market? the penal system as a labor market institution. american journal of sociology, 104(4), 1030-1060. doi:10.1086/210135 middle tennessee state university 52 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans middle tennessee state university 83 chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans: a labeling theory perspective matthew bennett abstract this paper explores the under-utilization of mental health services amongst africanamericans, with particular emphasis on labeling theory in defining the structural origins for perceived barriers to treatment. in the united states, with its tragic legacy of racially-based oppression, race is generally understood to have powerful connotations for social norms and individual self-concept, and in the case of discriminated minorities such as african-americans, to have broad negative effects on quality of life. with health outcomes for african-americans already poorer than their white counterparts, reducing barriers to all forms of treatment is essential to achieving a greater level of health parity. this is especially relevant for mental health services, as comorbid mental distress can serve to confound the treatment of physical ailments, most notably those that require long term care or lifestyle modification, where personal agency has its most significant impact. indeed, mental health, more than any other component of overall health, can act as a gateway to a broader range of positive life choices, thereby facilitating improved health lifestyles. we will begin with an overview of the disparities between the races in terms of utilization and outcomes, including rates of inpatient care, we will then examine the perceived barriers to mental health treatment experienced by african-americans, noting the stigma of seeking treatment, and the role of social integration in recovery and using labeling theory as a framework. next, we will examine the consequences of these perceived barriers: how lack of mental health treatment creates negative health outcomes in the african-american population and contributes to disparity in survivability and mortality rates. finally, some suggestions for improving utilization equity are advanced, based in successful programs from other fields and relevant research on attitudes towards accessing care. scientia et humanitas 84 spring 2011 attempts at improving social justice in the united states have been hindered by the legacy of racially-based oppression and its prolonged effects on african-americans. despite the elimination of most legal forms of discrimination, african-americans still live in a society where many forms of discrimination still exist, the results of which have both personal and systemic consequences. amongst all ethnic groups in the united states, african-americans have the highest level of housing segregation, a fact which is in part due to social perceptions but also related to high numbers of african-americans living in public housing (urban institute 2009). in fact, race is highly correlated with socioeconomic status (ses)—research shows that african-americans are nearly three times more likely to live below the poverty line than non-white hispanics (urban institute 2010). this means that even amongst consistently-disadvantaged minority groups, african-americans are uniquely vulnerable and further disenfranchised than other minorities. the effects of discrimination are also evident when examining health outcomes. statistically, african-americans suffer a higher incidence of chronic illness than do their white counterparts. they also, on average, experience shorter life spans and poorer outcomes from treatment for chronic illness (hayward, et al 2000). african-americans are equally disadvantaged in regards to mental or behavioral health. they tend to underutilize mental health services compared to their white counterparts, even controlling for ses and other conditions of access, like insurance coverage for services (thurston & phares 2008). this is doubly significant in the case of individuals who are also suffering from chronic physical ailments, as a lack of treatment for mental disorder is associated with poorer outcomes in the treatment of physical illness (katon, lin, & kroenke 2007). this is in addition to overall poorer outcomes that result from long-term stress, like that associated with poverty and racial inequality (thoits 2010). this paper explores the underutilization of mental health services among african-americans with particular emphasis on labeling theory in defining the structural origins of perceived barriers to treatment. labeling theory – an introduction stigmatization and deviance labeling theory is predicated on the idea that society sets collective “norms,” or definitions, for acceptable attributes. according to goffman in his book stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity (1965), those attributes can be behavioral—such as a manner of dress or speaking—but can also be physical attributes related to appearance or ability. behaviors or attributes that fall outside the normalized range are termed deviant and as such are stigmatized or labeled by society as less desirable. attaching this stigma to individuals serves to discredit them and tends to identify them as separate from normalized society. the result, then, is that all labels can drastically alter not only an individual’s interaction with society but also their own self concept. in the case of known stigma, or stigma applied openly to the individual, this can serve to create feelings of inferiority and ostracism, chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans middle tennessee state university 85 reducing the ability to successfully interact with the remainder of society, especially for attributes that are beyond the individual’s control. this offers a theoretical explanation for the self-imposed segregation of stigmatized groups—in this case, african-americans who, as we have mentioned, are significantly more likely to live in homogeneous communities. goffman, again in stigma, explains this behavior as designed to create a safe “in-group” for deviants—that is, a place where individuals can interact without experiencing the mitigating effects of negative stigma (goffman p.112-113). edwin lemert classifies all of these behaviors, which form as a response to the effect of a stigmatized attribute, as secondary deviance. in lemert’s theory, the initial behavior or attribute that causes stigmatization is primary deviance. those behaviors that follow, and are informed or otherwise affected by the individual’s altered interaction with normalized society, then fall under this category of secondary deviance (lemert 1951). these secondary behaviors can often be more damaging than the original deviant label, not only making it impossible to regain “normal” status (if that were possible for the individual in the first place) and promoting additional deviant behavior by altering the deviant individuals’ interaction with society and its members. once the stigmatized individuals cannot utilize normal interactions to function in society, then deviant behavior, driven by the original discrediting stigma, becomes the only available route. labeling theory and race when this idea of normalcy and deviance serves to stigmatize an entire group based on a particular attribute, such as skin color, what results is the dominance of one racial group over another. over long periods of time, the oppressive effect of this stigma psychologically damages minority individuals until they gradually acquiesce to the idea of their own inferiority (memmi 1965). barry adam in the survival of domination (1978), which expands on memmi’s work, theorizes that this continued and long-term internalization of society’s disapproval or outright condemnation eventually causes an internal justification for self-destructive or self-limiting life choices. this loosely corresponds with the psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness, a state where individuals feel powerless to change their own situation. and like adam’s theory, learned helplessness is also attributed to a long term barrage of negative interactions. this experience of oppression described by memmi and adam, however, goes beyond this condition to the act of actually choosing behavior that compounds societal limitations. labeling and mental illness the concept of social stigma is also significant to the discussion of underutilization of mental health services. the mental illnness label carries its own substantial stigma, and inferentially, can be a source of primary deviance for the individual. in fact, thomas scheff in being mentally ill (1966) argued that mental illness is completely a manifestation of the influence of society—that is, mental illness is in itself a label applied to certain deviant actions. indeed, the increasing medicalization of many behaviors that were previously scientia et humanitas 86 spring 2011 considered personality traits – high functioning autism, for example – supports this idea. the definition of what constitutes mental illness is shaped and altered by the influence of society, as well as the corresponding labels. applying then memmi’s idea of oppression to this model, mental illness—behaviorally speaking—becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in which diagnosed individuals unconsciously alter their behavior to match their diagnosis. this is likely an oversimplification, but it is significant in describing the compounding effect of social stigma on mental illness and its inherently deviant behavior. in fact, according to link’s (1989) modified label theory, because of the prevalence of negative labels such as unpredictability, helplessness, and instability that are ascribed to mentally-ill individuals, those who take on a label of mental illness often become socially rejected and emotionally withdrawn. analysis of perceived barriers unfortunately, doctors in the united states are still overwhelmingly caucasian. despite the many advances that african-americans have made, less than 5% of doctors in the us self-identify as african-american (rao & flores 2007). subsequently, race-related stigma becomes a factor in interactions between african-americans and the medical profession. horrific events such as the tuskegee syphilis study have served to reinforce a perception among african-americans that the medical establishment at best underserves them and at worst openly exploits them for its own benefit (witt 2006). in fact, in at least one study, african-americans who were undergoing treatment for mental illness felt that their psychiatrists were “experimenting” on them. this description was a response to doctors’ changing of their medication, which is a common practice as many drugs within a specific class (i.e. ssris like prozac, effexor, etc.) are very patient-specific in terms of effectiveness. it can take months if not years of trial and error to determine the most effective drug for an individual. in contrast, most euro-americans from the same study felt that the changed prescriptions were an important part of managing their conditions, and reflected the skill of their clinician (carpenter-song 2010). statistically, the racial disparities in health outcomes exist even when ses is controlled for, which indicates that racial discrimination is frequently more than merely perceived, and not merely a function of class and its strong correlation with race (smedley, stith & nelson 2010). as was discussed earlier, these negative outcomes extend into the arena of mental health services as well, where if anything they are exacerbated—both by the stigmas applied to the mentally ill, which are certainly recognized by african-americans—but also by the historical lack of cultural sensitivity among mental health service providers. research suggests that this lack of cultural relevance is a key factor in african-americans’ decisions not to utilize mental health treatment (obasi & leong 2009). additionally, because of underfunding in publicly supported community mental health centers, many african-americans’ only experience with mental health professionals has come from the criminal justice system. these experiences are also typically negative. not only is it wellknown that african-americans are overrepresented in u.s. prisons, but research shows chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans middle tennessee state university 87 that race plays a factor in successful insanity pleas with african-americans less likely to have an insanity plea successfully accepted by the court when compared to their white counterparts (thompson 2010). this research suggests that african-americans are less able to gain the mentally-ill label when it carries less deviant, or positive connotations. this in turn reinforces the idea among african-americans, especially in vulnerable communities, that mental health professionals cannot impact their lives in a positive way. these negative experiences with the structure of health care do little to overcome fears of stigmatization among african-americans. according to research, african-americans cite a fear of being labeled as unstable or crazy as reasons for not accessing mental health services (conner, et al 2010 witt 2006). many african-american patients go out of their way to prevent all but a few of their closest relations from knowing that they receive treatment; being identified as lazy, even by one’s own self, is a commonly mentioned label (carpenter-song et al. 2010). this suggests at the very least, a perception amongst africanamericans of negative stereotypes being applied to them. link’s modified label theory is especially relevant here as attitudes toward the mentally ill amongst african-americans are statistically more negative than within society as a whole (conner, et al 2010). this means for the individual contemplating mental health treatment, there is increased risk of an even greater negative outcome from mental illness stigmatization within the community. returning to goffman’s concept of safe areas of deviance, african-americans are further disadvantaged, because in gaining the stigmatized label of mentally ill, they risk losing their acceptance in the african-american community, which may represent the only place within broader society where they do not feel discrimination. thus, on one side, we have the medical establishment—historically abusive of african-americans, representative of broader societal discrimination, and culturally insensitive to the african-american community. on the other side, we have the african-american prospective patient, coping first with the burdens of racism and chronic illness, and doing so while simultaneously experiencing the symptoms of mental or emotional distress. in this context, it is easy to see why few african-americans will risk adding another negative label—one that may jeopardize their interaction with the community—to access services that have traditionally done very little to make themselves useful or relevant to minority groups. implementing improved access not surprisingly, underserved communities are typically resistant to change initiated from within the healthcare establishment, which minorities perceive as contributing to their disenfranchisement. in order to address the issue, a broader approach is required that addresses the community as a whole, rather than focusing on individual life choices. each one of these strategies that follow will not only increase the number of people who are seeking treatment, but they will also improve community awareness and attitudes towards mental health treatment. 1. mental health service providers who work in minority communities need cultural-awareness training. a consistent complaint among african-americans scientia et humanitas 88 spring 2011 has been a lack of cultural sensitivity among healthcare providers. addressing this provides a foundation of trust from which education and outreach can be established. to that end, treatment must begin with psychosocial intervention and not drug therapy. research shows that a high percentage of african-americans already perceive the prescribing of medication by the clinician as a substitute for effort or interest in their patients (carpenter-song 2010). while drug therapy is an important part of mental health for many, african-americans who only feel further marginalized by the prescription are unlikely to take the medicine or continue treatment at all, especially in what we have already identified as an environment hostile to their situation, and unlikely to drastically change very quickly. 2. community programs that educate individuals about common psychological symptoms and outreach to sufferers and their families must be established. a recent study of community attitudes towards police has shown that individual attitudes are amplified within the community setting, both negative and positive. in the study, attitudes were substantially improved when police began to assert a positive, honest, and community-centered presence (dai 2009). once police engaged the community and began to create positive experiences, this effect of community compounded their efforts, and attitudes were widely improved, regardless (to some extent) of actual individual involvement in the new programs. this offers an excellent model for mental health services to follow, by establishing community programs that educate individuals about common psychological symptoms, and the warning signs of more serious distress. this will give counselors an opportunity to build credibility, and also to explain common treatment options. having an accurate picture of the processes involved in mental health, free of media hyperbole and cultural stereotyping, will serve to further reduce associated stigma. furthermore, individuals struggling with their own illness, or the illness of a family member may find solidarity with other sufferers, in an environment where they feel free to discuss their problems without fear of stigmatization or other reprisal. all of these things have the potential to begin making positive impressions, which in turn can have beneficial repercussions throughout the community as a whole. 3. considering the high number of chronic illness sufferers who have comorbid psychological symptoms, ongoing counseling should be recommended as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for chronic illness sufferers. implementing this in the public track (medicare/medicaid) will literally set a new standard in care, and pressure private insurers also to include counseling as an integral part of long term care. considering that over 75 percent of us healthcare costs are associated with the treatment of chronic illness, methods for improving the efficiency of that care can have a dramatic impact on total healthcare costs nationwide (anderson 2004). implementing mental health programs for chronic illness sufferers would allow chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans middle tennessee state university 89 relatively inexpensive communtiy mental helth programs to replace extremely expensive hospital stays and emergency room visits, by encouraging responsible management of chronic conditions, adherence to medication schedules and regular doctor visits. put simply, when individuals are not suffering unmanaged anxiety, depression or other affective disorder, they will take better care of themselves in general, which saves money by reducing emergency and acute treatment of chronic conditions. conclusion while stigma about mental illness exists across our culture regardless of race (link, yang, phelan & collins 2004), there are particular barriers to access—real or perceived— that are unique to african-americans themselves. the ramifications of this disparity extend more broadly to society as a whole. beyond the obvious ethical impetus for improving service to african-americans, there is also a tangible benefit for society. research shows increased health care expenses for chronic care of patients with untreated mental distress (shen, sambamoorthi & rust 2008). that is doubly significant for a society that is not only straining under the costs of health care but one in which african-americans are overrepresented in the publicly-funded health care delivery system. more generally, individuals with access to mental health treatment are better able to manage not only their emotional symptoms but also their physical symptoms as well. from a purely functionalist standpoint, by improving the outcomes for african-american citizens, we increase their working life spans and overall productivity in relation to society. more importantly for the us as a moral society, barriers to appropriate treatment for any individuals deprives those individuals of a basic human right and weakens our society as a whole. without addressing the broader sociological components of underutilization, improved parity in mental health, and access to mental health care, cannot progress. scientia et humanitas 90 spring 2011 references adam, b. (1978). the survival of domination. new york: elsevier. anderson g. (2004). chronic conditions: making the case for ongoing care. baltimore, md: john hopkins university. carpenter-song, e. chu, e. drake, r. ritsema, m. smith, b. & alverson, h. (2010). ethno-cultural variations in the experience and meaning of mental illness and treatment: implications for access and utilization. transcultural psychiatry, 47(2), 224−251. conner, k. o., lee, b., mayers, v., robinson, d., reynolds iii, c. f., albert, s., & brown, c. (2010). attitudes and beliefs about mental health among african american older adults suffering from depression. journal of aging studies, 24(4), 266-277. dai, m. y., & johnson, r. r. (2009). is neighborhood context a confounder? exploring the effects of citizen race and neighborhood context on satisfaction with the police. policing an international journal of police strategies & management, 32(4), 595-612. goffman, i. (1963). stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. englewood cliffs, nj: prenticehall. gonzález, m. (2005). access to mental health services: the struggle of poverty affected urban children of color. child & adolescent social work journal, 22(3-4), 245-256. katon, w., lin, e., & kroenke, k. (2007). the association of depression and anxiety with medical symptom burden in patients with chronic medical illness. general hospital psychiatry, 29(2), 147-155. lemert, e. m. (1951). social pathology. new york: mcgraw-hill. link, b. g., yang, l. h., phelan, j. c., & collins, p. y. (2004). measuring mental illness stigma. schizophrenia bulletin, 30, 511–541. obasi, e. m., & leong, f. t. l. (2009). psychological distress, acculturation, and mental health-seeking attitudes among people of african descent in the united states: a preliminary investigation. journal of counseling psychology, 56(2), 227-238. rao, v., & flores, g. (2007). why aren’t there more african-american physicians? a qualitative study and exploratory inquiry of african-american students’ perspectives on careers in medicine. journal of the national medical association, 99(9), 986-993. scheff, t. j., (1984). being mentally ill. piscataway: aldine transaction. shen, c., sambamoorthi, u., & rust, g. (2008). co-occurring mental illness and health care utilization and expenditures in adults with obesity and chronic physical illness. disease management, 2008(11), 153-160. smedley, b. d., stith, a. y., & nelson, a. r. (2003) unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. washington, dc: national academies press. thoits, p. a. (2010). stress and health: major findings and policy implications. journal of health and social behavior, 51, s41-s53. thompson, m. (2010). race, gender, and the social construction of mental illness in the criminal justice system. sociological perspectives, 53(1), 99-125. chronic illness and mental health underutilization in african-americans middle tennessee state university 91 thurston, i. b., & phares, v. (2008). mental health service utilization among african american and caucasian mothers and fathers. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 76(6), 1058-1067. urban institute (2010). poverty in the united states. washington, d.c.: nichols, a. urban institute (2009). residential segregation and low-income working families. washington, d.c.: turner, m.a., & fortuney, k. witt, d. k. (2006). health disparities in african american males. primary care: clinics in office practice, 33(1), 35-43. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 83 communication experiences of international students in the u.s.: a comparison study of cross-cultural adaptation between european and asian students rita jones and yang soo kim abstract the purpose of this study is to examine the communication experiences of international students on american campuses. y. y. kim’s (1988, 2001) cross-cultural adaptation theory provides the basis for offering an explanation of the linkage between the communication competence and psychological health of international students vis-à-vis the american sociocultural milieu. in addition, the study analyzed the level of ethnic proximity and its effect on the individual adaptation experiences of european and asian international students on american university campuses. the analysis uses portions of verbal transcripts obtained through 24 in-depth personal interviews between october and december 2012. participants of the interview were international students from european and asian backgrounds who were attending universities in the central tennessee area. the results show that host language competence and cultural similarities/differences reflected in verbal and nonverbal behaviors are important sources of psychological challenges/success for international students. european and asian student groups are involved in different levels of communication activities with host nationals, based on their ethnic proximity and their degree of difficulty in adapting to the host culture. nonetheless, as kim’s theory predicts, the overall outcome of the study affirms that communication is the central force in the adaptation of international students, as it promotes psychological health in an unfamiliar host cultural environment. 84 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research problem research in the adaptation of international students has gained wide attention among faculty members, administrators, and professionals. this could be attributed to the growing number of international students enrolled in u.s. colleges. there were more than 720,000 international students in the u.s. during the 2010-2011 academic year, which showed a 32% increase since the 2000-2001 academic year (institute of international education, 2012). according to a recent study, the experience of studying overseas is detrimental to the well-being of only a small proportion of individuals (rosenthal et al., 2008). international students make great contributions to their host academic communities, enriching the campus intellectual and cultural environment and bringing financial income to the u.s. economy. studying overseas, however, involves more than simply taking classes, as international students face many of the cross-cultural problems that non-student sojourners and immigrants face. as temporary sojourners in a foreign environment, international students experience more stresses on american campuses than american students (e.g., boyer & sedlacek, 1988; kaczmarek, matlock, merta, ames, & ross, 1994; pedersen, 1991). specifically, the factors that can be attributed to psychological distress in a sojourn experience include the extent of life changes (lin & yi, 1997), life stressors (e.g., nicassio, solomon, guest, & mccullough, 1986), cultural distance (furukawa, 1997; galchenko & van de vijver, 2007), and language problems (zheng & berry, 1991). along with the language factor, cultural distance has been regarded as an important factor in sojourner adjustment, which is one cause of low academic performance among international students (ledwith and seymour, 2001). the perceived cultural distance between a sojourner’s home culture and the host culture is also related to sociocultural adjustment, suggesting that a greater perceived distance results in more difficulties (galchenko and van de vijver, 2007; ward and kennedy, 1993) and is directly related to the amount of stress (babiker, cox & miller, 1980). sodowsky and plake (1992) found that, as a group, europeans were better acculturated to life in the united states than asians, africans, or south americans. they concluded that europeans shared more traits, beliefs, and values with the dominant society than the other groups. ethnic proximity refers to the degree of similarity between the cultural strangers’ ethnicity and that of the natives of the host environment. culture difference/distance would be significant if there is a greater difference in cultural strangers’ ethnic background compared to their host culture. kim (2001) strongly argues that this factor is no less important to consider than those who have received greater attention (e.g., host language competence, host interpersonal relationships, host media use, and environmental factors). the present study investigates the communication experiences of international students (both european students and asian students) in the u.s. to explore qualitative insights into their process of cross-cultural adaptation. the study examines how international students’ communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 85 communication experiences are related to their psychological well-being vis-à-vis their host cultural milieu. in addition, the study compares the experiences of european students and asian students in terms of their ethnic proximity. specifically, the important related issues were posed as the following three research questions: (1) what kind of communication related difficulties do international students face?; (2) what kind of contact and communication activities do international students have with local people?; and (3) how is the ethnic proximity of international students related to their communication activities and psychological health? the analysis utilizes verbatim transcripts from interviews conducted in the u.s. between october and december 2012. theoretical grounding guiding this investigation is y.y. kim’s (1988, 2001, 2005) cross-cultural adaptation theory. grounded in an open systems perspective, kim’s theory (1988, 2001, 2005) approaches cross-cultural adaptation not as a specific analytic unit (or variable) but as the entirety of the evolutionary process an individual undergoes vis-à-vis a new and unfamiliar environment. cross-cultural adaptation is therefore explained in terms of a dynamic interplay of the person and the environment. by placing adaptation at the intersection of the person and the environment, kim defines cross-cultural adaptation as “the entirety of the phenomenon of individuals who, upon relocating to an unfamiliar sociocultural environment, strive to establish and maintain a relatively stable, reciprocal, and functional relationship with the environment” (kim, 2001, p. 31). implicit in this definition is the goal of achieving an overall person-environment “fit” that entails “almost always a compromise, a vector in the internal structure of culture and the external pressure of environment” (sahlins, 1964, p. 136). based on this systemic conception of cross-cultural adaptation, the theory addresses two basic questions: (1) what is the essential nature of the adaptation process individual settlers undergo over time? and (2) why are some settlers more successful than others in attaining a level of fitness in the host environment? the first question is addressed in the form of a process model that presents a three-pronged psychological movement kim refers to as the stressadaptation-growth dynamic—a movement in the generally forward and upward direction of increased chances of success in meeting the demands of the host environment. the stress-adaptation-growth dynamic is not explained as playing out in a smooth, linear progression, but in a dialectic, cyclic, and continual “draw-back-to-leap” pattern. the spiral model explains that humans, as open systems, have the natural tendency to resist evolution accompanied by the destruction of the old structure. this tendency manifests itself in various forms of psychological resistance, such as selective attention, denial, avoidance and withdrawal, as well as in compulsively altruistic behavior, cynicism, and hostility. still, no open system can stabilize itself forever. if it were so, nothing would come of evolution. the state of misfit and a heightened awareness in the state of stress serve as the very same forces that propel individuals to overcome the predicament and partake in the active development of new habits. what follows the dynamic stress-adaptation disequilibrium, according to 86 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the theory, is subtle growth. periods of stress pass as settlers work out new ways of handling problems, owing to the creative forces of the self-reflexivity of human mentation. building on the process model, the theory turns to the second basic question: “why do some settlers adapt faster than others?” or “given the same length of time, why do some settlers attain a higher level of adaptation?” integrating various factors addressed by different investigators as constituting and/or predicting differing levels or rates of adaptive change, kim (1988, 2001, 2005) addresses this question in a structural model, depicted in figure 1. the core of this structure is the dimension of personal communication, or host communication competence (dimension 1), which is defined as the cognitive, affective, and operational capacity to communicate in accordance with the host communication symbols and meaning systems. this dimension serves as the very engine that pushes individuals along the adaptive path. inseparably linked with host communication competence are the activities of host social communication (dimension 2), through which strangers participate in interpersonal and mass communication activities in the host environment. activities of ethnic social communication (dimension 3) provide distinct, subcultural experiences of interpersonal and mass communication with fellow co-ethnics. interacting with the personal and social (host, ethnic) communication activities are the conditions of the host environment (dimension 4), including the degrees of receptivity and conformity pressure in the local population as well as the strength of the ethnic group. the individual’s predisposition (dimension 5) — consisting of preparedness for the new environment, proximity (or distance) of the individual’s ethnicity to that of the natives, and the adaptive personality attributes of openness, strength, and positivity—influences the subsequent development in personal and social communication activities. figure 1. y. y. kim’s structural model: factors influencing cross-cultural adaptation (source: y. y. kim, 2001, p. 87). communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 87 together, all of the factors identified above directly or indirectly contribute to explaining and predicting differential rates or levels of intercultural transformation (dimension 6) within a given time period. the theory identifies three key facets of intercultural transformation: increased functional fitness, psychological health, and the emergence of an identity orientation that reaches beyond a single culture. the level of intercultural transformation, in turn, helps to explain and predict the levels of the other dimensions. the six dimensions constitute an interactive and functional model in which all the linkages indicate mutual stimulations (and not unidirectional causations), identified in 21 theorems (see kim, 2001, pp. 91-92). methods the present study is based on an analysis of verbatim transcripts from interviews with 12 european students and 12 asian students conducted in the u.s. between october and december 2012. participants the participants in this study were both european and asian international students in universities in mid-south areas of the u.s. for the interview, both european and asian student participants were selected by using a convenience sampling method. for the european participants, there consists of a variety of different nationalities (see table 1). among the 12 interviewees, four interviewees were male (33.3%) and eight female (66.7%). the average age of the european interviewees was 24.08 years old (sd = 3.55 years; range: 19-31 years), while the average length of stay in the u.s. was 1.5 years (sd = 1.7 years; range: 3 months – 6.5 years). seven interviewees were enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program (58.3%), two in a master’s program (16.7%), two in a doctorate program (16.7%), and one other (8.3%). two interviewees (16.7%) had lived in a foreign country before coming to the u.s., and none of the interviewees had had prior intercultural training (100%). for the asian participants, there were five chinese (41.7%), three korean (25.0%), two taiwanese (16.7%), and two japanese (16.7%). among the 12 interviewees, three interviewees were male (25%) and nine female (75%). the average age of the asian interviewees was 28.58 years old (sd = 11.13 years; range: 20-52 years), while the average length of stay in the u.s. was 2.18 years (sd = 2.37 years; range: 2 months – 7 years). five interviewees were enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program (41.7%), five in a master’s program (41.7%), one in a doctorate program (8.3%), and one other (8.3%). one interviewee (8.3%) had lived in a foreign country before coming to the u.s., and none of the interviewees had had prior intercultural training (100%). the interview procedures all interviews were conducted by the first author in english, based on the interview questionnaire. all interviews took place in a library conference room or cafeteria or by phone. most interviews took approximately 40 minutes to an hour to complete. the interviews began with an exchange of personal information (i.e., age, gender, length of stay, 88 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research education, etc.) after each interviewee had signed the consent form. all interviews were audiotaped and transcribed in their entirety, with the written consent of the interviewees. interview questions were written in english. among the topics covered in the interview, open-ended interview questions dealt with the main research variables: cultural differences and similarities between the interviewees and the host environment (“ethnic proximity”); communication ability and communication-related difficulties with local people (“host communication competence”); experiences of interacting with local people (“host interpersonal communication”); and overall feelings and positive/unpleasant life experiences in the host country (“psychological health”). there were also questions about their intercultural experience, including first impressions and treatment by local people. regarding ethnic proximity, questions included the degree of differences and similarities between the interviewee’s national culture and the dominant u.s. culture (e.g., “what aspects of the american culture do you find different from yours?” and “what aspects of the american culture do you find similar to yours?”). another question included the degree of difficulty that the interviewees experienced in following american customs or cultural habits, which was intended to explore the relationship between ethnic proximity and the degree of difficulty: (i.e., “how much difficulty have you had in following the american customs or cultural habits?”). regarding host communication competence, questions included difficulties in communicating with american people and coping strategies to deal with these difficulties (e.g., “have you ever experienced difficulties in communicating with american people?”, “did you try anything to deal with these difficulties?” and “how did it work?”). based on the responses, follow-up questions were used to elicit specific incidents and typical experiences illustrating these differences and difficulties. with respect to host interpersonal communication, one question was asked to indicate the amount of daily interaction with americans (e.g., “of all your daily conversations, approximately what percentage of them do you have with american people?”). another question followed about the types of social activities with host nationals: (i.e., “what kinds of socializing do you do with american people?”). concerning psychological health, the interviewees were asked to describe their positive and/or unpleasant life experiences while living in the host country (e.g., “what are some of the positive/unpleasant experiences you have had while living in the u.s. so far?”) as well as their general feelings about their life in the host country (e.g., “overall, how are you feeling about your present life in the u.s., as regards your life experiences interacting with americans?”). questions about intercultural communication experiences explored their first impression toward the host country (e.g., “what was one of your first impressions about america and american people?”); their perceived attitude of americans toward foreigners in general and the interviewee himself/herself in particular (e.g., “what do you think about the attitude of american people toward foreigners/international students like you?”); and their perceived attitudes and different treatment from americans (e.g,, “have you ever had communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 89 experiences during which you were treated differently from americans because you are a foreigner?”). results the interview data were analyzed based on a portion of the qualitative verbal responses that were relevant to the interviewees’ personal adaptation experiences in the host environment. the interviewees’ comments and testimonials in response to the interview questions serve as the basis for addressing the three research questions posed above: (1) to explore the degree of self-perceived ethnic proximity between asian and european interviewees and the degree of difficulty in adapting to american culture; (2) to identify the communication-related difficulties; (3) to investigate the kinds of contact and communication activities that international students have with local people; and (4) to identify the overall feelings that international students have in their life in the u.s. in analyzing qualitative interview data, all questions and responses to open-ended questions were transcribed by the first author. after transcription, the verbatim data were grouped into common categories based on emerging themes of ethnic proximity, communication difficulties, interpersonal contact and communication, and overall feelings and intercultural experiences in the u.s. the first and second authors reviewed these common themes and categories. any ambiguous and contradictory categories were refined based on agreement between the two authors. profiles of interviewees there are 12 interviewees from each ethnic group (asian and european), totaling 24 interviews. a brief profile of five interviewees from each group is presented in the following. asian interviewees interviewee #1. she is from china and 20 years old. she has been in the united states two months as an exchange student. she is enrolled in her undergraduate program in english with an emphasis in teaching. she has never lived in another country and had six months preparation of talking with other chinese students in her country who had previously been exchange students. she does most of her socializing with her american host family. she does not try to follow american customs or cultural habits; she prefers to follow her own. she will return to china after this semester. she speaks fluent english with only a slight accent. interviewee #2. she is from china and 24 years of age. she has been in the united states for three years and four months. she is enrolled in the last year of her second bachelor’s degree. this degree will be in music business. she had never lived in another country other than china but has visited other countries such as germany, france, and italy. she will not return to china as she has plans to marry her american boyfriend she met here in the united states. she speaks fluent english and has hardly any noticeable accent. she has a very positive view of america and american customs. 90 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research interviewee #3. she is from china and 23 years old. she has been in america two years and six months. she is enrolled in her second year of her master’s program in mass communication. before coming to the united states, she had traveled around europe. she holds the opinion that american customs are much like chinese customs; however, she was having a hard time understanding the american sense of humor. the clarity in which this student displays her level of understanding of the english language was inspiring for the interviewer. the interviewee would very much like to stay in america and continue her education but does not believe her visa will be renewed. interviewee # 4. he is from china. he is 32 years old and has been in the united states for seven years. he is enrolled in his master’s program in accounting. he had never traveled to other countries before coming to america, but he does travel from america to china often. although he desires to stay in america, he will go back to china to help with the family business. interviewee # 5. this student is 51 and is from south korea. she has been in america for six years and seven months. she is now in her ph.d. program in the english department. she began learning english as a second language when she was in middle school in korea. she is actively involved in the interaction she has with host nationals. almost 95% of her daily life involves some sort of interaction with americans. european interviewees interviewee # 1. she is dutch, 22 years old, and has been in the united states for a few months. her highest level of education before coming to the united states was two years of college. she is continuing her degree as an exchange student in the aerospace department. she will return to amsterdam to complete her degree and aspires to return to the united states to work as a professional pilot for a major airline. she has never lived in a foreign country before coming to the united states. due to her ethnic markers similar to caucasian americans, she was thought to be canadian by some americans. she considers this to be a “fun” aspect of her american life. interviewee # 2. this is a female student, age 29. she is from germany and has been in the united states for a total of six years and six months. she is now in her doctorate program in sociology. this is the second time she has been an exchange student in the united states. she also spent one year of high school in america. before coming to america, she had never lived in another country. after receiving her ph.d., she will stay in the united states and marry an american who is in the health field. interviewee # 3. this student is from germany and is 24 years old. she has been in america for three months. she came to the united states after finishing her bachelor’s degree in germany and is now in her master’s program in interpreting and translation linguists. she studied in france for one semester before coming to the united states. she did not have any prior preparation for her stay in the united states; however, she is not experiencing any difficulties. she is enjoying the culture and customs of the southern part of the united states, particularly the custom of addressing older people with “yes, communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 91 ma’am” and “no, ma’am.” she shared that around 90% of her time was spent with american people or international students who speak english. this was her second time coming to the united states. she will return to germany after finishing her degree program. interviewee # 4. this is a male student, age 26, who is from the country of belarus, a border state to russia. he has been in the united states for one year and four months. he came to the united states with a master’s degree and is now enrolled in his doctoral program in physics. he lived in italy before coming to america. his first formal classes in english were when he came to the united states to pursue his doctorate. his time spent speaking with other americans encompasses most of his experience. he did state that most of his time was spent in the lab and everyone there, even the other international students, spoke english. he enjoys america very much and hopes to either stay in the u.s. to work or to return soon after renewing his visa. he emphasized how positive his experience in learning and working in the united states has been thus far. interviewee # 5. he is from france and is 22 years old. he has been in the united states for three years and four months. he is in the aerospace program for his bachelor’s degree. he hopes to return to the united states as a professional pilot. he has lived in spain and morocco with his parents before coming to the united states. he fluently speaks english, arabic, hebrew, french, and italian. this interviewee shared with us his level of discomfort and culture shock while being here in america. he spends most of his time with other international students. american tv and movies helped the most to overcome his culture shock. at the time of this interview, this student explained that he was still experiencing many difficulties with american customs and attitudes. even though he would like to work in the united states after he returns to his country to graduate, he did not believe he could tolerate the “arrogance” of americans. results of interviews with asian students ethnic proximity—cultural similarities and differences in most cases, the responses from the asian students concerning how different american culture was from their own reveal issues with food, cultural norms, and communication styles. one interviewee commented on the differences in food: okay, for the food there is a lot of fast food here and people prefer to drink coke and eat either sweet food and for the snacks there is always chips and some cheese. but in china . . . we don’t drink coke that often. it is always normal temperature and . . . for the meals, we cook meals for ourselves and we don’t eat beef so much. we eat pork and in southern china we eat rice a lot. another interviewee also gave a similar comment: “americans eat very fast and like oily food. in our country, preparation of food takes a long time, and they eat no oily food.” another student reported different cultural norms: 92 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research i found american culture is very individualistic; it respects individual choice and never pushing others. in addition, even if you and another person are friends, there is a clear distinction between public and private affairs. first, it was a little bit awkward to me. different verbal and nonverbal communication styles were commented on by another interviewee: communication is pretty straightforward. they get to the point right away. in addition, eye contact rule is totally opposite, particularly in interaction with strangers. in japan, people are not as open or relaxed about looking and greeting people they do not know or have been introduced to. people here engage in more small talk and friendly gestures, as in japan people just often greet each other with a simple “hi.” one interviewee pointed out different parenting styles: parenting is very, very different in my country.…i am reluctant to generalize those kind of things. but by my limited experience— american parents…are more kind of patient. korean parents, we identify ourselves with our children more. so if my children have a bad grade in school, instantly i try to blame my parenting style…if my daughter does something wrong,..that means i taught her something wrongly. regarding similarities, some respondents indicated the government system. one respondent even reported no similarities in appearance, food, social system, or social customs. communication-related difficulties host language competence is a major factor that can pose everyday challenges to asian students in america. one student reported the number of difficulties: a lot. yes, a lot. for one thing, i am not fluent as some in speaking english. so sometimes i have to wait in line. and, the people want to deal with that kind of stuff quickly; i cannot speak as fast as the american people do. if there is a lot of time, it’s o.k., but if it is a hurry, they kind of run out of patience. another student shared her experience during shopping: …yes…flip-flops and the staplers and something like that. in china i can find it easy but here i have to explain the kind of things i want and i don’t how to say in english so that is the [hardest] part is to communicate. an asian interviewee who had traveled to many countries shared that america has many slang words: i have been to northern europe for summer vacation with my mom, just one week. we traveled to norway, finland, denmark, and sweden. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 93 when i first came here, i could not understand the slang communication and some accent, and i think that is it. another interviewee gave his account of the difficulty experienced in the classroom due to lack of host language competence: not with instructors, but with the american students. sometimes they do not want to listen to you. they don’t have the patience to listen what you are talking...they just stay silent…sometimes they are laughing. that’s very uncomfortable. in response to the question about coping strategies used, one interviewee stated: i will search on the internet how these things will be said in english or if i can find one, i use my signature, i use my body. or i just walk around the [store] to pick up the things i want. something like that. but with my friends, i try my best. it’s the words i have to explain as much as i can. host interpersonal communication contact and communication activities socializing activities with americans include spending time with classmates, attending churches, and interacting with host families. the twenty-year-old exchange student from china described herself as shy, and she felt a high level of culture shock among food differences, language competence, and with the level of freedom to speak her opinion. she responded with a statement concerning what activities she takes part in: i went to church with my friend and my host family and i go to the library and go to dinner and go do some sports: like running and walking and swimming. another chinese student gave her experience: i’m not a party person, i don’t like that. i love to do like facebook things and texting messages to my american friends. and i really, really love to hang out with my host family, my professors, and my fiancé’s family. they’re so intelligent and they are so charming. they are happy every day, and they are so helpful. they are always trying to help you with something. i love to hang out with them. i can learn a lot of stuff. at the same time, most of the asian students are not actively involved in interaction with americans. several interviewees reported: interactions? 10% or 20% americans [in my daily interaction]. i am still mostly with my chinese friends or other international students. it is not so much because i spend my time, almost, i spend most of my time in the class and then the library. so i don’t do so much communications with american people. because i live in a big family in china, we know each other, and we can hang out after your work. and i have a lot of friends in there. but in america i often stayed with a chinese group. in the past seven years i only made one american true friend. 94 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research another asian student gave us shared a view of how different ethnic markers had an impact on the frequency of interaction between american students and international students. she explained: it depends. they are more interested in more countries compared to other countries. if we had a student from norway, his english is like americans, he looks like american. he knows like tons of, he has tons of friends. he is like an american. but i don’t look like an american and i don’t talk like an american, so i feel like there is a gap between the countries that are like asians, those countries that don’t speak english, or german, or spanish speaking countries. there is a difference between those countries and americans. . . . mostly the american student will talk to the american student instead of the chinese student. i don’t know why. i don’t feel that they are racist or something like that. but, because they are similar to each other more than we are similar, but if we already know each other, then we will talk. psychological health asian interviewees mentioned their first impression about america/americans as friendliness, happiness, freedom, and a big country. two interviewees mentioned their image of america as this: “they never stop smiling to others. they usually say, ‘sorry; thanks; excuse me.’” “when you talk to them, when you are in class, they always have a lot of creative ideas. i will not ever have thought about that, and they are not fear to speak it out. i like that.” each interviewee was asked to share a time when he or she may have felt treated differently from americans because he/she was from another country. a chinese student shared his experience: when i first came here my english was so bad, but i had to take a history class, recording industry history. i like, i don’t know anybody. any names of those people, i don’t know who they are or what they did. i don’t know the event’s name, so i asked my professor to give me the power points so i will preview before the class, and he did that. he told me that he had never given anybody else the power points. he just gave it to me. that’s a good thing as in being treated differently than americans. the same interviewee also continued with his unpleasant experience: …if i am just sitting in a classroom and i’m the american student, there is an american student to my left and on my right, there is a chinese student. mostly the american student will talk to the american student instead of the chinese student. i don’t know why. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 95 one asian interviewee indicates ethnocentrism of america as an unpleasant feeling: sometimes they want to talk about the relationship between taiwan and mainland china. they barely know where is taiwan, or where is china. they know china is a big country, but where is it? they can’t tell. because i have a class and they send out a world. a map of the world. we say draw the countries. where is america, where is the middle east, where is china, where is taiwan? they just know america. so sometimes i feel you may need to know more about others, about others counties then you can say that statement. but sometimes i just don’t want to talk about so much politics because i think that would be a barrier in americans and me so i just don’t. one student expressed her mixed feeling about the attitude americans may have towards international students: they are super nice and very good. people are very nice until you know, they feel threatened by international students. probably, it [would be] different when international students try to find a job. competing with american students…in that case, their attitude is probably different. while there are different experiences among asian interviewees, most asian interviewees describe their overall sojourning experience as eye opening and rewarding. two interviewees reported their experiences: before i came here, i never thought about the kind of diversity…seven years ago, korea was kind of a homogeneous society. you think of the old people you meet on the street you have black hair and black eyes, and you use the same language. when i came here, i say oh my gosh, all the hair color is different, their eye color is different. their face is different; their skin color is different too. and, even among the american people, their accents are different. same thing even in korea, but some american people even cannot understand the accent of american people. in fact i think american culture improved my being. in china we are changing a lot. it is a focus on money, not on your person. my seven years in america, i can get more personal knowledge, capable of confidence, my person [is] stronger. keeping in mind the individual interviewees and how their life has been changed while living in the united states helps facilitate the importance of cross-culture adaptation. when asked if the interviewee has had any negative experiences while in american; one chinese student gave this account: no, because here i feel like it is my home. maybe because my fiancé’s home, his family are very connected. they are just a gorgeous family. they are so nice. and, they consider me as their daughter. they give me, not gifts, but when they are shopping they think about me. so i have 96 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research never missed home. before i met my fiancé, my host family was like my real family. they are just so nice. they will invite me for every event or holidays that they have. they are always there to help me. so i have never felt alone here. i do have great friends, i don’t know why; i might be born to be independent. another chinese student shared his positive feeling: i don’t know how to say, but when i am here, i feel freedom. when i am in my class, it encourages me to involve in the talking. encourage me to speak my own opinion. i’m trying to do that. yes, and i like the library here because you have a lot of books and it’s free, i can read a lot. i really like reading. results of interviews with european students ethnic proximity—cultural differences and similarities while they feel similar to the dominant u.s. culture in many respects, most european students indicated cultural differences in regards to food, lifestyle, communication style, values, and social customs. several interviewees commented that food is served in very big portions, and it is tough to choose healthy foods in the u.s. also, they pointed out commonly that life in the u.s. seems to be more fast-paced compared to their countries. the interviewees also shared their observations about different communication styles. one interviewee reported: i think americans are really good at small talk…germans just get to the point, say whatever they want to say, couple of sentences, and americans just talk about anything like “how are you? what’s been up lately? what are you doing? how is your mother?” another interviewee also reported her experience: people in the u.s., when walking past you at a close distance, say “sorry” too often. in sweden, no one even cares or notices….there is “too much sentiment” and most of things people say tend to be sugar-coated and not straightforward. the different gestures also puzzled another interviewee: … in france, first when you say hi you would give a kiss on the cheek…. one of my first experiences, my friend came to get me at the airport and he gave me the weirdest thing i have ever seen which was the half-hug (gestures of the half-hug). i found that it being so cold, so unwelcoming, because in my culture, if we are friends, and we meet and you shake my hand, that is considered very cold and there is something wrong between us. if we don’t give the kiss on the cheeks, there is something wrong if you don’t do that. so…i felt at that moment unwelcome, what is that, it’s cold–that was my first, i will never forget that moment. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 97 different values were reported as well: the thing that is not very common in sweden was that here in the u.s., a sense of accomplishment seemed to be very much encouraged as well as achieving success…american culture also seems to encourage hard work and being bold. a social custom that was a surprise to these european interviewees was the american custom of a baby shower. a german student explained: i would have to ask friends, “what in the world are you doing?” it just seems like a strange thing to do. basically everyone just sits in a circle, the poor, the poor host has to sit in the center and unwrap all the gifts and be excited each and every time. another student from latvia also indicated different dressing styles in the u.s.: in europe, it is disrespectful for professors to show up to class dressed in mainly sportwear… here, individuals wear what they want. along with different customs and cultural habits they observed, european interviewees also pointed out similarities of american culture to theirs. one german student commented: i would say overall, the american and german culture, it’s pretty similar, especially if you compare to african and south america’s or asian cultures compared to the u.s. i would say, it’s still, we have all the music, all the art culture, all that stuff is the same, it’s just translated in german. generally, most people in germany are white, most people here are white, so there are a lot of similarities. the differences are very subtle i would say. other interviewees also commented: the interaction with people…like the customs during the meal, and how you greet someone, and how you talk and speak and how you say good-bye. all of that is really similar. my country seems very culturally similar to nashville, tennessee. both places have a large influx of young people, making them great places that foster modern cultural activities. both places are full of cafes, concert venues, museums, clubs, and others. communication-related difficulties communication-related difficulties were revealed in the area of host language competence. some of the interviewees reported that they feel frustrated when they cannot be understood or cannot understand americans. one interviewee mentioned: yes, when i talk to people who are really southern and they have the accent, i really have trouble understanding what they are saying, like the ladies at the bookstore. i was trying to explain that i needed a stapler. i didn’t know what the word for stapler was, so i tried to paraphrase and 98 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research describe it, and they were not getting my point. when they were talking to me, it was like “sorry. again?”. while there are language and accent issues, however, most interviewees reported they did not have any problem with limited language competence. most of them learned to speak english before they came to the u.s. one interviewee comments reflected on this fact: i was lucky enough to grow up in schools where the english language was always taught as an optional second language…this helped me a lot. host interpersonal communication contact and communication activities most interviewees reported being active in interpersonal contact and social activities with americans. the variety and frequency of their interpersonal interactions are reflected the following response: we went to chattanooga for fall break just to see more of the country. more of the culture and do typical american things, like pumpkin carving, i enjoyed that. and i went to a shooting range last weekend; that was quite an experience. we went to the jack daniel’s distillery. comparing the approximate amount of time spent speaking to americans by the international students gives a strong sense of their comfort level in engaging with americans. another european student observes: sometimes i meet colleagues, and also sometimes i meet a friend of mine. he is also american. he was an exchange student at my home university last semester. i often go to lunch with him. and, i’m in a group. it’s a new group for university exchange students. so there’s exchange students and american students as well. sometimes they offer like movie nights here. the cultural fest today…i also have a host family. it is a program they have here…we meet from time to time, and they have three kids. i went to their place, they have like a playground;, yeah it was fun. i have experienced that the people in the south are generally are a lot friendlier, more open than germans are, in general, so you know they do the whole small talk thing which, you know is a foreign concept to germans. we just say what we want right away. without any small talk ahead of time, so that is something i had to pick up on. while there is a variety of interpersonal interaction with americans, one interviewee pointed out the superficial nature of their relationship: but, on the other hand i always thought relationships were often times more superficial over here. people will say things like, “oh we should hang-out”, they didn’t actually mean it – ‘you’re cool and i want to seem nice, but i’m not really planning on calling you any ways soon’ to set up a meeting or any type of thing like that. on one hand they [americans] are easier to talk to, and friendlier in general, you know, kind of causal communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 99 encounters, but they [americans] are a little bit more superficial than germans. psychological health few students reported difficulty adapting to a new cultural environment. most european interviewees reported a smooth transition and adaptation without major difficulties. two interviewees’ experiences are presented: even though i had some trouble getting used to the american culture, i could actually mesh with it much quicker than expected. i adjusted to the change of attitude and time perception almost immediately. and also i made a lot of friends quickly. i don’t think i had encountered culture shock. i have just adapted to more of the thinking and behavior style of the u.s…but have kept my religion, dress style, eating and hobbies. this easy transition could be explained by the similar ethnic/cultural background (ethnic proximity) they might have, as suggested by these responses: there really weren’t any major cultural differences to adjust to. the general culture in europe tends to be similar to american culture. because of the similarities between american and northern european culture and customs, i did not really encounter anything strange or many things i had to get used to. americans tend to be well receiving of northern and western europeans since they view them as being similar and of equal standards of civilization. most of the white majority’s roots came from european immigrants. so, i am not being seen as different from anyone else until i speak [english with a european accent]. the interviewees were also asked what first impressions they had of american people. most interviewees reported positive impressions of americans, such as their being nice and friendly. some responses are presented here: they are willing to help. …when we first got here because our apartment was a mess….all kind of terrible things that needed to be fixed….the landlord and the guy working for him came over all the time, trying to help us out….it was lovely. actually that was nine years ago, [it] was the first time i was here, in 2003. we were late, our aircraft was late. the customs hall was too crowded. we were not allowed to leave the plane. we wanted to call my mom’s friend to tell her that we will take the next plane. we wanted to use the phone but we did not have the coins, we only have the bills. then a woman came over to us and asks if we need help. i can change your money or whatever. we were really surprised and happy about that. it was very, very nice. 100 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research another multifaceted part of intercultural adaptation is the perceived attitude of americans toward international students. respondents provided their positive experiences. one student gave her opinion: i think they have a good attitude. for example at my university, in my department, more than half are internationals. yes, they like international students. in general, i think they have very good attitudes. for example, germans, they do not have a good attitude about foreigners, but americans are good for that because most are foreigner before they came here, not so far ago, just a hundred years or so, so they’re very friendly to foreigners is my opinion. the interviewees demonstrated frankness and openness when asked if they had ever felt like they were treated differently because they are from another country. below is the response from a european student: not in a bad way. one of my professors, i think, i get really shy in that class, because i feel like an idiot because everyone else is a native speaker. it’s a media writing class, so you have to be like a journalist, i’m like oh god, i’ll never be able to keep up, and then when i say something i mess my sentences up and stutter or whatever, and then he might think i’m a little dumb. i don’t know. he makes sure he explains everything very clearly. but, that’s a good thing. in spite of overall pleasant experiences in the u.s., one german student explained his unpleasant experience as well: i don’t like it, because i was a foreigner, but because i was a german, i went to [a store] with my american friend because i needed some things to make a german apple pie. in germany we have vanilla-sugar, sugar with a bit of vanilla in it. we didn’t find it, so my friend asks a woman filling out the stock, and ‘”do you have it here?” “no, we don’t have that,” and i said, “oh, it’s a german thing,” and she said, “oh, you are german?” and i said yes, and she said, (throwing one arm out in front of her) “ahh, heil hitler” – i was really shocked. that is the only thing that ever happened like that, most people are like germany, germany is so cool, i want to go there one day. things like that. so, that’s the only bad experience. while there were different experiences among european interviewees, most of the interviewees indicated their sojourning experience was rewarding and pleasant. one interviewee reported that he likes being in the u.s., as being able to play college sports has been a great experience and there will be more experiences to come before he graduates. a student from germany also commented: i love it here. when i was here for vacation a couple of years ago i was in the south and i really loved it here. so since i came to the united states i was fourteen, i just fall in love with the country, the people, everything. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 101 i could imagine when i go back to germany next year, i need one more year, i could imagine coming back and living here. one student from belarus shared his feelings: for me the experience to study in another country, to work and do science. i like the experience of studying and working in the united states, that’s why i have a positive experience in the united states. another student commented that they hope the friendships made in the united states could be kept: the friends i’ve made definitely; the international students as well as the american students. i hope i can keep up those contacts and after i leave maybe come back some day and visit. discussion the purpose of the present analysis has been to examine the communication and adaptation experience of international students in the u.s. by comparing asian and european groups. y.y. kim’s (1988, 2001) cross-cultural adaptation theory has served as the basis for examining predispositional factors (e.g., ethnic proximity) and communication activities, which have been posed as three research questions: (1) what degree of ethnic proximity do the international students have?; (2) what kind of communication-related difficulties do the international students have?; and (3) what is the overall feeling and life experience of international students in their host cultural milieu? the present analysis is based on the data from interviews conducted in the united states between october and december 2012. the results of the study show that both comparison groups express unique and individual experiences in their interaction with the different host environment in the process of cultural adaptation. regarding ethnic proximity, both groups indicated that food and eating habits were found to be major differences as compared to their ethnic cultures. in addition, different cultural values and verbal/nonverbal communication styles were also reported by both groups. for similarities, the european group reported more similarities than the asian group (e.g., general culture, physical appearance, etc.). regarding communication-related difficulties, the major issue for both groups is largely centered in host language competence. however, while the lack of english language competence is a critical issue for some asian students, european students cited accent issues as a difficulty. the european students, in general, seemed to be better prepared in english before they came to the u.s. regarding host interpersonal contact with americans, european students enjoy a variety of network and socializing activities with americans, more than their asian counterparts. as both groups explained, this could be attributed to ethnic proximity, such as similar ethnic markers and better language competence. regarding psychological health, both groups generally perceived the host cultural environment positively. at the same time, both groups also reported a lack of interest and 102 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research racism in the attitudes of some americans. this suggests that american society is very open and friendly to cultural strangers, but international students might face prejudice and racism sometimes in their daily lives. both groups described their overall sojourning experience as rewarding and positive. however, regarding the process of adaptation, european students reported a smoother transition and adaptation without major difficulties of culture shock. again, this could be explained by the ethnic proximity of european students with the white majority in america, as mentioned throughout the interviews. as predicted by kim’s cross-cultural adaptation theory, the results show the centrality of communication in the process of adaptation among international students. in addition, the cultural novelty and similar/dissimilar ethnic markers (ethnic proximity) of international students are closely related to better language competence and greater levels of interpersonal interaction with host nationals. this might also enhance the smoothness of transition in an unfamiliar cultural milieu. in addition, the level of friendliness and openness of classrooms and community environments (perceived host receptivity) might have an impact on the international student’s life and motivation to interact with host nationals. overall, there is a reciprocal relationship between communication and psychological health. methodologically, this study uses interviews to describe the communication and life experiences of international students in the american cultural milieu. this emic perspective of using in-depth interviews yields richer information on the realities international students can face in the process of their cultural adaptation. practically, this study provides some insights into adaptation experiences in a different host cultural environment. the findings show that host language competence and active involvement in host interpersonal communication constitute an important factor in successful adjustment. in addition, the ethnic proximity as a background factor of international students could be related to better language competence and enhancement of active involvement in host interpersonal communication and treatment by local people. thus, international offices of american universities need to take this into account when they prepare any workshop or post-arrival training program to help international students adjust to american campuses. because of the small sample size, the present findings are to be interpreted and generalized with some caution. they can, however, be less problematic as consistent findings are obtained over time across different studies involving different nationalities of international students in different countries. communication experience of international students middle tennessee state university 103 references babiker, i., cox, j., & miller, p. (1980). the measurement of culture distance and its relationship to medical consultation, symptomatology and examination performance of overseas students at edinburgh university. social psychiatry, 15, 109-116. boyer, s. (1988). noncognitive predictors of academic success for international students: longitudinal study. journal of college student development, 29, 218-222. furukawa, t. (1997). cultural distance and its relationship to psychological adjustment of international exchange students. psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, 51, 87–91. galchenko i.v. & van de vijver f.j.r. (2007) the role of perceived cultural distance in the acculturation of exchange students in russia. international journal of intercultural relations, 31(2), 181–197. institute of international education open doors report. retrieved december 20, 2012, from http://www. iie.org/en/research-and-publications/open-doors kaczmarek, p., matlock, g., merta, r., ames, m., & ross, m. (1994). an assessment of international college student adjustment. international journal for the advancement of counseling, 17, 241-247. kim, y. y. (1988). communication and cross-cultural adaptation: an integrative theory. philadelphia: multilingual matters. kim, y. y. (2001). becoming intercultural: an integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation. thousand oaks, ca: sage. kim, y. y. (2005). adapting to a new culture: an integrative communication theory. in w. gudykunst (ed.), theorizing about intercultural communication (pp. 375-400). thousand oaks, ca: sage. ledwith, s., & seymour, d. (2001). home and away: preparing students for multicultural management. international journal of human resource management, 12(8), 1292–1312. lin, j., & yi, j. (1997). asian international students’ adjustment: issues and program suggestions. college students journal, 31(4), 473-479. nicassio, p., solomon, g., guest, s., & mccullough, j. (1986). emigration stress and language proficiency as correlates of depression in a sample of southeast asian refugees. international journal of social psychiatry, 32, 22-28. pedersen, p. (1991). counseling international students. the counselin psychologist, 19, 10-58. rosenthal d., russell j., & thomson, g. (2008). the health and wellbeing of international students at an australian university. higher education 55(1), 51–67. sahlins, m. (1964). culture and environment: the study of cultural ecology. in s. tax (ed.), horizons of anthropology (pp. 132-147). chicago: aldine. sodowsky, g., & plake, b. (1992). a study of acculturation differences among international people and for sensitivity to within-group differences. journal of counseling and development, 71, 53-59. ward, c., & kennedy, a. (1993). where’s the “culture” in cross-cultural transition? comparative studies of sojourner adjustment. journal of cross-cultural psychology 24(2), 221–249. zheng, x., & berry, j. (1991). psychological adaptation of chinese sojourners in canada. international journal of psychology, 26(4), 451–470. 104 spring 2013 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 1. nationalities of the european interviewees country no. the netherlands germany france belarus italy denmark switzerland latvia australia sweden 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 total 12 type ii diabetes middle tennessee state university 113 comparisons of accuracy of nutrition knowledge of college students with and without risk factors for type ii diabetes monique richard dr. gloria hamilton abstract type ii diabetes is a major health problem in the united states. untreated type ii diabetes may lead to cardiovascular disease, nephropathy, neuropathy, degenerative eye health, blindness, or other catastrophic complications including death. awareness, prevention, and intervention based programs for those at-risk for type ii diabetes, those currently diagnosed, and the general public are essential to lowering the incidence of type ii diabetes in the united states. this study was developed to measure accuracy of nutrition knowledge of college students without known risk factors compared to those with risk factors for type ii diabetes. no significant differences were found in accuracy of nutrition knowledge between students with risk factors and those with no risk factors for type ii diabetes. the findings of this study are of importance in providing awareness of nutrition knowledge deficit for college students at-risk for type ii diabetes. scientia et humanitas 114 spring 2011 diabetes is an increasing problem in the united states and affects an estimated 23.6 million americans (1). medical costs, health-care interventions, and incidences of morbidity related to diabetes are costly in terms of both economics and lives damaged by this chronic disease. nutrition knowledge of the general public, including the current generation of college students, must include accurate information in relation to type ii diabetes prevention through nutrition, as well as other lifestyle changes. evidenced-based information focused on prevention of this chronic disease is slowly being disseminated in society through education in businesses, schools, and healthcare facilities. news headlines have highlighted large corporations like insurance giant geico, software magnate microsoft, and smaller companies that have taken steps toward wellness initiatives and incentives. programs such as implementing community nutrition groups and health workshops have been started through partnerships on local, state, and international levels. it has become increasingly evident that the accuracy of nutrition knowledge as related to chronic diseases and obesity has been inadequate, as evidenced in nutrient deficient dietary habits and prevalence of chronic disease. in the united states obesity rates have increased drastically over the past 2 decades (2, 3); 64% of adults aged ≥ 20 years old were classified as overweight and 30% were classified as obese from 1999-2000. meta-analysis for 68,556 us adults in the national health interview survey by the centers for disease control and prevention showed that the highest obesity rates were linked with the lowest incomes and educational levels (4). decreased morbidity and mortality may be attainable when positive nutrition and healthy lifestyle habits are used throughout the lifespan (5, 6). this study was designed to assess accuracy of nutrition knowledge in college students who, as young adults, are in charge of their dietary intake. type ii diabetes may develop as result of genetic predispositions, and can also be attributed to excess weight, dietary habits, other behavioral and environmental factors; type ii diabetes can be present at any age (7, 8, 9). there is no cure for diabetes, however lifestyle management has been found to ameliorate this disease. treatment and prevention of type ii diabetes requires self-management of diet and exercise and controlled glucose levels. according to a diabetes prevention trial, diet and lifestyle changes can both prevent and treat type ii diabetes more successfully than prescription medication or prophylactic drug therapy (such as metformin) (10). measures of nutrition knowledge level and areas to intervene in terms of prevention in college students have not been extensively studied. a review of the literature reveals that relationships among 1) knowledge of risk, 2) knowledge of preventative behaviors, and 3) implementation of appropriate dietary and exercise behavior modifications have yet to be studied in college students in the united states who are at risk for type ii diabetes. prevention and intervention programs among canadian adults and school-age children have been found to prevent and treat the onset of type ii diabetes (11, 12, 13, and 14). in the united states we have not measured the accuracy of nutrition knowledge among college students. it is the intention that this study can serve as an indication of possible type ii diabetes middle tennessee state university 115 deficits of nutrition knowledge and reveal areas of opportunity for prevention and control onset of type ii diabetes in college students and other young adults. the purpose of this study was to establish if there was a difference in accuracy of nutrition knowledge between college students with risk factors for type ii diabetes compared to those who did not report risk factors. the study was developed subsequent to a pilot study which analyzed food choices and exercise patterns of those with risk factors compared to those without risk factors. the two populations did not differ in diet, exercise, or lifestyle (15). consistent with those findings, it is hypothesized that accuracy of nutrition knowledge will not differ across groups. the following null hypotheses will be tested. hypotheses 1) accuracy of nutrition related knowledge will not differ between participants at-risk for type ii diabetes compared to those not at-risk. 2) nutrition knowledge related to diabetes will not differ between participants at-risk and to those not at-risk. 3) accuracy of nutrition knowledge will not differ when self-rating diet as “healthy” or unhealthy” between groups. 4) ratings of healthy nutritional intake of those at-risk versus those not at-risk will not differ. method participants participants for this study included 58 college students from a southern state university. students were recruited from upper division psychology summer classes. consent was obtained from all participants prior to inclusion in the study. students were given the paper survey in the classroom in one session, answered with pen or pencil. instrument the survey instrument was composed of 29 multiple choice or true/false questions. the survey tool was compiled into four sections. nutrition questions included in the survey were selected from among basic nutrition facts consumers should know. see appendix c for the complete survey instrument. the survey was divided into four sections, descriptions of which follow. section 1 consisted of three questions asking participants to rate their knowledge of general nutrition information. a likert scale from 1-5 was used with 1-strongly agree, 2-somewhat agree 3-unsure 4-somewhat disagree 5-strongly agree. section 2 contained thirteen items that required identification of specific foods, serving sizes, and interpretation of a nutrition facts label. section 3 contained seven multiple choice questions related to serving size, portions, function of insulin, and consequences of diabetes. scientia et humanitas 116 spring 2011 section 4 consisted of six questions asking participants to identify their risk factors for type ii diabetes and healthiness of their diet. questions were selected based on expectations of nutrition knowledge appropriate to this age group and were not intended to be a formal scale. the questions were tailored to be reflective of visual cues in our daily environment. proper portion sizes were cited from common sources as well as the familiar website, webmd. see appendix d. results fifty-eight participants completed the survey instrument and were evaluated on accuracy of nutrition knowledge related to risk factors for type ii diabetes. analyses were performed using predictive analytics software (pasw ). independent samples t-tests were completed for hypotheses. correlations for selected variables were completed to determine pearson product-moment correlations. see table 2 for correlation matrix. hypothesis 1 stated that accuracy of nutrition knowledge would not differ between participants at-risk for type ii diabetes compared to those not at-risk. an independent samples t-test determined no difference between groups. hypothesis 1 was supported. hypothesis 2 stated that nutrition knowledge related to diabetes would not differ between participants at-risk and those not at-risk. an independent samples t-test determined no difference between groups. hypothesis 2 was supported. hypothesis 3 stated that accuracy of nutrition knowledge when self-rating diet as “healthy” or unhealthy” would not differ between groups. an independent samples t-test determined no difference between groups. hypothesis 3 was supported. hypothesis 4 stated there would be no difference in self-ratings of nutritional intake between students at-risk and students not at-risk. an independent samples t-test determined no difference between groups. hypothesis 4 was supported. twenty questions related to nutrition, health, or diabetes were asked. thirty-six participants were categorized as at-risk with an average mean score of ~77% correct (std. deviation .36), and twenty-two participants not at-risk had an average mean score of ~78% correct (std. deviation .21). those participants at-risk for type ii diabetes scored a total average of 1% less for correct scores compared to those not at-risk. the research also indicated that the participants who self-rated themselves as highly knowledgeable in nutrition did not show a significant difference in having more correct answers than those who self-rated as less knowledgeable. see table 2. (refer to appendix f for data) type ii diabetes middle tennessee state university 117 table 1. percentage of correct answers correct answers at risk not at-risk 40% 0 1 60% 1 1 65% 6 0 70% 5 1 75% 7 7 80% 8 5 85% 4 5 90% 4 0 95% 1 2 correlations for selected variables were run to determine pearson product-moment correlations, providing insight into relationships among these variables. table 2. intercorrelations among general nutrition knowledge and self-identified risk-factors variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. x1 .36** .64** .29* .06 .10 -.22 -.17 -.18 2. x2 .35** . 02 -.06 -.10 .06 .04 .17 3. x3 .22 -.02 .06 -.01 .05 .07 4. x4 .40** .48** -.78** .50** -.51** 5. x5 .45** -.68** .64** -.58** 6. x6 -.71** .47** -.83** 7. x7 -.80** .69** 8. x8 .58** 9. x9 key: **significant at the 0.01 level *significant at the 0.05 level variables #1-3 represent questions 1-3 in section 1, 1 = self-rating on education level for risk factors for type ii diabetes 2 = self-rating on ability to differentiate between type i and type ii diabetes 3 = self-rating on knowing methods to deter development of type ii diabetes variables # 49 represent section 4 4 = self-identified risk factor(s) for type ii diabetes 5 = self-rated overweight/obese risk factor 6 = self-identified diet as risk factor 7 = total number of risk factors 8 = self-identified if there was more than one risk factor 9 = self-identified if diet was healthy/unhealthy scientia et humanitas 118 spring 2011 the correlation matrix presents a picture of lack of interrelationships among variables determining being at risk for type ii diabetes and presentation of self as having been educated on diabetes-related information. those who self-identified as at risk for type ii diabetes did not endorse items that indicated they had been educated on information basic to an understanding of diabetes. perhaps most importantly, they did not endorse the item, knowledge of prevention methods to deter development of type ii diabetes. according to the results of this study, crucial knowledge about diabetes and nutrition is lacking in participants who would benefit most from that information. discussion the findings of this study indicate that basic nutrition knowledge, serving sizes, and general information related to type ii diabetes are not clearly understood by college students whether at-risk or not at-risk for type ii diabetes. several explanations could be proposed to account for this lack of knowledge including media bombardment, socioeconomic environment, education level of parents or guardians, and lack of exposure to a nutritional health curriculum. the causes of the low levels of nutrition knowledge are of less significance than the corrections and implementation of knowledge that can lead to healthy behavior and lifestyle changes. diet has an important role in preventing diseases, influencing healthy behavior, and enhancing the quality of one’s life. the previous pilot study and this study function as opportunities to influence change in areas that may have negative impacts on health, and create an area of continued research. see appendix e for “cause and effect” model. limitations of the study and future research limitations include the small number of students included in the study sample. participants in this study were upper division psychology students. subsequent studies could include students in health science, nutrition, and nursing, disciplines that include the study of nutrition. the scope of focus in this study was limited to a small number of nutrition issues (i.e., serving sizes, etc). subsequent research could expand the numbers of nutrition issues that are surveyed. a greater number of items pertaining to prevention of and living with type ii diabetes could be included in subsequent studies. the study could be strengthened by use of a dietary log to provide information to supplement survey data. participants may have been asked to do a 24-hour dietary recall or 3-day diet log in order to supplement the survey results and confirm the answers chosen on the survey. these changes may have provided more detailed results. items the survey instrument did not address may be included in subsequent studies that focus on risk factors not being addressed in the popular media or public school education with respect to type ii diabetes. it is recommended that further research be conducted with larger samples across regional college campuses to understand how changes can be made to health education curriculum, prevention, or intervention classes relevant to type ii diabetes on campus or in the community at large. type ii diabetes middle tennessee state university 119 references wing rr, goldstein mg, acton kj, birch ll, jakicic jm, sallis jf, smith-west d, jeffrey rw, and surwitt rs: behavioral science research in diabetes: lifestyle changes related to obesity, eating behavior, and physical activity. diabetes care 24:117-123, 2001. us department of health and human services. 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harris sb, hanley ajg, valente tw, zinman b: a pilot school-based healthy eating and physical activity intervention improves diet, food knowledge, and self-efficacy for native canadian children. j nutr 135:2392-2398, 2005. ho ls, gittlesohn j, harris sb, ford e: development of an integrated diabetes prevention program with first nations in canada. health promo inter 21:88-97, 2006. satterfield dw, volansky m, caspersen cj, engelgau mm, bowman ba, gregg ew, geiss ls, hosey gm, may j, vinicor f: community-based lifestyle interventions to prevent type 2 diabetes. diabetes care 26:2643-2652, 2003. pálsdóttir, á. “information behaviour, health self-efficacy beliefs and health behaviour in icelanders’ everyday life” information research, 13(1) paper 334. [available 22 november, 2007 at http://informationr.net/ ir/13-1/paper334.html], 2008. knowler wc, fowler se, hamman rf, christophi ca, hoffman hj, brenneman at, brown-friday jo, goldberg r, venditti e, nathan dm.”10-year follow-up of diabetes incidence and weight loss in the diabetes prevention program outcomes study” the lancet 374:1677-1686, 2009. field ae, haines j, rosner b, and willet w. “weight-control behaviors and subsequent weight changes among adolescents and young adult females” amer jour of clin nutr 91:147-153, 2010. barnard rj, jung t, and inkeles sb. “diet and exercise in the treatment of niddm: the need for early emphasis” diabetes care 17:1469-1472, 1994. nicholson as et al, “toward improved mangaement of niddm: a randomized, controlled, pilot intervention using low-fat, vegetarian diet” preventive medicine 29:87-91, 1999. barnard nd et al, “the effects of a low-fat, plant-based dietary intervention on body weight, metabolism, and insulin sensitivity” amer jour of med 118:991-997, 2005. barnard nd. dr. neal barnard ’s program for reversing diabetes. new york, ny:  rodale inc.; 2007. national institute of diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases. national diabetes statistics, 2007 fact sheet. bethesda, md: u.s. department of health and human services, national institutes of health, 2008. zelman k.”portion size guide”, webmd reviewed on may 14, 2010 www.healthyeating.webmd.com playing games as cultural expression: mah jong, chess, and bourré in the works of amy tan and tim gautreaux sara hays middle tennessee state university 53 abstract the opening lines of amy tan’s the joy luck club, after the brief initial prologue, are: “my father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the joy luck club. i am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. my father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts” (19). these lines connect for the reader, from the very beginning of the novel, the playing of mah jong to deeper considerations of culture, legacy, and tradition. while both mah jong and the joy luck club are internationally popular, the opposite is the case for the cajun card game bourré and the cajun short-story writer tim gautreaux, whose story “died and gone to vegas” utilizes bourré in a way that is thematically similar to, but culturally different from, tan’s use of mah jong in the joy luck club. this paper examines both tan’s and gautreaux’s use of games—mah jong, as well as chess, and bourré respectively—as cultural receptacles and means of folkloric preservation. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the opening lines of amy tan’s the joy luck club, after the brief initial prologue, are: “my father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the joy luck club. i am to replace my mother, whose seat at the mah jong table has been empty since she died two months ago. my father thinks she was killed by her own thoughts” (19). these lines connect for the reader, from the very beginning of the novel, the playing of mah jong1 to deeper considerations of culture, legacy, and tradition. tan’s book was immensely popular and inspired equal amounts of praise and criticism. numerous scholars have examined the mother/daughter, generational relationships explored in the novel, but critics like sau-ling cynthia wong have criticized tan’s “exoticising” depictions of chinese culture (191), claiming they “enable orientalism to emerge in a form palatable to middle-class american readers”(181). wong may have a point, but others, particularly tara fickle, have recognized the value of the novel’s use of mah jong as a structural and thematic anchor for the cultural themes within the story. while both mah jong and the joy luck club are internationally popular, the opposite is the case for the cajun card game bourré2 and the cajun short-story writer tim gautreaux, whose story “died and gone to vegas” utilizes bourré in a way that is thematically similar to tan’s use of mah jong in the joy luck club in that both authors harness the culturally significant elements of these specific games, and gameplaying in general, to anchor their narratives and to deepen the connections among their characters. folklorists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and even literary scholars have all noted the importance of gameplay to group identity formation and to the preservation of the generational wisdom of a culture. regardless of geography, mothers teach daughters, fathers teach sons, and, like any other cultural knowledge, the rules and meanings of a people’s games are preserved by the new initiates. while many authors have used games and gameplay to make various cultural statements, this article will focus specifically on tan’s and gautreaux’s use of games—mah jong and chess as well as bourré—as meaningful examples of how works of literature can become cultural receptacles and the means of folkloric preservation. mah jong—the game of one hundred wonders suyuan woo, the aforementioned mother two-months-dead in tan’s novel, had formed the san francisco joy luck club in 1949, two years before her daughter jing-mei ( june) was born, the same year she and her husband had immigrated to 1.there are many correct variations of the spelling of the game, but i adopt the spelling tan uses in the joy luck club unless it is spelled differently in a passage being quoted. 2. a trick-taking card game similar to spades. 54 spring 2017 california from china. she had recruited the other three members of the group—the hsus, the jongs, and the st. clairs—from families they had met at the first chinese baptist church bible study, a church they felt compelled to join after becoming the recipients of the church missionaries’ charity. jing-mei observes: my mother could sense that the women of these families also had unspeakable tragedies they had left behind in china and hopes they couldn’t begin to express in their fragile english. or at least, my mother recognized the numbness in these women’s faces. and she saw how quickly their eyes moved when she told them her idea for the joy luck club. (tan 20) the club had been inspired by suyuan’s experiences living in kweilin as an officer’s wife during wwii, where the original joy luck club had been similarly formed. suyuan, feeling stifled by the heat, by the terror of the war, and by the threat of imminent invasion, had recruited three other young women “with wishful faces” (23), surely an intentional parallel of the numb faces of the san francisco recruits. the original club members had operated under self-imposed, ritualistic strictures—each hostess had been required to provide a feast of lucky foods such as dumplings, boiled peanuts, and oranges; once the game had begun, no talking was allowed except for the game-related exclamations of “pung!” and “chr!” (tan 24); they had had to “play with seriousness and think of nothing else but adding to our happiness through winning” (24); and the money for the game had been prominently displayed in a bowl rather than kept with each player, a variation which had assigned ironic reverence to the tens of thousands of worthless yuan involved. additionally, when the gameplay had finished, they would laugh and tell funny stories late into the night, thus participating in an ancient oral storytelling tradition. fickle notes that coming together to play mah jong serves “in a very real sense as a form of survival and social warfare that encourages its players to re-author, if only for a few hours, their roles as disenfranchised victims” (76). they had decided to call the group the joy luck club because hoping for luck in the game would bring them joy, but their true luck had been in finding joy with each other in an otherwise hopeless time. the san francisco joy luck is similarly as ritualistic as the kweilin joy luck but with a different regimen. the group still rotates among hosts, the hosting family being responsible for the meal, but instead of the group’s money being displayed in a bowl, it has been transformed into stock market shares and is discussed in a formal meeting at the beginning of the evening. as a result, the mah jong game is still playing games as cultural expression middle tennessee state university 55 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research played “for fun” (tan 30) for almost no money at all. on the evening of jing-mei’s first time taking her mother’s place at joy luck, she approaches the mah jong table with a certain amount of nostalgia, perhaps even reverence. without having to be told, she senses which chair had been her mother’s because it “has an emptiness to it” (33). she intuitively knows that her mother’s corner of the table was the east and recalls her mother telling her, “the east is where things begin, … the direction from which the sun rises, where the wind comes from” (33). in mah jong, a roll of the dice designates each player as one of the four winds, the east being the first to play, the north being last, and certain tiles are associated with certain winds, similar to suits in a deck of cards. tan, therefore, uses the memory of a dead mother to mystify the otherwise mundane aspects of the game, namely where the players sit and the use of directional winds to designate the playing order as the game begins, tan captures the rhythm of the play. the first step is to symbolically “wash” (33) the tiles. an-mei pours the tiles onto the felt-topped table, and the women swirl them around with their hands; jing-mei notices that they “make a cool swishing sound as they bump into one another” (33). the next step, after the winds are assigned, is to stack the tiles into four walls. western mah jong players usually use long trays to hold the four groups of tiles, with the one for the east being distinguished in some way, but chinese mah jong tiles are usually thicker and easily stand up on their own, so no trays are needed (rep 21). the joy luck women then go through the process of selecting and organizing their tiles for that round, much like a card player draws and organizes his hand before beginning to play. as jing-mei explains, “i rearrange my tiles, sequences of bamboo and balls, doubles of colored number tiles, odd tiles that do not fit anywhere” (tan 34). jingmei follows her aunts’ lead as they slowly and carefully sort their tiles and prepare to play, a ritual they have had decades to perfect. her presence at the table represents the next generation’s stepping up to receive the cultural knowledge of its forebears. as the round finally begins, the no-talking rule of kweilin is clearly not in effect here. jing-mei observes: “now we begin to play, looking at our hands, casting tiles, picking up others at an easy, comfortable pace. the joy luck aunties begin to make small talk, not really listening to each other. they speak in their special language, half in broken english, half in their own chinese dialect” (tan 34). their small talk consists of competitive, passive-aggressive jabs at each other’s shopping, sewing, and cooking abilities born out of a decades-old familiarity with one another. although they talk during gameplay, a crucial folkloric element from the kweilin 56 spring 2017 joy luck is still intact—the storytelling impulse. at a lull in the game, auntie ying proclaims loudly, “oh, i have a story” (35), but instead of being a funny tale like the ones told by the kweilin women, auntie ying’s story is about a friend’s son who had been arrested for stealing tvs, a story that makes auntie an-mei uncomfortable considering that her own son had been arrested in the past for stealing car stereos. the san francisco joy luck, after so many years, appears to be a mere shadow of its kweilin predecessor, and jing-mei’s boredom with the game, coupled with her apathy toward her fellow joy luck “cousins,” seems to be signaling the unlikelihood that the next generation will maintain the group after their parents have gone. during jing-mei’s first night at joy luck, she mentions that she had learned to play mah jong from some jewish friends, and a brief exchange takes place in which her aunties, and her mother in her memory, decidedly denounce the jewish version of the game as “not the same thing” (tan 33). when she asked her mother the difference between the two types of mah jong, her mother answered cryptically that the difference was in the way the game is played: “jewish mah jong, they watch only for their own tile, play only with their eyes. . . . chinese mah jong, you must play using your head, very tricky” (33). while suyuan’s sentiments here seem harsh, chinese mah jong players are understandably protective of the traditions of the game. mary c. greenfield examines the “mahjong craze” in the united states in the 1920s, which saw a game once reserved for the upper echelons of society explode into a mass-marketed phenomenon (329). jelte rep explains how traditional mah jong sets were handcrafted out of the shin bones of cows in small, family-owned shops in china. each shop would focus only on a particular phase of the process—cutting and bleaching the bone, cutting the bamboo backing, carving and painting the symbols, etc.—and young boys would be apprenticed to learn one of these skills as an artisan. when american businessmen were frantically trying to fulfill the demand of their american customers, they would ship crates full of bovine shin bones to the shops in china, but the workers, usually multiple generations in one shop, could not be compelled to work faster or take shortcuts. so, enterprising mah jong investors ultimately bought the smaller shops wholesale and moved all the operations, including many of the workers, into larger factories in shanghai. this way, the methods could be preserved while increasing the speed of production exponentially. eventually, synthetic materials replaced the natural ones, and designs began to be stamped on the pieces rather than carved (rep 24-27). almost a century later, there are dozens of variations of mah jong, and guidebooks often feel compelled to divide gameplay advice into regions. fickle suggests, “by playing games as cultural expression middle tennessee state university 57 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research treating chinese mahjongg as ‘real’ (or at least more perfectly realized) mahjongg and its jewish counterpart as a bastardization, … lindo reveals from the beginning that ludic strategies are inextricable from cultural ones” (77). game-playing techniques are taken seriously as cultural artifacts through which cultural knowledge is passed down: “it is through mahjongg, then, that the nuanced question of what it means to be chinese and to be american first gets articulated in the novel’s opening pages” (fickle 78). when suyuan and the aunties dismiss jewish mah jong, their real intent is to delegitimize the popularized western version of the game, preserving instead the game as an element of their culture which belongs to them. fickle has noticed that the very structure of the novel is arranged like a game of mah jong. she claims that from “the outset, in fact, the joy luck club’s structure very explicitly invites a reading of the novel as a game of mahjongg” (70). the story is split into sixteen sections, like the sixteen rounds in a standard mah jong game, and grouped into four larger chapters which could represent the four winds embodied by the four players at the four corners of a traditional mah jong table. additionally, the eight women who tell their stories in turn mirror the eight bonus tiles in a mah jong set, which “are also called the eight apostles by the chinese, a reference to the eight immortal followers of the great chinese philosopher lao tse (from the second century b.c.e.) who, through their ascetic and devout practice, became saints in their kingdom of heaven” (rep 17). the book’s structural parallels to mah jong are unmistakable and highlight the aunties’ preoccupation with balance as well as legitimize the playing of a game as a serious cultural artifact. fickle suggests that imposing “a sense of order, affiliation, and teleological progress on what appears to be an otherwise meaningless jumble of eight different sets of stories and memories, tan’s use of mahjongg as a unifying structural element is by no means her only foray into the counterintuitive possibilities of making the real world comprehensible by turning it into a game” (74). indeed, if mah jong, which is exclusively played by an amiable group of friends in the book, represents to the reader the cultural knowledge and memories of the novel’s older generation of mothers and aunties, then waverly jong’s foray into the individualistic, competitive world of championship chess might serve as a metaphor for the younger generation of daughters’ disconnection from their folk traditions brought about by being raised in america. chess—the new american rules tan presents chess as the cultural negative of mah jong. when waverly’s brother, vincent, receives a chess set from one of the missionary ladies at a 58 spring 2017 charity christmas party thrown by the first chinese baptist church, lindo is gracious to the woman’s face, but when they arrive home, waverly remembers, “my mother told vincent to throw the chess set away. ‘she not want it. we not want it,’ she said, tossing her head stiffly to the side with a tight, proud smile” (tan 93). although chess has nearly as rich a history as mah jong and has its origins in india and the persian empire, this scene clearly associates playing chess, at least for lindo, with the west and, more specifically, america. lindo is not interested in allowing her daughter to play chess in tournaments because she knows they will be playing by american rules, which she does not trust. when waverly begins to win and to earn notoriety in the neighborhood, however, her mother, perhaps subconsciously, tries to coach her to adopt the language and strategies of mah jong. not fully understanding how chess is played, she encourages her daughter to try to lose fewer pieces, and she discusses her attack strategies using the four winds, similar to the four winds used in mah jong. fickle’s interpretation of tan’s game metaphors is that “the salience of the joy luck club’s use of games like mahjongg and chess lies in how it indirectly broaches the concept of the ‘race card’ and asian american identity by suggesting that what it means to be asian or asian american is inextricable from what it means to be a game player” (71). in other words, according to fickle, tan perhaps exaggerates the connection between the skills needed to excel at strategy games and the fundamental nature of the asian/asian american experience, her twin intention being both to expose and embrace an unfavorable, trickster stereotype. fickle, however, has inadvertently reduced the asian culture to a series of tricks and strategies for survival, a disservice which misses tan’s tone and diminishes the status of the games as folkloric reservoirs. fickle suggests that “it is only through games and game terminology that the aunties and their daughters can even begin to articulate their own ideas about identity and filiality” (71), but in fact it is more plausible to see lindo attempting to adapt her own cultural knowledge to her daughter’s game-playing atmosphere. lindo’s obvious ignorance shames waverly, however, which causes her to assign her mother outsider status when she tells lindo that she should “shut up” because she “doesn’t know anything” (170). the result is a devastating rupture in the mother/daughter relationship that lasts into waverly’s adulthood and destroys her gift for chess as well as her connection to her heritage. furthermore, rather than representing cultural community like mah jong, chess is an individual sport that actually isolates waverly from her family and her culture as she becomes more successful. she does make a temporary friend in her playing games as cultural expression middle tennessee state university 59 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research teacher from the park, lau po, but she moves on when she learns all that he has to teach. waverly’s community rallies around her when she begins to win tournaments; for example, various businesses hang congratulatory signs in their windows and volunteer to sponsor her, but she seems just as embarrassed by the attention as by her mother’s ignorant public boasting. when the offers for sponsorship begin to arrive, lindo decides waverly will be exempt from chores and from meals, a change which understandably irks her brothers. lindo responds that waverly is subject to the “new american rules. . . . meimei play, squeeze all her brains out for win chess. you play, worth squeeze towel” (tan 97). later, when waverly does attempt to spend time with her brothers, they treat her like an outsider and an annoyance. finally, the tournaments, where she should be surrounded by peers, are full of nemeses, not friends. chess, then, is presented in the novel as a draining force that dismisses communal bonds as strategic weaknesses, while mah jong is presented as a low-stakes pastime that encourages community and cultural preservation. neither depiction is wholly accurate, however, as there are obviously amiable chess-playing communities as well as cut-throat, high-stakes mah jong tournaments. bourrè—nobody plays to lose although mah jong has been widely written about in history books, how-to books, and articles, the opposite is true for the cajun card game bourré. besides roy j. nickens’s 1972 book bouré, mentioned in rick bragg’s 1996 new york times article “in louisiana, card game reveals the cajun spirit,” the national cajun bourré association published the now-difficult-to-find official rules and techniques of the cajun card game bourré (boo-ray) by preston guidry in 1988, and both his and nickens’s texts were preceded by henry engler’s self-published pamphlet, rules and techniques of bourré in 1964. many collections of american, and even specifically louisiana, folklore and traditions—such as terry ann mood’s american regional folklore: a sourcebook and research guide (2004) and jan harold brunvand’s the study of american folklore: an introduction (1968), which even has a section on folk games—include no mention of the game, and those that do acknowledge the game as an element of the region’s folklore offer, at most, a paragraph or two briefly explaining how the game is played. curney j. dronet’s a century of acadian culture: the development of a cajun community: erath (1899-1999) (2000) features one small passage which mentions the game in reference to the leisurely activities of the town on saturdays. dronet explains that “the women did the shopping while the men usually frequented the local bars. many would indulge in the cajun card game of ‘bourée,’ a card game that is still very popular in erath” (54). 60 spring 2017 he then provides a short paragraph outlining the rules of the game before moving on, without further comment, to the typical activities in erath on sundays. perhaps most surprising is the absolute lack of a bourré presence in frank de caro’s folklife in louisiana photography: images of tradition (1990), a fascinating photographic profile of the region which offers images of various cultural activities such as cooking, dancing, playing music, river baptizing, farming, and even an image of a woman playing a slot machine, but there are no images of anyone playing cards. this sparse folkloric treatment of bourré suggests that the game, while regionally popular, has remained within the boundaries of the acadian culture and has not experienced a mass-market expansion like mah jong, making attention from regional authors like bragg and gautreaux that much more important for its preservation. bourré, according to bragg, is a descendent of a french card game called “rams” and has been in acadia since the 1800s. hoyle’s modern encyclopedia of card games (1974) claims, however, that bourré is descended from a french card game called “écarté” (39), but the entry in no way mentions the game’s regional ties to cajun louisiana, a lack which makes the entire entry rather suspect. as bragg notes, practically every household in louisiana has its own variation on the rules of the game, but bourré, which means “to trounce,” is basically a trump game like hearts or spades where “tricks” are taken, but it is more “like poker in its spirit and drama” (167). nicolae sfetcu calls bourré a “game with imperfect information” (n.p.), which is likely the most accurate description available. with so many regional variations spread over such a small geographical playing area, bourré really is a cultural phenomenon rife with folkloric potential. tim gautreaux’s short story “died and gone to vegas” takes place on a steam boat during an employee bourré game. the boat’s cook raynelle bullfinch, the lone female crewmember, hosts the game, and the story opens with her initiation of newcomer nick montalbano into the mysteries of bourré, which she says even “a pet rat can play” (37). the extended scene of the story bears a striking resemblance to jing-mei’s first time attending the san francisco joy luck club. as the other players begin to arrive and to take their places, the participants settle into a comfortable ritual. like the joy luck mah jong game, everyone seems to know his expected role and assigned seat, and as the game progresses, the players playfully insult one another and intersperse small talk into the rounds. the reader perceives that this bourré game is a ritual which the participants have been observing for a long time and which contributes to the unique identification of their culture. as bragg demonstrates, bourré is playing games as cultural expression middle tennessee state university 61 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “a social game, mostly, played at a more congenial pace than poker, yet nobody plays bourré to lose” (169). like mah jong, bourré is a community game played in a group of friends most of the time, though there is only one winner, and the stakes can get rather out of hand. throughout the game in gautreaux’s story, nick’s status as an outsider, like jing-mei’s, is emphasized. like jing-mei, he is a college dropout, and even though he has had only one semester of college, raynelle uses nick’s partial education to separate him from their circle. while explaining the rules of the game, she ribs him, “this ain’t too hard for you is it? ain’t college stuff more complicated than this?” the chief engineer, furthermore, calls nick “fresh meat” while good-naturedly squeezing his neck, indicating that his presence, even though he is a newcomer, is accepted (38). although raynelle claims the game is simple and teases nick about being able to understand, she nonetheless takes the time to explain all the rules and to answer his questions. eventually, like auntie an-mei, she simply says, “trust me, you’ll catch on quick” (38). however, perhaps the most significant indicator of nick’s outsider status is that, even if he had been familiar with bourré, he would still lack all the information necessary to succeed at raynelle’s version. she reveals that every “hand has five tricks to take. if you take three tricks, you win the pot. only on this boat, we got a special rule. if only two decide to play that hand after the draw, then it takes four tricks to win” (38). so, even if nick had been an experienced bourré player, he would have been at an initial disadvantage within this small bourré community until he acclimated to their rules. similarly, jing-mei has played mah jong before, but she will remain an outsider among her aunties’ smaller mah jong community until she learns to play the game in a way they accept. granted, the joy luck club’s defense of their way of playing mah jong is more of a cultural statement than the steam boat’s additional special rule. in both works, though, the reader is granted access to a closed community through the eyes of the outsider character. the most folkloric element of the bourré game in “died and gone to vegas” is the oral storytelling ritual which accompanies it. like both of suyuan’s joy luck clubs, oral storytelling is an indispensable part of raynelle’s game and preserves the cultural tall tales of the region. additionally, the storytelling ritual allows each player to distinguish himself among his peers, to establish his credibility within the culture, and to compete for the biggest reactions from his audience. ed piacentino calls “died and gone to vegas” the “cajun canterbury tales” (123), and indeed the steam boat’s 62 spring 2017 name, cheekily, is the leo b. canterbury. each player takes a turn telling a tall tale in the style of what gautreaux himself calls “energetic hyperbole” (levasseur and rabalais 22), and the tales grow increasingly unbelievable as the game progresses. all but nick’s story are designed to incite laughter at the expense of a bumbling protagonist who incurs unbelievable, sometimes slapstick, misfortune because of his greed. similarly, the kweilin joy luck women had told each other humorous stories about “a rooster that ran into the house screeching on top of dinner bowls, the same bowls that held him quietly in pieces the next day! and one about a girl who wrote love letters for two friends who loved the same man. and a silly foreign lady who fainted on a toilet when firecrackers went off next to her” (24). jing-mei does not participate in the oral storytelling when she plays mah jong, nor is it necessarily expected of her, but nick is pressured into telling a tale, which he does reluctantly, as a necessary completion of his initiation into the bourré group. he does, however, assert some individuality and control over the ritual by telling of a tale based on selflessness and success rather than on greed and misfortune. the tale seems to be gautreaux’s way of pondering the future and adaptability of the culture, but as soon as the tale concludes, raynelle wins a wealthy pot and immediately begins making plans to head to vegas. nick’s daydream prediction about the misfortunes she will encounter, which include losing her money, getting in a fight with a blackjack dealer, and hitching a ride home with a group of jehovah’s witnesses in a broken-down car, is the final tale of the story and assures the reader that the storytelling tradition as it exists is firmly planted. one final, fascinating correlation between mah jong and bourré, which is not necessarily represented fully by tan or gautreaux, is their similar approach to game-playing ethics; namely, both games prohibit mercy or sympathy towards one’s opponents. paul festa explains, in mahjong any form of cooperation among players is prohibited and speaks poorly of a person’s ‘game character’ (paipin). indeed, one important measure of skill and talent in mahjong, sheng tells us, is precisely the degree to which one player is able to impair the game of another— and “the victim will then turn around and praise the victor.” (20-21) similarly, sfetcu explains that bourré generally has a “must play to win” rule which “can have contentious results if a player is playing ‘nice,’ trying to keep others from bourréing. most games disallow such ‘nice’ plays; players must attempt to bourré [to cause another player to take no tricks] as many other players as possible” (n.p.). playing games as cultural expression middle tennessee state university 63 though mah jong and bourré are both social games with deep, cultural heritages, there ultimately can be only one winner at the table. however, the mah jong groups in the joy luck club, while ritualistic and steeped in tradition, are not ultimately cutthroat, and raynelle’s bourré game is concerned more with the stories than the money. so, perhaps the documentary burden of cultural, regional fiction extends only so far before the loyalty to narrative takes over. mah jong and bourré are only two examples of regional games studied by folklorists and historians and preserved in fiction. additionally, scholars have found meaningful work studying other areas of gameplay, such as children’s schoolyard games, board games, and video games, not to mention sports. works of literature featuring games bring them to life with vivid detail while honoring the cultures surrounding them. clearly, game playing traditions are fertile fields for scholars to harvest, and hopefully more authors will follow tan’s and gautreaux’s example and produce fiction which highlights under-utilized regional games. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2017 works cited bragg, rick. “in louisiana, card game reveals the cajun spirit.” (1996). somebody told me: the newspaper stories of rick bragg. ed. rick bragg. new york: vintage books, 2000. 166-68. print. brunvand, jan harold. the study of american folklore: an introduction. new york: norton, 1968. print. de caro, frank. folklife in louisiana photography: images of tradition. baton rouge: louisiana state up, 1990. print. dronet, curney j. a century of acadian culture: the development of a cajun community: erath (1899-1999). erath, la: acadian heritage and culture foundation, 2000. print. engler, henry j. rules and techniques of bourré. baton rouge: henry j. engler, 1964. print. festa, paul e. “mahjong politics in contemporary china: civility, chineseness, and mass culture.” positions 14.1 (2006): 7-35. project muse. web. 28 nov. 2014. fickle, tara. “american rules and chinese faces: the games of amy tan’s the joy luck club.” melus 39.5 (2014): 68-88. oxfordjournals.org. web. 25 nov. 2014. gautreaux, tim. same place, same things. new york: st. martin’s, 1997. print. gibson, walter b. hoyle’s modern encyclopedia of card games. garden city, ny: dolphin, 1974. print. greenfield, mary c. “‘the game of one hundred intelligences’: mahjong, materials, and the marketing of the asian exotic in the 1920s.” pacific historical review 79.3 (2010): 329-359. jstor. web. 25 nov. 2014. guidry, preston, graeff, benny, and ivy lantier, eds. official rules and techniques of the cajun card game bourré (boo-ray). louisiana: national cajun bourre association, 1988. print. levasseur, jennifer, and kevin rabelais. “interview with tim gautreaux.” mississippi review 27.3 (1999): 19-40. ebscohost. web. 26 nov. 2014. mood, terry ann. american regional folklore: a sourcebook and research guide. santa barbara: abc-clio, 2004. print. middle tennessee state university 65 playing games as cultural expression nickens, roy j. bouré. baton rouge, la: bouré publishing company, 1972. print. piacentino, ed. “second chances: patterns of failure and redemption in tim gautreauz’s same place, same things.” southern literary journal 38.1 (2005): 115-133. ebscohost. web. 26 nov. 2014. rep, jelte. the great mahjong book: history, lore, and play. north clarendon, vt: tuttle, 2006. print. sfetcu, nicolae. a gambling guide. google ebook. 2014. tan, amy. the joy luck club. new york: penguin, 1989. print. wong, sau-ling cynthia. “‘sugar sisterhood’: situating the amy tan phenomenon.” the ethnic canon: histories, institutions, and interventions. ed. david palumboliu. minneapolis: u of minnesota p, 1995. 174-212. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2017 the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia muhammad a. yadudu abstract since georgia enacted its widely acclaimed merit aid hope policies, many states have followed suit, ostensibly due to its large, positive, and significant impact on college enrollment. there has been muted interest in the impact of the policy on high school graduation of both students who will go on to college and those who will not. using a differences-in-differences methodolog y, i contrast high school graduation rates in georgia against similar states and found the enactment of the hope scholarship has increased the probability of graduating high school by 12.5%. when viewed in light of a 7% point jump in college enrollment due to hope scholarships (cornwell et al., 2006), i conclude that the policy has increased the graduation rates—by about 5%—of students who will not be immediately enrolling in college after graduation from high school. 80 spring 2017 middle tennessee state university 81 america may be facing a silent high school graduation problem. although figures provided by government agencies seem to show a tremendous leap in graduation rates (see figure 1), the raw numbers mask a hidden but fundamental problem. by 2011, around 12% of all high school graduates obtained this credential through the general education degree (ged) (murnane, 2013).1 while statistically indistinguishable, labor market outcomes and long-term educational achievement is very different among ged holders than among true high school graduates (cameron & heckman, 1993). figure 1. a plot of graduation rates over time. the dotted line shows the graduation rate, including the ged, while the dashed line shows the graduation rate without ged credentials, assuming the ged rate is 12% of the total every year. source: https://eric.ed.gov /?id=ed524955. to develop and maintain a highly skilled workforce, many states have resorted to providing merit-based subsidies that incentivize college enrollment. however, fenske et al. (1997) argue that policies that intervene earlier in students’ education may be just as important. research on the efficacy of these merit-based policies tend to focus mainly on the impact of said policy on tertiary enrollment (dynarski, 2002). in this study, i examine the impact of georgia’s helping outstanding pupils educationally (hope) scholarship on high school graduation. using a pooled 1. the general educational development (ged) certificate was supposed to be an equivalent credential to the high school diploma for veterans of the second world war. it has later morphed into the medium through which many black, hispanic and lower income individuals receive their diploma. as a result of this transformation, the value of the credential has weakened considerably (cameron & heckman, 1993). the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia cross-section of ipums cps annual social and economic supplement (asec) data, i analyze the impact of georgia’s 1993 hope scholarship/grant programs on graduation rates. i use a differences-in-differences identification strategy to contrast the graduation rates of individuals in georgia against those in other states after the hope program was started. the main contribution of this paper is the better understanding it provides of the positive impacts of merit aid policies such as the hope scholarship. i expect the rate of high school graduation to increase in georgia relative to its peer states that lack a merit aid policy. high school graduation rates will increase because (1) the discounted cost of attending an institution of higher education is reduced substantially, and (2) the demand for labor in states with merit aid policies will gravitate towards students with higher educational attainment. i find that the enactment of the hope scholarship increased the probability of students graduating from georgia high schools by around 12.5%. in practical terms, this result echoes the conclusions of henry and rubinstein (2002) and pallais (2009). in both instances, the performance of students on standardized tests increased in states where merit aid policies are instituted relative to peer states. it is not surprising that scores on standardized tests improved, since the eligibility conditions of merit aid rests on the students attaining a minimum cutoff on the tests. what is surprising is that distribution scores have shifted upwards; fewer students perform poorly on standardized tests when merit aid policies are enacted. along similar lines, i also find the distribution of graduating grade point averages (gpas) is shifting upwards towards the cutoff point. background as part of legislation aiming to introduce a lottery into the state of georgia, governor zell miller in 1991 proposed a unique model where the bulk of the proceeds of the lottery scheme would be devoted to educational causes. in 1991,the georgia legislature passed the lottery amendment while statewide residents narrowly passed a referendum supporting the amendment in 1992. this paved the way for the enactment of the hope scholarship and the hope grant programs. the hope scholarship the hope scholarship was created to encourage the academic achievement of georgia’s high school students and georgians seeking degrees from postsecondary institutions (georgia student finance commission, n.d.). funding for the program is derived from georgia lottery for education, and is administered by the 82 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia middle tennessee state university 83 georgia student finance commission. to qualify for a hope scholarship, a student must be a u.s. citizen, a georgia resident for at least 12 consecutive months prior to the award, and must graduate high school with a 3.0 gpa. to retain the scholarship, the student must maintain a 3.0 or b average throughout his/her academic program (limited to 6 years) with regular inspection by the state to ensure compliance. the scholarship is very generous—estimated around $4,700 in the 2003 academic year (cornwell et al., 2006). when the hope scholarship was first enacted, a student could get $1,000 towards tuition at private universities. this amount was later increased to $3,000 to reflect the growing trend of tuition increases. at the beginning of the program, eligibility was capped for students whose annual family income exceeds $66,000. the $66,000 hard cap was first increased to $100,000 in 1994 but then later abolished in 1995. the hope grant this is the second plank of the lottery-funding program introduced under the hope program. the hope grant program provides assistance to residents of georgia pursuing certificates or diplomas at georgia’s public tertiary institutions. its aim is to encourage residents to obtain practical training provided in 2-year colleges to broaden the talent pool of georgia’s workforce. the eligibility criteria for the hope grant program are the same as for the scholarship with one exception: students need not graduate with a 3.0 gpa. merit aid: incentive, effort, and high school student quality bishop (1996) argues that pecuniary incentives that subsidize college costs are also expected to elicit more effort by high school students in order to meet or exceed the threshold of the merit aid policy. to demonstrate how this transpires, consider the following. students cannot determine ex-ante if their academic effort will enable them scale the eligibility threshold. to obtain a grade point average sufficient for the merit aid scholarship, students who are either at or are perceived to be right below the threshold will likely exert more effort to scale that hurdle. that is, a student with a 2.9 gpa may exert moderately more effort to cross the 3.0 mark. at the same time, a student with a 2.5 gpa may substantially improve his/her effort in order to scale the threshold. even if the student with the 2.5 gpa falls short of the cutoff (finishing with a 2.9 gpa, for example), that student’s probability of graduation nonetheless increases immensely. in essence, merit aid creates a positive externality that leads students to perform better, hence improving the chances of graduation (betts, 1998; kremer, miguel, & thornton, 2009) indeed, the number of students graduating with a 2.90-2.99 gpa rose faster in georgia than in surrounding states (bugler, henry, & rubenstein, 1999). another externality introduced by merit aid policies is that they improve the quality of high school students across the ability spectrum (betts, 1998). employers will realize that when standards are improved, the quality of students seeking to attain those standards is higher, and they therefore should be compensated differently. while the general consensus is that merit aid improves quality, price suggests that merit aid simply rewards students who do not need the help (2001). he contends that since well-to-do students will attend college with or without merit aid, the policies do not lead to the attainment of their main objective: providing “equal opportunity.” both higher achieving students through the hope scholarship and lower achieving students through the hope grant benefit from merit aid policy. note that the main eligibility criteria of the hope grant are high school graduation regardless of grade. rational students who had no thought of obtaining post-secondary education are incentivized to graduate with the promise of a free technical education. the skills learned from these technical colleges would have taken years to obtain if the student had started working immediately upon graduation from high school ( jepsen, troske, & coomes, 2014). data and empirical specification data i use data from three major sources in this study: the march annual social and economic supplement (asec) from the current population survey (cps);2 common core data from the national center for educational statistics; and local area unemployment statistics from the bureau of labor statistics. i pool asec data from 1993–2003 to create a large data set containing the constructed graduation status of all individuals. i create the graduation status variable as a binary variable coded as 1 for any individual in the data with an above 12th-grade education and coded as 0 for any individual who has a 12th-grade education and below. due to a large sample size and compatibility issues, the analysis is limited to the 16 comparable states in the southern regional educational board (sreb)3 as done in cornwell et al. (2006). 2. asec cps provides the usual monthly labor force data, but in addition it also provides supplemental data on work experience, income, noncash benefits, educational attainment, and migration. https:// www.census.gov/prod/techdoc/cps/cpsmar13.pdf 3.these states are alabama, arkansas, delaware, florida, georgia, kentucky, louisiana, maryland, mississippi, north carolina, oklahoma, south carolina, tennessee, texas, virginia, and west virginia. 84 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia middle tennessee state university 85 table 1 shows the similarities between georgia and the sreb states. i include as control variables parental income, school investments in facilities and teachers, and macroeconomic variables such as unemployment and minimum wage. data on state expenditures were extracted from nces’ common core data while unemployment figures were derived from the bureau of labor statistics. all other variables were sourced from the cps asec data. table 1 means of key variables in the sreb sample georgia sreb graduation rates (%) 66 68 hours worked (weekly) 16.8 17.54 household income ($) 70,015 66,764 parents with hs diploma (%) 85 81 state per capita education expenditures ($) 7,493 7034 unemployment rates 5.26 4.56 youth labor force participation (%) 53 57 no. observations 329 6847 notes. income figures are expressed as 1995 dollars. i removed all entries with negative income figures and limited all the income variables to within three standard deviations of the mean. i limited hours worked weekly at 60. these adjustments did not alter the sample size significantly. to obtain an accurate representation of high school graduation, i construct a variable that looks at the current state of residence and tied it to the migratory history of the respondent. cps data has a variable that captures the migration history of respondents over one-year intervals. for example, if a respondent indicates alabama as his current state of residence and also indicates no history of migration over the past year, then this suggests that the state of residence and the state of high school graduation are the same. a secondary outcome variable that estimates whether or not the hope program increases the probability of young adults joining the labor force is considered. this is a binary variable that indicates whether or not the respondent is in the labor force. cps data also has demographic data about the respondent’s age, sex, gender, and family characteristics. i present some summary statistics in table 2. table 2 breakdown of key variables by state states hours worked weekly household income ($) parents with hs diploma (%) per capita educ exp ($) unp rates (%) youth lfp (%) #. of obs. alabama 16.5 63,923 84 6,239 5.6 58 337 arkansas 17.47 58,599 83 6,078 5.4 64 289 delaware 20.1 77,302 86 9,599 4.2 58 294 florida 16.9 66,680 84 7,287 5.1 60 988 kentucky 16.98 67,889 82 6,338 5.4 62 362 louisiana 15.7 65,556 85 6,304 6.4 60 296 maryland 19.57 93,635 93 9,012 6.4 56 286 mississippi 14.12 56,132 76 5,351 6 50 316 north carolina 19.27 69,643 83 6,473 4.7 59 617 oklahoma 17.66 65,581 88 5,980 4.5 59 368 south carolina 16.97 70,885 82 7,280 5.6 55 305 tennessee 18.33 71,118 84 6,041 4.9 60 292 texas 18 59,325 70 7,215 5.7 55 1318 virginia 19.7 78,689 86 7,654 3.9 54 382 west virginia 15.12 57,287 84 7,790 6.9 50 397 georgia 16.8 70,015 86 7,492 4.5 53 329 notes. per capita educ exp. represents state expenditures per pupil. unp rates are mean unemployment rates. youth lfp stands for youth labor force participation rates. no. of obs. stands for number of observations empirical methodology the aim of this study is to examine whether georgia’s merit aid (the hope scholarship) has increased the rate of high school graduation. at first blush, the answer seems mechanically simple. when merit aid is available, more students will graduate from high school in pursuit of the program’s benefits. the eligibility criteria, which requires students to attain a 3.0 gpa, presents a twist on this presumption. that is, students with a 3.0 gpa or above typically graduate from high school with or without merit aid. hence, the graduation rate of students with a gpa that exceeds the threshold will not be affected by the policy. those at the margin and those within striking distance of the cutoff are the ones most affected by the policy. 86 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia middle tennessee state university 87 therefore, the identifying assumption is that upon enacting the hope program, high school students in georgia will graduate at higher rates than their counterparts in surrounding states with similar characteristics. i use a differences-in-differences method similar to its application in singell, waddell, and curs (2006) to determine the impact of the hope program on high school graduation: grad it = ∂ (ga* hope)+yxi + αt+βs (st)+ εit we compare each individual i at time t, to determine whether the policy as implemented causes the graduation status to differ between georgia and the surrounding states. st are state level macro variables that change over time, such as unemployment and education expenditures. ga is an indicator for the state of georgia, and hope is an indicator for years after 1994. even though the hope scholarship was enacted in 1993, i am constrained to use 1995 as a cutoff due to the data setup. by design, the asec cps data is collected in march of every year. any respondent that indicates he or she has graduated must be referring to his status based on the previous year. that is, if a respondent in march 1995 indicates having completed 12th-grade, then it must mean that he or she graduated around june 1994. the coefficient of interest is hope.x, is a vector of individual level covariates, and is the error term. i include a linear time trend to control for secular growth in graduation rates. graduation rates in the u.s. have been rising due to higher college premium, the sophistication of the u.s. economy, and laws aimed at keeping students in school. this time trend variable is expected to wash away most of the up-tick in graduation rates coming from other sources. nces data show large disparities in graduation rates between male and female, white and black, and low-income and high-income groups (nces, 2011). this makes it imperative to analyze the sample with respect to these dimensions. while it is hard to detach the impact of class from the impact of race on high school graduation rates, storer et al. (2012) still find the difference in drop-out rates on the basis of race statistically significant. results and discussion full sample i initially ran a naive model of equation (1) above in order to obtain a sense of the magnitude and direction of the coefficients. to do this, i ran a simple logit without any non-student covariates, hence obtaining the summary estimates of the model as seen in column 1 of table 3. the reported coefficients are the marginal effects of the policy. judging by the low f statistic of the specification, the model is not properly specified. the coefficient shows the positive correlation between the enactment of the hope program and higher graduation rates. table 3 marginal impact of merit aid policies on high school graduation (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) ga*hope 0.168** 0.121** 0.138** 0.125* 0.099* parental characteristics x y y y y individual characteristics x x y y y state level covariates x x x y y no. of observations 7176 7,176 7176 7,176 7176 pseudo r2 0.05 0 0.19 0 0.26 notes. *** p< 0.01, ** p< 0.05, *p < 0.1. i estimate a second model that measures parental income and present the results in column (2) of table 3. this shows the enactment of the hope scholarship in georgia has led to a 12.1% increase in graduation rates. i improve the model further by adding variables dealing with parental education as controls to determine the causal impact of the hope scholarship. this is motivated by the work of foley, gallipoli, and green (2014) who argued that there is a strong causal relationship between the educational attainment of parents and the graduation decision of their children. after adding parental education measures, the coefficient for increases from 12.1% as seen in model (2) to 13.8% in this specification (column 3, table 3). the fourth model is my preferred specification. it incorporates macroeconomic variables in addition to the covariates mentioned above. column 4 of table 5 shows the result of this analysis. it shows that the marginal effect of instituting the hope scholarship program on graduation rates in georgia is around 12.5% significant at a 90% confidence level. these results are comparable but smaller in magnitude to keane and wolpin (2000) who conclude that a proposed $25,000 subsidy to low-income households can decrease high school drop out rates by two-thirds. 88 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia middle tennessee state university 89 other groups table 4 presents the estimates of the impact of hope scholarships/grants on high school graduation for female students, black students, and low-income groups. the first column of table 4 shows the regression results when the sample is restricted to female students. the marginal effect (0.143) is higher when compared to the full sample (0.125). the second column shows the result of the analysis when restricted to black students. the results show the hope scholarship increasing graduation rates of black students by 36%. the analysis on black students may be spurious due to small sample size. it is expected that, as in the case of females, black students should respond more to the policy. column 3 of table 4 presents the result of the analysis on lower income student’s regression. table 4 marginal impact of merit aid policies on different populations female students black students lower income upper income low educ. highly educ. ga*hope 0.143** 0.36+ 0.23** 0.07 0.042 0.158** (1.97) (4.57) (2.24) (0.91) (0.40) (2.44) parental characteristics y y y y y y individual characteristics y y y y y y state level covariates y y y y y y no. of observations 3293 1,015 3561 3506 3,576 3600 pseudo r2 0.22 0.18 0.14 0.24 0.16 0.23 notes. *** p< 0.01, ** p< 0.05, *p < 0.10. the numbers is parentheses are clusters standard errors. +the results from the black student sample may suffer from low sample size. the marginal effect of 0.23 indicates an above average impact for this group. the implied subsidy provided by the hope program is much higher for lower income families as a percentage of their income. it is not surprising that this group responds at a higher rate than their wealthier counterparts. these results are consistent with angrist and lavy (2002), who also find that the impact of high school cash incentives leads to stronger graduation rates for low-achieving students. discussion the social and economic gains of having more graduates in a state are both substantial and long lasting (catterall, 2011; levin et al., 2007). however, those who drop out and those who graduate differ in some important characteristics (eckstein & wolpin, 1999). factors such as a healthy labor market may incentivize students to drop out (mcneal, 2011). as such, providing a financial incentive may encourage students to stay in school and graduate. the impact of a comprehensive policy like the hope program, which incentivizes college enrollment, should also encourage students to graduate from high school. the estimates presented in tables 3 and 4 show graduation rates increasing by around 10% to 12.5% when the hope program was instituted. the results also confirm the heterogeneity of the policy’s impact on different groups. disaggregating the results for different subgroups is very useful, especially as it relates to formulating policy objectives because different groups have different elasticities to the policy. for instance, we can see from table 4 that lower income groups have a higher response rate to the policy when compared to the full group. the results suggest that around 5,793 more students are graduating from high school in georgia as a result of the hope program. this large increase in the number of high school graduates has significant impacts on the economy of the state. using d’andrea’s (2010) baseline estimates, every high school dropout is expected to cost the state $1,100 in medicare costs and $950 in incarceration costs annually. at this rate, georgia could save around $6.3 million in medicaid costs and about $5.5 million in incarceration expenses per year. conclusion i analyze the impact of merit aid policy in georgia (hope) on high school graduation rates. unlike many studies on this policy, my analysis seeks to find the pre-college benefits of the policy. results from differences-in-differences shows a 12.5% increase in high school graduation due to the policy. the responsiveness to the policy is more pronounced on the traditionally lower graduating groups—women, minorities, and students from poorer backgrounds. while the results presented here are robust, care must be taken in extrapolating the results to other states. because georgia was the first to implement the policy, it is uncomplicated to use georgia as a treatment. states that have not implemented a similar policy were similarly uncomplicated to use as controls. many states unveiled several policies to improve graduation rates in the 1990s, so extending the same model 90 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia middle tennessee state university 91 to other states will be susceptible to confounding effects. what can be concluded from this analysis is that when incentives are provided encouraging students to enroll in college, these same policies will have a positive effect on all students—not just those who will eventually enroll in college. the impact of the hope scholarship on high school graduation in georgia 92 spring 2017 references angrist, j. d., & lavy, v. (2002). the effect of high school matriculation awards: evidence from randomized trials. (nber working paper no. 9389). cambridge, ma: national bureau of economic research. retrieved from http://dx.doi. org/10.3386/w9389 betts, j. r. (1998). the impact of educational standards on the level and distribution of earnings. the american economic review, 88(1), 266-275. bishop, j. (1996). signaling, incentives, and school organization in france, the netherlands, britain, and the united states. in e. hanushek and d. jorgenson (eds.), improving america’s schools: the role of incentives (pp. 111146). washington, dc: national academy press. bugler, d. t., henry, g. t., & rubenstein, r. (1999). an evaluation of georgia’s hope scholarship program: effects of hope on grade inflation, academic performance, and college enrollment. retrieved from council for school performance: http://www.issuelab.org/resources/4112/4112.pdf catterall, j. s. 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(2012). moving beyond dichotomies: how the intersection of race, class and place impacts high school graduation rates for african american students. journal of sociology & social welfare, 39(1), 17-44. retrieved from http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=3648&context=jssw 94 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care calista barberi abstract youth aging out of foster care every year pose a potential security and financial liability to society (the annie e. casey foundation, 2013). although several policies and programs exist for these young adults, limited evidence exists as to the efficacy of these programs (courtney et al., 2011). further funding and program evaluation are needed, as well as a more clearly defined continuity of services to young adults in the process of aging out of foster care. politicians must rise to the occasion to modify funding in existence, and advocate to effectively care for this vulnerable population (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). middle tennessee state university 95 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research youth aging out of foster care are not prepared for adulthood, which is a national crisis for the future of society. although such youth are the future, they currently have a frightening risk of incarceration, living in poverty, becoming homeless, and lacking basic skills for living independently (national youth in transition database, 2014). if the country at large is not willing to invest in youth aging out of foster care now, they will far exceed the investment cost by paying for these youths later in jails, food stamps, and a subgroup lacking skills to contribute to society (the annie e. casey foundation, 2013). while several options exist for youth aging out, limited studies exist as to which programs work and should continue to receive funding (valentine, skemer, & courtney, 2015). the solution to youth aging out is to first study programs created to help youth aging out, and then fund evidence-based programs nation-wide (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). congress should allocate more resources to researching what is effective, and then fund programs that make a difference. programs designed to help these aging out youth are developing merit, and they deserve funding to expand their programs and educate young adults on access to these resources (valentine et al., 2015). advocacy groups must come together to educate politicians on this social problem, encourage the funding for studies, and then utilize promising programs for the youth aging out of foster care. ultimately, the government is responsible for funding evidence-based programs to help youth aging out of foster care. each heading in this article exposes the problems of youth aging out and reveals the most responsible process and decision. first, one must become familiar with a specific social problem or issue of youth aging out of foster care. next comes identifying the array of options to help these youth, comparing the relative merits of each competing option. after evaluating the lack of positive programs, the researcher drafts a proposal and seeks supporters for the proposal. key presentations are crucial for the proposal’s success, and the conclusion of this article evaluates the issue of youth aging out of foster care. familiarize oneself with a specific social problem or issue youth aging out of foster care fare worse than their peers, lacking “financial resources as well as family and other supports, placing them at risk for developmental disruptions and other negative outcomes” such as low educational attainment, homelessness, health problems, employment issues, and financial difficulties (paul-ward & landon-polovina, 2016, p. 2). youths aging out of foster care are also more likely to have lower grades, drop out of high school, find less than full-time employment, 96 spring 2017 and spend their working lives at or below the poverty line. youths with a history of poverty or trauma are also at a greater risk for mental health problems (paul-ward & landon-polovina, 2016). also, a correlation exists between the adult homeless population and those who have a history in foster care. further research found correlations between youth in foster care and substance use, mental health diagnoses, and poor work history (patterson, moniruzzaman, & somers, 2015). in congruence with this study, another cohort found that foster youth may have a sense of “learned helplessness” (gomez, ryan, norton, jones, & galán-cisneros, 2015). youth in foster care have every decision made for them, so they have not developed the habit of making decisions for themselves. this helplessness also stems from the trauma the foster children endured at a young age as well as moving from foster family to foster family (gomes et al., 2015). conservative estimates find that one in five will become homeless after 18; at age 24, only half will be employed; less than three percent will have earned a college degree; 71% of women will be pregnant by 21; and one in four will have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder at twice the rate of united states war veterans. too often, many are at risk of moving back into government systems—from juvenile centers to prison (soronen, 2014). in addition to the studies and journal articles, a national youth in transition database (nytd) survey also reports data on the well-being of foster care youth aging out of custody. the nytd shows youth in foster care have many risk factors that could potentially harm a youth’s ability to succeed as an adult. the study compared foster care youth at age 17 and age 19. a number of youth had risk factors at age 17, including homelessness, drug use, and incarceration (national youth in transition database, 2014). at age 19, several of the youth continued to have substance use issues, 24% were incarcerated over the past couple of years, and 12% had children. youth aging out of foster care are also at greater risk for homelessness. out of the nytd surveyed youth, 19% of males and 20% of females reported being homeless at some point between ages 17 and 19. the nytd survey showed that those who are no longer in foster care at age 19 were at the greatest risk of becoming homeless. moreover, the nytd survey shows that females who had children by age 17 were more likely to have another child by age 19. however, the nytd survey shows that youths who had some support with at least one positive adult at age 17 were more likely to continue that relationship until 19 (national youth in transition database, 2014). the nytd middle tennessee state university 97 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research survey reports hope for young adults and that policies regarding young adults aging out can continue to be developed. some states have worked hard to extend foster care to 21, but resources for older youth are limited and difficult to access. a health and human services report found that the foster care independence program meant to help foster children make the transition to adulthood is inconsistent from state to state, and it provides too little for these troubled young people (soronen, 2014). congress has recognized youth aging out of foster care as a problem, and it thereby passed the foster care independence act of 1999. per the national indian child welfare association, the foster care independence act has increased funding to children aging out of foster care and changed some of the eligibility requirements. the act also allocates funds for youth that are already out of foster care but under age 21. some of the money can be used to help with the cost of housing (summary of the foster care independence act of 1999, 2016). the foster care independence act also allocates a portion of the funds to help with employment and continuing education (social security administration, 1999). the funds provide assistance in obtaining a high school diploma, secondary education, career exploration, housing, vocational training, job placement and retention, training in budgeting, substance abuse prevention education, and educa tion in preventive health measures including smoking avoidance, nutrition education, and pregnancy prevention. (social security administration, 1999, para 21) the social security administration also includes the fact that medicaid expanded its coverage to “18, 19, and 20-year-olds who have left foster care” (social security administration, 1999, para 21). a john h. chafee foster care independence program is funded by the foster care independence act and aids youth aging out in several independent living areas (children’s bureau 2012). courtney et al. (2011) evaluated the foster care independence act, comparing youths in the states of iowa, wisconsin, and illinois. by age 26, youth who had aged out of foster care had significantly less education, both high school and post-secondary education, when compared to the youth in the general population. a high percentage of these 26-year-old former foster youth were also living at or below the poverty line. to be exact, “two-thirds of the young women and 42 % of the young men reported that they had been food stamp recipients” (courtney et al., 2011, p. 43). the study reports that children who can stay in foster care until age 21 generally fare better than those 98 spring 2017 who exit custody at age 18. the study also emphasizes that programs need further evaluation to determine efficacy. therein lies a crucial problem: youth aging out still struggle, even though laws and funds exist to help them (courtney et al. 2011). congress must allocate more funds in the foster care independence act for studies evaluating programs to help youth aging out, and it must then demand funding for programs that work. identify an array of relevant options advocates for youth aging out of foster care must consider a variety of options when looking at the lack of research for programs aiding youth who age out of foster care. currently, the chaffee independence program allocates only a very small percentage of funds for studying program efficacy (mcdaniel et al., 2014). because these youths have varied backgrounds and experiences, they need a personalized program to “meet each youth’s individual needs rather than provided uniformly to all youth in care” (mcdaniel et al., 2014, p. 3). the options available to youth aging out have limited documented efficacy (mcdaniel et al., 2014). therefore, researchers must conduct more studies regarding youth aging out and the programs created to help them (mcdaniel et al., 2014). one program out of illinois is the community assistance programs (cap) (dworsky & havlicek, 2010). the cap is a four-week classroom and job-practice training program, and it provides subsidized employment at the end of training (dworsky & havlicek, 2010). this program specifically targets employment and does not touch other aspects of adult living, such as filling out a housing lease or balancing a budget. moreover, of the “298 foster youth who were the focus of our study, 42% were placed in at least one subsidized job but only 26 % completed at least 1 hour of employment at subsidized jobs in which they were placed” (dworsky & havlicek, 2010, p. 31). the researchers indicate that the lack of participation may be due to youth expressing interest in one type of job but getting assigned to a job that held little to no interest to them (dworsky & havlicek, 2010). this study noted that the program had limited funds, and the study was limited to one county (dworsky & havlicek, 2010). furthermore, the study was performed “for administrative purposes rather than for research” (dworsky & havlicek, 2010, p. 33). thus, dworsky and havlicek conclude that more researchers need to study the programs designed to help youth aging out in order to determine their effectiveness (2010). like caps, a plethora of other programs exist to help solve part of the problem of youth aging out. the covenant house exists to help homeless young middle tennessee state university 99 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 100 spring 2017 adults, including those aging out of foster care. they provide temporary housing for those that have no place to live, and they advocate for change within the foster care system. this program focuses on two aspects: homelessness and awareness (“foster care,” 2016). the jim casey youth opportunities initiative, which influences policy for youth aging out, produced the opportunity passport. the opportunity passport aims to help youth aging out financially by helping the youth set up a bank account and matching the funds the youth contributes (kunchinski, peters, & sherraden, 2012). a resource website for youth aging out reports an organization for youth if they are going to college, an organization with inspiring stories of youth aging out, and a workbook developed to help youth aging out of foster care (“aging out institute,” 2016). each program serves youth aging out in part of their struggles, but most fail to support the whole of the vulnerable young adult. the youth villages yvlifeset program is another program that serves vulnerable young adults. valentine, skemer, and courtney of the manpower demonstration research corporation evaluated the efficacy of the yvlifeset program with positive outcomes (2015). using “evidence-informed tools, counseling, and action-oriented activities,” yvlifeset teaches independent living skills to these young adults (valentine et al., 2015, p. 4). the yvlifeset program targets six main areas: “employment and earnings, housing stability and economic well-being, health and safety . . . education, social support, and criminal involvement” (valentine et al., 2015, p. 10-11). yvlifeset improved the outlook for youth aging out of foster care in the subjects of “earnings, increased housing stability and economic well-being” (valentine et al., 2015, p. 7). although the yvlifeset program did not improve all six targeted areas in a participant’s life, it has the best outcomes compared to other programs that serve vulnerable young adults. again, the study emphasized the need for more research regarding programs aimed at helping youth who are aging out of the foster care system (valentine et al., 2015). if research does not somehow show that a program is effective, then congress should question whether that program should continue to receive funding. compare the relative merits of competing options although each competing program has merit, none of the previously mentioned programs is evidence-based to the point of providing nation-wide recommendations for youth aging out of foster care. for example, the caps program is a classroom based program, which yielded few positive results and had one study with no research purpose (dworsky & havlicek, 2010). the foster care coalition, jim casey youth opportunities act, and numerous other organizations aim to alleviate the problem of youth aging out (“aging out institute,” 2016). the yvlifeset has one randomized control trial, which produced positive results in three out of six portions of the study, but this is not an impressive study (valentine et al., 2015). if manpower demonstration research corporation receives no more funds for research, yvlifeset is the best evidence-based option for youth aging out of foster care (valentine et al., 2015). despite the relative success of yvlifeset, however, more studies on this issue need to be funded; funding programs that do not make a difference in the lives of foster care youth risks condemning foster youth to poverty and subsequent hardships in life. per an interview with a. rivera, a national policy advocate for youth aging out of foster care, the overall problem is that research over the last 16 years has yielded few results about what works for young adults (november 2016). programs may or may not work, and at this point policy advocates have very few randomized control trials to prove program efficacy (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). since the passage of the foster care independence act of 1999, youth are still behind their peers in their ability to be contributing adult members of society (courtney et al., 2011). several competing options exist to help foster youth who age out, and congress must re-evaluate which programs receive funding before backing a specific program. each of the programs listed says that it benefits youth aging out, but very little quantitative or qualitative evidence exists. the chafee foster care independence program (cfcip) must modify funding and work collaboratively with the states to fund studies adequately and, consequently, programs proving to make a difference (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). draft a proposal currently, advocates for youth aging out are already hard at work in washington, d.c. to make changes for these vulnerable young adults. the yvlifeset program employs an advocate who is working on a national proposal to fund further studies of programs aimed at helping youth aging out of foster care. although yet to be formally presented, the rough-draft proposal includes the mission to “promote the growth of promising and innovative programs for improving the outcomes of transition-age foster youth; and the development and dissemination of a robust evidence-base on what works for improving outcomes” (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). fiscally, each youth aging out is costing approximately $300,000 over their lifetime (the annie e. casey foundation, 2013). similarly, another group of researchers have found the cost of youth aging out to be “approximately $20,800 per year” middle tennessee state university 101 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 102 spring 2017 per young adult aging out of foster care (peters, dworsky, courtney, & pollack, 2009, p. 2). the solution is to fund programs that help youth aging out and save the government money. to save the government money in the long-run, the proposal asks that there be an amendment to the chafee foster care independence program to allocate funds “to be used for research and development of innovative and promising approaches with the long-term goal of improving the employment, education, housing, mental health, financial stability, and/or criminal involvement outcomes of transition-age foster youth” (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). the primary funding source will be from the cfcip, but states and counties will also contribute and work with non-profit businesses and philanthropists to fund the studies and the programs themselves. the first phase suggests a 12-month study, where the “state and major county welfare agencies” participate in the grant program. the grant applicants will identify youth aging out or a subgroup of the population, current needs in the area for these youth, and “potential innovative or promising programs that would address identified needs of transition age foster in the state or county” (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). the proposal suggests capping the grants at 20 program participants for the first phase, with the total funding at $2.5 million divided among the grants. those programs that complete phase one will then be eligible for phase two, with grant amounts for $2 million for innovative programs, or $5 million for promising programs, over 5 years. the difference in an innovative and promising program is the number of randomized control trials already conducted for the program. the final phase is to fund collaboration between states that have evidence-based programs and states that lack services for youth aging out. those states that have completed the first two phases will then create a model to be used for states nationwide and produce a list of evidence-based programs which states must utilize to receive funds from the cfcip (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). the states will then choose from the evidence-based program list. the policy is an effective proposal. the proposal leaves some ambiguity, by giving some decisions to the states. this is an excellent strategy, considering that the current political climate supports state sovereignty. this policy implementation will require collaboration between legislators on all levels of government, as well as philanthropists, community organizations, not-for-profit organizations, and the youth aging out of foster care. it will require great commitment and cooperation, but helping this vulnerable population is worth the effort. seeking supporters for the proposal for the policy proposal to modify the chafee foster care independence program, the policy proposal needs support from all levels of government and from those not in government offices. some of the stakeholders involved with policies regarding youth aging out of foster care include the state departments over children’s services as well as judges, lawyers, probation officers, mental health providers, government and non-profit employment agencies, banks, those involved in the education system, and the youth aging out of the foster care system (valentine et al., 2015). specifically, for this proposal to amend the cfcip, foster care advocacy groups who support the proposal must seek additional support from lawmakers and the public. policy support includes support from advocacy groups and philanthropic support, such as the casey foundation, which supports the yvlifeset program out of youth villages (valentine et al., 2015). the mdrc study of the yvlifeset program was funded by “the edna mcconnell clark foundation, the annie e. casey foundation, and the bill & melinda gates foundation” (youth villages, 2015, p. 2). another example of philanthropic support is from the day foundation, which donated $42 million to youth villages to expand the yvlifeset program (rutschman & luecke, 2011). this kind of support is crucial in aiding to fund future studies for youth aging out. furthermore, government support is as crucial as philanthropic support. an example of key state supporters is already in place in tennessee. the support came in 2013 from gov. bill haslam and tennessee department of children’s services commissioner jim henry who “committed to helping youth villages offer the program to every young person who ages out of state custody in tennessee” (youth villages, 2015, p. 1). the state matched funds to youth villages to expand services. this unprecedented act of support is a great example of a collaborative effort between state officials and non-profits. although mr. henry is no longer the current commissioner, he can exert his personal influence over his contacts to support policy change. this type of support can continue with the proposal to modify funds to research programs and fund the evidence-based programs. another government official in support of young adults is u.s. representative jim cooper, who was involved with national adoption month (“jim cooper on families and children,” 2016). likewise, congresswoman diane black, who has ties with the yvlifeset program, is an additional government supporter of evidence-based programs for youth aging out of foster care (youth villages, 2016). on the other middle tennessee state university 103 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 104 spring 2017 side of the country is u.s. representative karen bass, who supported a proposal to extend the john h. chafee foster care independence program to youth up to age 23 (“legislation,” 2016). each of these government officials can be utilized to form a collaborative group dedicated to creating legislation for evidence-based programs for youth aging out of foster care. not only should government officials support policy to help youth aging out, but many non-profits should sponsor the policy for evidence-based programs. youth villages is a non-profit supporting youth aging out and is a key supporter of the policy to fund evidence-based programs (a. rivera, personal interview, 2016). in addition to advocacy on a national level, youth villages works on a state and local level to advocate for foster youth aging out (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). youth villages advocates support by utilizing youth speaking to the government officials and sharing their struggles and successes (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). advocates also create key partnerships with other community resources, and they work to spread awareness of the struggles for this population, and the yvlifeset program designed to help them (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). community relationships with those who already work with youth aging out of foster care is fundamental for fostering support for a policy proposal. the grassroots effort of staying connected with state workers, foster parents, lawyers, judges, and even the youths aging out of foster care is also important. thus, target audiences turn into advocates for policy change. specifically, for this proposal, a yvlifeset advocate can reach out to youth aging out, who then share their success stories with government officials, who then advocate at a state or national level for policy change (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). ultimate support for the proposed change to the cfcip needs a sponsor at the federal level, but advocacy comes from all types of people and organizations. these relationships are important for supporting the policy proposal to modify cfcip funding for evidence-based programs (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). make key presentations the first target audience to consider are the young adults who would be eligible to participate in the study. accordingly, this would include youth turning 17 in department of children’s services (dcs) custody but would also include those recently aged out, up to age 21. youth aging out must learn that their voice is important and become empowered to self-advocacy. nytd survey representatives will contact youth and ask for their input, explain the upcoming proposal to the youth in clear, easy-to-understand terms, and emphasize the importance of youth participation. the purpose of this presentation to the young adults are to elicit a response in order to determine if the youth is receptive to participating in another study. nytd representatives must collaborate with the state department to obtain the contact information for these youth and allocate three to six months for preparing youth to become their own advocates (national youth in transition database, 2014). the second target audience are the legislators and legislative staff who will support and vote on the policy proposal. legislators can use expert power, which occurs “when senders display their personal credentials and knowledge to convince others” ( jansson, 2014, p. 328). they do this by using the credentials of and the work done by the casey foundation and the example of the mdrc study already complete (valentine et al., 2015). legislators can also utilize value-based power, which “is derived from a person’s ability to appeal to others based upon their shared ethical commitments” ( jannson, 2014, p. 330). the legislator can connect with other legislators who are already advocating for youth aging out (“legislation,” 2016). on the national level, karen bass is an excellent target for supporting this change in funds for researching programs that aim to support youth aging out (“legislation,” 2016). furthermore, this advocate can reach out to conservatives, emphasizing the $300,000 per youth, and the nearly $7 billion dollars per year, for each cohort of youth aging out (the annie e. casey foundation, 2013). senators and representatives can utilize process power, which occurs when they work to “influence the tenor, tempo, or scope of conflict of deliberations in order to get a specific proposal enacted” ( jansson, 2014, p. 335). the congressmen do so by proposing the policy as a win-win situation, since the proposal utilizes already-existing funds with an emphasis on efficiency (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). although this proposal has the potential to drastically change and efficiently aid youth aging out, it is not a policy in need of mass media attention. key supporters at local, state, and national levels can support this proposal by reaching out to the national legislators through email and phone calls (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). keeping in mind that some conservatives oppose allocation of funds as “handouts,” the proposal should be the most efficient and cost-effective solution. using power and discretion are keys to getting the policy proposed and pushed through legislation, but the point is mute if the chafee foster care independence program lacks the connections with those who will carry out the studies. thus, the need for working with a task group, which will “focus on producing or middle tennessee state university 105 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care 106 spring 2017 influencing something external to the group itself” ( jansson, 2014, p. 402). organizations such as the casey foundation advocate for youth aging out and seek to influence policy. the casey foundation collaborated with mdrc to produce the randomized control trial for the yvlifeset program (valentine et al., 2015). therefore, the mdrc should conduct the future studies proposed in the change to the cfcip. they are the final target audience for the proposal to modify cfcip. conclusion consequently, youth aging out are not prepared for adulthood, and the programs that currently exist have little evidence that they help their target population (valentine et al., 2015). youth aging out pose a financial risk to society, and it is also fiscally responsible to limit funding to only evidence-based programs (the annie e. casey foundation, 2013). the government keeps these youth in custody until they turned 18. therefore, they are responsible for helping them become successful young adults. since very few randomized control trials currently exist, funding for more studies necessary to better utilize funds set aside to help youth aging out (valentine et al., 2015). the solution is to first study programs created to help youth aging out, and then fund evidence-based programs nation-wide (a. rivera, personal interview, november 2016). community advocates, philanthropists, non-profits, and legislators are among those who can make a difference in the lives of our most vulnerable young adults (k. mullins, phone interview, november 7, 2016). these stakeholders must work together to pass legislation to better utilize funds for programs to help our most vulnerable youth aging out of foster care. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research references aging out institute. (2016). aging out institute. retrieved from http://www. agingoutinstitute.org children’s bureau. (2012). john h. chafee foster care independence program. retrieved from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/resource/chafee-foster-care-program courtney, m. e., dworsky, a., hook, j., brown, a., cary, c., love, k., . . . bost, n. (2011). midwest evaluation of the adult functioning of former foster youth. retrieved from http://www.chapinhall.org/research/report/midwest-evaluation-adultfunctioningformerfoster-youth covenant house. (2016). foster care. retrieved from https://www.covenanthouse.org/ homeless-teen-issues/foster-care dworsky, a., & havlicek, j. (2010). an employment training and job placement program for foster youth in cook county, illinois. chicago: chapin hall at the university of chicago. retrieved from https://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/caps%20 report_06_24_10.pdf golden, o., macomber, j. e., & additional authors. (2009). intentions and results: a look back at the adoption and safe families act. retrieved from the urban institute and http://affcny.org/wpcontent/uploads/intentionsandresults.pdf gomez, r., ryan, t., norton, c., jones, c., & galán-cisneros, p. (2015). perceptions of learned helplessness among emerging adults aging out of foster care. child & adolescent social work journal, 32(6), 507-516. doi:10.1007/s10560-015-0389-1 jansson, b. s. (2014). becoming an effective policy advocate (7th ed.). belmont, ca: brooks/ cole. kunchinski, a. m., peters, c., & sherraden, m. (2012, may 4). enduring assets. the annie e. casey foundation. retrieved from http://www.aecf.org/m/ resourcedoc/um-enduringassets-2012.pdf legislation. (2016, april 8). retrieved on november 22, 2016 from https://fosteryouthcaucus-karenbass.house.gov/legislation national indian child welfare association. (2016, september 27). summary of the foster care independence act of 1999. retrieved from http://www.nicwa. org/law/fcia/pl106-169_summary.pdf national youth in transition database. (2014, december). comparing outcomes reported by young people at ages 17 and 19 in nytd cohort 1. in data brief #4. retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/nytd_ data_brief_4.pdf middle tennessee state university 107 policy analysis on youth aging out of foster care ontheissues. (2016, july 2). jim cooper on families and children: democratic representative (tn-5). retrieved from http://www.ontheissues.org/house/jim_cooper_ families_+_children.htm patterson, m. l., moniruzzaman, a., & somers, j. m. (2015). history of foster care among homeless adults with mental illness in vancouver, british columbia: a precursor to trajectories of risk. bmc psychiatry, 15(32), 1-11. doi:10.1186/ s12888-015-0411-3 paul-ward, a., & lambdin-pattavina, c. a. (2016). new roles for occupational therapy to promote independence among youth aging out of foster care. american journal of occupational therapy, 70(3), 1-5. doi:10.5014/ajot.2016.017426 peters, c. m., dworsky, a., courtney, m. e., & pollack, h. (2009). extending foster care to age 21: weighing the costs to government against the benefits to youth. chicago: chapin hall at the university of chicago. retrieved from https://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/publications/issue_brief%20 06_23_09.pdf rutschman, e., & luecke, s. (2011, august 2). day foundation announced $42 million legacy challenge grant to youth villages. in youth villages: the force for families. retrieved from http://news.youthvillages.org/day-foundation-announces-42million-legacy-challenge-grant-to-youth-villages social security administration. (1999, november 24). social security legislative bulletin. retrieved from https://www.ssa.gov/legislation/legis_bulletin_112499.html the annie e. casey foundation. (2013, may). issue brief: cost avoidance: the business case for investing in youth aging out of foster care. retrieved from http://www.aecf.org/m/ resourcedoc/jcyoi-costavoidance-2013.pdf valentine, e. j., skemer, m., courtney, m. e. (2015, may). becoming adults: one-year impact findings from the youth villages transitional living evaluation. retrieved from http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/mdrc-becomingadultsexecutivesu mmary-2015.pdf youth villages (2015, may). fact sheet: youth villages’ yvlifeset program. retrieved from http://www.youthvillages.org/portals/0/pdfs/media_section/yvlifeset%20 facts.pdf youth villages (2016, august 22). u.s. congressman diane black visits youth villages office in cookeville. retrieved from https://youthvillages.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/us-congressman-diane-black-visits-youth-villages-office-in-cookeville. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 108 spring 2017 new approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs middle tennessee state university 43 new approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs katherine stefanski tay-sachs disease (tsd) is a neurodegenerative disorder categorized as both a gangliosidosis and a lysosomal storage disease. tay-sachs is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme β-hexosaminidase a (hex a). there is no current remedy available for tsd. however, there have been promising studies and breakthroughs on the use of gene therapy to cure tay-sachs, and these studies will be discussed in this review article. initial progress was made using a cell line model for tsd which led to subsequent studies in hexa null knock-out mice and mice with sandhoff disease (a related disease involving the same enzyme). eventually, researchers were able to transduce the brain of sandhoff mice correcting the diseases neurological symptoms. most recently, felines with sandhoff disease were also successfully treated with gene therapy. advances made in lifespan, quality of life, and relative safety of the treatment in animal models implies a readiness for human trials. . abstract scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2015 introduction background tay-sachs disease (tsd), named for the two physicians who first described it, was discovered by warren tay, a british ophthalmologist, and bernard sachs, a neurologist from new york city. the disease presents beginning around six months of age with early blindness, severe mental retardation, paralysis, and in most cases death early in childhood before four years of age. it is most commonly seen in children of eastern european ashkenazi jewish descent as well as some french canadian and louisiana cajun populations.1 tsd is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes for the lysosomal enzyme β-hexosaminidase a (hex a), hexa.2 metabolic basis of tay-sachs tsd is classified as both a gangliosidosis and a lysosomal storage disease.2,3 gangliosides are the principal glycolipid comprising neuronal plasma membranes. their surface patterns are created and broken down by various biosynthetic and catabolic pathways. inherited defects in the catabolic pathways are known to exist in humans. when being recycled, gangliosides are endocytosed and degraded by lysosomes. defects in different ganglioside hydrolases such as β-galactosidase, β-hexosaminidase and gm2activator protein (gm2) cause different forms of gangliosidoses. an inherited deficiency in hex a, which leads to a ganglioside build-up in the patient, is the underlying cause of tsd, a diagnosis of which is confirmed through blood tests for hex a levels.1,3 the specific ganglioside that builds up in tsd sufferers is gm2. gm2 is the target of lysosomal enzyme hex a. β-hexosaminidase a is a heterodimer of α and β subunits encoded for by the genes hexa and hexb respectively. in tsd it is the hexa gene that is mutated causing the deficiency in hex a.2 the most common mutation, a 4-base pair insertion, causes the mrna transcript to be unstable despite normal transcription.4 however, other mutations also may cause the protein to be misfolded in the endoplasmic reticulum. this prevents the enzyme from being transported to the lysosome. in the lysosome, without hex a, gm2 cannot be broken down (fig. 1). hex a is responsible for the cleaving of n-acetylgalactosamine from gm2 ganglioside. without a means to metabolize gm2, it builds up in the cell and disrupts normal cellular function and eventually leads to cell death (fig. 2). martino et al. clarified the direct link between the lack of hex a and the build-up of its substrates.5 the related disorder, sandhoff disease, is caused by a mutation in hexb which encodes for the β subunit of hex a. its symptoms are clinically indistinguishable from tsd.5 since they involve the exact same enzyme complex, the two diseases are often studied side-by-side using animal models with sandhoff disease. new approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs middle tennessee state university 45 figure 1. diagram showing a comparison of a healthy ganglion cell and one affected by tay-sachs disease. in the healthy cell β-hexosaminidase a (hex a) is transported from the golgi apparatus to the lysosome (shown in white) where it breaks down ganglioside gm2 (gm2) the products of which are metabolized to ceramide. in the cell affected by tay-sachs disease hex a is either not made or is misfolded which causes it to not be transported to the lysosome (shown in gray). in the absence of hex a, gm2 accumulates (shown in stripes) and disrupts normal cellular function. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2015 figure 2. metabolic pathways involved in tay-sachs disease and sandhoff disease. ganglion cells metabolize gangliosides (gm1, gm2, and gm3) and globosides using enzymes that cleave off various groups from ceramide. a mutated α subunit hex a causes tay-sachs disease, while a mutated of β subunit of hex a causes the related disease, sandhoff disease. current management no cure exists for humans with tay-sachs disease. currently, the best method of prevention is carrier screening. between 1969 and 1998 1.331 million young adults volunteered for the tay-sachs carrier detection test worldwide. during that time period, the number of cases of individuals diagnosed with tsd per year dropped from 50-60 to approximately 2-6 in the us and canada.6,7 early attempts at intravenous enzyme replacement using purified human hex a to treat tsd and sandhoff disease were found to be ineffective.8 intracranial fusions and bone marrow transplants also proved to be clinically ineffective. meanwhile, families and clinicians can only manage the symptoms of the disease. palliative care includes feeding tubes, range-of-motions exercises and medications for seizures to comfort the patient and ease suffering before death.9 breakthroughs in gene therapy first steps in their paper published in 1996, akli et al. describe successfully restoring hex a activity in fibroblasts (a type of cell commonly found in connective tissue) taken from a human subject suffering from tsd using adenoviral vector-mediated gene transfer.10 the fibroblasts expressing the recombinant α subunit showed an enzyme activity of 40-80% of normal. these corrected cells secreted up to 25 times more hex a than the control tsd fibroblasts and showed a normalized degradation of gm2. new approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs middle tennessee state university 47 mouse models inspired by this accomplishment, members of the same research team (guidotti et al.) published a paper in 1999 describing their use of gene therapy to treat tsd in hex a null mice.11 their goal was to find an in vivo strategy that resulted in the highest hex a activity in the greatest number of tissues. it should be noted that they used adenoviral vectors carrying human hex genes. using vectors carrying the α subunit gene alone brought about only partial correction of hex a activity. intravenous co-administration of vectors coding for both α and β subunits of hex a demonstrated a more successful correction of hex a levels. the use of both subunits led to high levels of hex a being secreted by peripheral tissues (heart, liver, spleen, skeletal muscle, and kidney) indicating that exogenous α subunits were unable to dimerize with the low amounts of endogenous β subunits. the authors contended that while gene therapy would ideally require the transduction of the majority of cells in an organism, this was an unrealistic goal. therefore, it was their objective to transduce a large number of cells in a large organ causing them to produce and secrete hex a into the bloodstream in large enough quantities to be taken up by non-transduced cells. they found that injecting the liver brought about transduction of peripheral tissues while injecting other tissue, such as skeletal muscle, did not. the obvious drawback of this study is that hex a deficiency was not corrected in the brain. intravenous adenovirus gene transfer does not transduce the brain nor does the secreted enzyme from peripheral tissues cross the blood-brain barrier. treating the brain and body in their 2006 paper, cachon-gonzalez et al. describe their method of transducing neuronal cells with hex a α and β subunit genes.12 they used hexb null mice with sandhoff disease and treated them with stereotaxic intracranial inoculation of recombinant adeno-associated viral (raav ) vectors encoding both subunits of hex a, including an hiv tat sequence which greatly increases gene expression and distribution. the authors were able to show that raav transduces neurons and promotes the secretion of active hex a after a single injection. their evidence indicated a widespread delivery of the enzyme to both the brain and spinal cord. the mice in their study survived for over one year while the untreated mice died before 20 weeks of age. initially, the motor ability of the treated sandhoff mice was indistinguishable from the wild-type mice while the untreated mice showed a drastic decline in motor function. in their follow-up study published in 2012, cachon-gonzalez et al. used a modified treatment technique yielding more significant results.13 again, using raav vectors carrying both human hex a subunits, sandhoff mice were given intracranial co-injections into the cerebrospinal fluid space and intraparenchymal administration at a few strategic sites. mice were injected at one month and survived for an unprecedented two years, and the classical manifestations of the disease were completely resolved. an earlier study using neimann-pick disease supports cachon-gonzalez’s contention that multiple injection sites yield more clinically effective results.14 niemann-pick disease scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2015 is another lysosomal storage disease similar to tsd. passini et al. (2007) used mice with this disorder to further investigate gene therapy on lysosomal storage diseases.14 using raav vectors, they were able to reverse the pathology of the treated mice with both visceral and brain injections. these mice showed superior weight gain and recovery of motor and cognitive functions, when compared to mice treated with either brain or visceral injection alone. the authors assert that this affirms the benefits of multi-site gene delivery strategies in diseases that affect the whole body. feline experiments working from the successes of the trials with mice, bradbury et al. conducted studies using felines with sandhoff disease.15 a cat’s brain is more than 50 times larger than a mouse’s, making it a better analog for the treatment of human brains. the researchers first attempted treating two cats with the same vectors used in the mouse studies. these treated cats lived for 7.0 and 8.2 months while untreated cats survived for just 4.1 months. while the two treated cats did show an increase in lifespan, they also showed a pronounced immune response to aav vector and the human hex a. researchers then used aavrh8 vectors with feline hex a cdnas. three cats were injected with these vectors and survived for an average of 10.4 months. they also found that when phenotypically normal cats were injected with the aavrh8 vector and examined after 21 months, they showed no sign of vector toxicity.15 the cats receiving the aavrh8 vectors were injected twice. while they showed an increase in lifespan and quality of life, and hex a activity was increased in most regions of the brain, its activity was minimal in the temporal lobe and cerebellum. given that the cat brain is about 20 times smaller than a human infant’s, the authors suggest that additional injection sites would provide better therapeutic benefits.15 this assertion accords with the findings of passini et al. in neimann-pick mice. jacob sheep as a potential model a line of european jacob sheep with a disease similar to tsd has been discovered. the afflicted juveniles show a similar ataxia and early death as other tay-sachs animal models.17 these sheep exhibit a lack of hex a activity and a missense mutation in the hexa gene has been located.18 given that a sheep’s brain is even more similar in size and volume to a human brain these sheep are a promising model for the next steps of tay-sachs gene therapy research. researchers have an opportunity with these sheep to further refine injection strategies before human testing. conclusions human trials are the obvious next step in researching a gene therapy treatment for tay-sachs. promising results have been seen in experiments described above using gene transfer in human tay-sachs cells.12 the results of studies on mice have shown promise in the correction of hex a expression in the brain and body tissues of mice and felines.13,14 many advances have been made in the understanding of implementing gene therapy, spenew approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs middle tennessee state university 49 cifically in treatment of gangliosidoses. an understanding of the need to transfer the genes for both subunits of hex a has been established. viral-based gene therapy, however, has not been without its problems. host-induced antibodies and inflammation can limit the use of viral vectors. more specifically, antibodies to adenoviruses exist in most people, which limit reinjections. to combat this, second generation adenoviral vectors have been created with fewer viral genes, which reduce the host’s immune response. vector-related toxicity and immunogenicity related to the remaining viral genes can still present complications.16 nevertheless, improvements in the understanding of which vectors and techniques show success in transducing neural cells of the brain in tsd and sandhoff models have been made. additionally, these vectors and injection techniques have also not been shown to have deleterious side effects in asymptomatic animal models. given the progresses made in safety, any remaining risks of gene therapy are outweighed by the severity of tsd. human trials will hopefully demonstrate a reversal of symptoms in patients giving them a more normal lifespan. in fact, the tay-sachs gene therapy consortium, a collaborative of researchers from auburn university, boston college, harvard university/massachusetts general hospital, and cambridge university are attempting to begin these trials by the end of 2014.19 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2015 references 1. kaback, m. & desnick, r. (2001). tay-sachs disease: from clinical description to molecular defect. tay-sachs disease, 44, 1-10 2. srivastava, s. k., & beutler, e. (1974). studies on human beta-d-nacetylhexosaminidases. 3. biochemical genetics of tay-sachs and sandhoff ’s diseases. the journal of biological chemistry, 249(7), 2054-2057 3. sandhoff, k., & harzer, k. (2013). gangliosides and gangliosidoses: principles of molecular and metabolic pathogenesis. journal of neuroscience, 33(25), 1019510208. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.0822-13.2013 4. boles, d. j., & proia, r. l. (1995). the molecular basis of hexa messenger rna deficiency caused by the most common tay-sachs disease mutation. american journal of human genetics, 56(3), 716-724 5. martino, s., et al. (2009). “neural precursor cell cultures from gm2 gangliosidosis animal models recapitulate the biochemical and molecular hallmarks of the brain pathology.” journal of neurochemistry 109.1, 135-47. print. 5. brady, r. o. (2001). tay-sachs disease: the search for the enzymatic defect. tay-sachs disease, 44, 51-60 6. scriver, c. r., andermann, e., capua, a., cartier, l., delvin, e., clow, c., . . . blaichman, s. (2001). not preventing—yet, just avoiding tay-sachs disease. taysachs disease, 44, 267-274 7. kaback, m. (2001). screening and prevention in tay-sachs disease: origins, update, and impact. tay-sachs disease, 44, 253-266 8. rattazzi, m. c., & dobrenis, k. (2001). treatment of g(m2) gangliosidosis: past experiences, implications, and future prospects. tay-sachs disease, 44, 317-339 9. paritzky, j. f. (1985). tay-sachs: the dreaded inheritance. american journal of nursing, 85(3), 260-264. doi: 10.2307/3424967 10. akli, s., guidotti, j. e., vigne, e., perricaudet, m., sandhoff, k., kahn, a., & poenaru, l. (1996). restoration of hexosaminidase a activity in human taysachs fibroblasts via adenoviral vector-mediated gene transfer. gene therapy, 3(9), 769-774. 11. guidotti, j. e., mignon, a., haase, g., caillaud, c., mcdonell, n., kahn, a., & poenaru, l. (1999). adenoviral gene therapy of the tay-sachs disease in new approaches to correcting metabolic errors in tay-sachs middle tennessee state university 51 hexosaminidase a-deficient knock-out mice. human molecular genetics, 8(5), 831-838. doi: 10.1093/hmg/8.5.831 12. cachon-gonzalez, m. b., wang, s. z., lynch, a., ziegler, r., cheng, s. h., & cox, t. m. (2006). effective gene therapy in an authentic model of tay-sachs-related diseases. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 103(27), 10373-10378. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0603765103 13. cachon-gonzalez, m. b., wang, s. z., mcnair, r., bradley, j., lunn, d., ziegler, r., . . . cox, t. m. (2012). gene transfer corrects acute gm2 gangliosidosis-potential therapeutic contribution of perivascular enzyme flow. molecular therapy, 20(8), 1489-1500. doi: 10.1038/mt.2012.44 14. passini, m. a., bu, j., fidler, j. a., ziegler, r. j., foley, j. w., dodge, j. c., . . . cheng, s. h. (2007). combination brain and systemic injections of aav provide maximal functional and survival benefits in the niemann-pick mouse. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 104(22), 9505-9510. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0703509104 15. bradbury, a. m., cochran, j. n., mccurdy, v. j., johnson, a. k., brunson, b. l., grayedwards, h., . . . martin, d. r. (2013). therapeutic response in feline sandhoff disease despite immunity to intracranial gene therapy. molecular therapy, 21(7), 1306-1315. doi: 10.1038/mt.2013.86 16. mohit, e., & rafati, s. (2013). biological delivery approaches for gene therapy: strategies to potentiate efficacy and enhance specificity. molecular immunology, 56(4), 599-611. doi: 10.1016/j.molimm.2013.06.005 17. torres, p. a., et al. (2010). tay-sachs disease in jacob sheep. molecular genetics and metabolism, 101.4, 357-63. 18. wessels, m., et al. (2012). gm2-gangliosidosis (tay-sachs disease) in european jacob sheep. journal of comparative pathology, 146.1 (2012): 75-75. print. 19. a 3-year roadmap to a gene therapy clinical trial for tay-sachs disease. (2013). the taysachs gene therapy consortium. accessed: april 2014. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2015 moving forward, falling back, or staying put middle tennessee state university 35 moving forward, falling back, or staying put: an examination of change and transformation in early modern drama jacquelyn hayek abstract the early modern era in england was a time of great change and upheaval socially, politically, and spiritually. therefore it is no surprise that cultural authorities and structures of power had a vested interest in urging the population to abide by the traditional roles assigned to them at birth via sex, class, and religion. three plays of the period respectively demonstrate the necessity of maintaining the status quo and the degradation and ultimate cost of rebellious self-determination. in thomas kyd ’s the spanish tragedy, all of the characters come to their requisite and anticipated ends, reinforcing the current establishment as it stood. then, though the everyman title figure does change dynamically along his journey, he changes along the path laid out for him by god without challenging the structures of authority over him or their right to judge and punish him. finally christopher marlowe’s doctor faustus and its journey of degeneration illustrate all the worst consequences for when a man tries to overreach his given role and its expectations. herein representations of dramatic characters from the stock to the progressive to the regressive and degenerative were manipulated to support the dominance of cultural institutions. each of these plays addresses the notion of transformation, what it should be and should not be, in accordance with the early modern british authorities. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 36 spring 2015 the early modern era in england was a time of great change and upheaval social-ly, politically, and spiritually. therefore it is no surprise that cultural authorities and structures of power had a vested interest in urging the population to abide by the traditional roles assigned to them at birth via sex, class, and religion. three plays of the period respectively demonstrate the necessity of maintaining the status quo and the degradation and ultimate cost of rebellious self-determination. in thomas kyd’s the spanish tragedy, all of the characters come to their requisite and anticipated ends, reinforcing the current establishment as it stood. then, though the everyman title figure does change dynamically along his journey, he changes along the path laid out for him by god without challenging the structures of authority over him or their right to judge and punish him. finally, christopher marlowe’s doctor faustus and its journey of degeneration illustrate all the worst consequences for when a man tries to overreach his given role and its expectations. representations of dramatic characters, from the stock to the progressive to the regressive and degenerative, were manipulated to support the dominance of cultural institutions. each of these plays addresses the notion of transformation, what it should be and should not be, in accordance with the early modern british authorities. in many ways, early modern society depended on established traditions and hierarchies, rigid social classes, implacable gender roles, four distinct estates, and apparently inviolate religious institutions to ensure that civilization as they knew it functioned. this conformity to a predetermined role is represented in the stock characters and classical scenarios of the spanish tragedy, thomas kyd’s 1580s rendition of the senecan tragic rhetorical formula. as an artist, and more as the roommate to outspoken fellow artist christopher marlowe, kyd was no stranger to the consequences attending nonconformity with the governing structures of power. when the authorities came to arrest marlowe and did not find him, they detained kyd instead (“the life of thomas kyd”). at the hands of the notorious star chamber, kyd was subjected to lethal torture. his personal experience was representative of the severe prosecution suffered by seditious and heretical sentiments during his time period. contemporary artists, outside of even kyd and marlowe, were ominously aware that “[t]he punishments for writers whose works were felt to be seditious or offensive could be extreme, including imprisonment, torture and mutilation” (larque). recognizing these and like risks, producers and theatrical companies took no chances. every play manuscript was given over for careful inspection, and likely censorship, by the revels office. at a time when all productions had to obtain licensing from queen elizabeth’s master of the revels, kyd’s the spanish tragedy did nothing to cause controversy with his plot, characters, or the ending anticipated for a revenge play. kyd’s play begins in a classical style. the audience is introduced to a warrior king who has recently been killed in battle on his way to the classical afterlife to meet with the king and queen gods of the underworld: in keeping on my way to pluto’s court through dreadful shades of ever-glooming night, i saw more sights than thousand tongues can tell, moving forward, falling back, or staying put middle tennessee state university 37 or pens can write, or mortal hearts can think. (i.i.55-58) in the voice of the deceased knight, kyd gives a rich narrative journey to the mythic roman afterlife. upon encountering the king and queen of the dead, the knight presents his passport and makes his obeisance. the very courtliness of the scene and how it is played out displays respect for hierarchy, form, and ceremony. as the story progresses, the dead warrior is joined by the spirit of revenge and the duo act as chorus to all of the action that takes place (erne 102). by beginning his play in the unchanging environ of the afterlife, kyd informs the audience that he is not planning to challenge the powers and structures which govern death or life and the land of the living. kyd’s still-living characters demonstrate the traits expected of their respective social classes: kings and princes of spain and portugal behave royally; nobility like horatio behave nobly; and servants like pedringano are greedy and manipulative, behavior considered befitting to their status in the lower class. even characters like spirit figures and women, who typically exist outside of traditional constructs, function for kyd in ways that maintain a classical status quo of senecan stock characters. the revenge character’s narration on the sidelines structures and directs the means by which the play maintains senecan norms. even the witty heroine, bel-imperia, who does not conform to the standards of a conventional virginal love-interest, demonstrably enacts her role as the “female confidante” to the revenger, hieronimo (“thomas kyd”). from the beginning of the plot to the bloody-end, the whole of kyd’s tragedy is obviously adapted from seneca’s revenge construction. there are no surprises. kyd intensifies audience frustration by drawing out the story and adding a subplot about counterfeit and accusation in the court of portugal but still reaches the expected climax without deviating from tradition or in any way challenging the elizabethan status quo. indeed, kyd’s revenge plot merely illustrates the negative consequences of deposing established cultural authorities—in this case, the murdered warrior king. an apparent lesson from classically conformed texts without any discernible plot or character transformation like kyd’s tragedy seems to be that people ought to remain as they are and where they are. alternately, plays illustrating transformation might likewise be consciously didactic, intended to educate the audience regarding what is expected by the institutions of power. performances that instruct while they entertain were a way to bring the masses into compliance with the dominant ideology of “how the world should be.” from the openly acknowledged role of censorship, even a casual observer could see that “the state was clearly obsessed with the power of theatre, thinking it to be a major informer of public opinion, much like television and newspaper chiefs tell us their media are today” (love). nowhere was this instructional function more evident than in the morality interludes that came out of the liturgical-drama and cycle play traditions in the sixteenth century. though there is still no known author, everyman was one of the most well-known didactic plays that illustrated the positive transformation from temporal to spiritual desired by the catholic (meaning universal—during this period) church. this allegorical drama was used to teach moral lessons in accordance with church doctrine; however, unlike its predecessors, the cycle plays, this work did not take its subject matter directly from the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 38 spring 2015 scriptures. unlike other texts of its kind, everyman employed no vice-figures and allowed no comical asides or gimmicks to distract from the moral message. at the start of the play, god sends death as a messenger to tell the representative of universal humanity, everyman, that his time has come and he must prepare for his life to end. this opening sets up popular cultural ideas of carpe diem and the obsession with ars moriendi or ‘the art of dying’ as the title character must wrestle with his own mortality–and thereby come to terms with his morality or lack thereof (spinrad 79). everyman’s initial reaction shows his soul’s condition in that he is not ready; he is worldly, he tries to bribe death to go away, and he even begs and pleads for a reprieve (everyman 119-124, 131139). his weakness and how he clings to life create sympathy with the audience watching as he bargains with death. obviously, as a messenger of god, death cannot relent, so everyman must inevitably take his journey and confront his misplaced values and personal demons. transformation occurs for everyman as each of his values for friends, for family, for riches is stripped away as ineffectual (knoell 7). the man who proudly resisted his death is now become humble before it, submitting to his journey, and coming to realize how much he needs to change along the way in order to have a positive outcome when he reaches the throne of judgment. his dynamic (i.e. changing) character is initially broken down with the loss of those things he formerly held dear and then built up with the addition of new virtues: knowledge, priesthood, communion, strength, beauty, the five senses, and a revitalized and invigorated good deeds. each of these comes to help and then leaves as he completes the soul journey into a peaceful death where the audience is sure that this transformed everyman will be well-received by god at his throne of judgment. as if the transformation and intended message of the play were not obvious enough in and of themselves, the playwright finishes the performance with a lecture from the doctor of divinity about the lesson the audience should take from the play (everyman 902-921). so everyman’s transformation occurs along prescribed lines. in everyman the themes of spiritual regeneration and transformation are used to a specifically didactic purpose before martin luther and his ninetyfive theses (1517) had the chance to divide the religious institution with the protestant reformation (pavao). the play ultimately reinforces the status quo by reifying the values of the dominant culture, in this case the one all-powerful church. illustrating a spiritual transformation in the exact opposite direction, away from heaven and cultural authority altogether, christopher marlowe’s tragedy of corruption of faith by intellect, doctor faustus, shows the title character falling from an assumed practice of christianity into willful self-determination, rebellion, and ultimate damnation. written during the same period of dramatic censorship and enforced conformity that kyd suffered under, marlowe’s work engaged with spiritual transformation in a man who embodied the deadliest sins—hubris and pride – and overreached the bounds of humanity in order to satisfy his curiosity. as connors explains: “[a]s the story progresses, faustus’ quickly approaching fate exposes the true message of the story: to surrender to curiosity about forbidden knowledge has irrevocable repercussions [. . .]. his curiosity has destroyed his life, as well as his reputamoving forward, falling back, or staying put middle tennessee state university 39 tion.” similar to how the dead warrior and the spirit of revenge act as narrators and gave structure to kyd’s the spanish tragedy, marlowe employs a chorus between scenes to fill in detail not presented on stage and offer commentary on the events as they play out: of riper years to wittenberg [faustus] went, whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. so soon he profits in divinity, the fruitful plot of scholarism graced, that shortly he was graced with doctor’s name, excelling all whose sweet delight disputes in heavenly matters of theology; till, swoll’n with cunning of a self-conceit, his waxen wings did mount above his reach, and, melting, heavens did conspire his overthrow. (marlowe prologue.13-22) before faustus ever enters the stage the chorus warns the audience what will happen and explains the lesson that they should learn from what they are about to see. at the beginning of the play, doctor faustus is an admirable character. he has achieved his degree and is feeling confident in his learning. consequently, he does what many university students in the centuries since have done—he contemplates what he should do with all the knowledge that he has gained. it is here where his degeneration begins. witnessed by the audience, faustus successively rejects the noble professions of medicine, law, and the church. his rejection of these options is not necessarily a negative issue; but his reasoning shows his selfish conceit and arrogant pride: the character of faustus is reasoning and very aware of the moral (or immoral) status of what he is undertaking. his opening speech is devoted to working out logically why he is willing to sacrifice both the road to honest knowledge and his soul in favor of more power . . . . he exhibits, in his search for power, anything but animal passion; he indeed exhibits a chilling logic as he talks himself out of the possible delights of heaven. (larson) as he reasons aloud about his reasons, he reveals selfishness in rejecting service professions and curiosity rejecting what he considers would be unchallenging professions. as he shows contempt for exercising his wisdom for humanity and in the name of god he creates suspicion in the audience about his wisdom, his humanity and his religion. in order to serve his own gains and his conscience-killing curiosity about the world, faustus opts to devote himself to magical metaphysics. while his opening speech showed the audience an open-minded, intelligent, and thoughtful man taking stock of himself and his opportunities, every scene following continues the pattern of degradation. faustus stubbornly refuses to benefit from the counsel of concerned friends, the eloquent offers from the good angel, and the whisperings of his own conscience. all of his nobler reasoning seems to have deserted him. when he chooses to embark on the study of magic and necromantic books, he says that in the twenty-four scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 40 spring 2015 years he is allotted, he will do great deeds for his city and the world. instead, as the acts, and subsequently the years, pass by, all that faustus has done with his power is to use it up on displays, frivolities, and indulgences. he has interviewed the seven deadly sins, has gone on a chariot ride around the world, has mocked the pope in rome, and has conjured spirits for the enjoyment of his guests and the fulfillment of his own sexual lusts. in his most trivial demonstrations, he has grapes fetched in winter for a pregnant duchess, tricks a horse dealer with some hay and a fake leg, and puts horns on the head of a knight who dares to oppose him. in this way the message about negative transformation and its impending consequences is more subtly implied: marlowe hides the deep tragedy of faustus’ degeneration and damnation behind the farce, pomp, and excitement of faustus’ life after the deal is signed . . . . faustus has traded his soul for the power to understand the universe and make the world a better place, yet all he received was twenty-four years of superficial pomp and farce; his life and soul were wasted. (casten) none of the things he elects to do with his power has any lasting benefit or impact anyone except for faustus himself. it appears to the audience that he sold his noble ambition when he sold his soul and any remnants that might have remained have been sucked out during his intercourse with the succubae in the form of helen of troy (marlowe v.i.90-109). from beginning to end, faustus is not the same man, and his transformation takes him down the road of degradation both spiritually and interpersonally. as those claiming responsibility for maintaining order in their society, the early modern british authors crafted texts that mirror the cultural values of the time, especially the values promoted by the church and state. both church and government employed indoctrination, the powerful combination of fear and wonder as well as the threat and application of brute force to uphold the status quo that structured their society. it is no surprise that these institutions took steps to harness the power of theatre and the popular imagination to influence the population. kyd’s the spanish tragedy upholds the need for institutions that arrest change. everyman promotes change but only in conformity with dominant structures of power. each of these texts uses characters to illustrate with promises of heaven or threats of hell the need for all to stay as it was within established lines. furthermore, marlowe’s doctor faustus demonstrates that revolt against the norm leads to radical degeneration. with these vibrant presentations depicting the consequences of nonconformity, these authors’ creations reflect the dominant social, religious, and cultural values of the times, which emphasizes to the susceptible population that everyman had his place and it was best that he maintain it. . works cited casten, benjamin. “pageantry and comedy.” “infinite riches in a small room” christopher marlowe and the conception of the dramatic landscape. 12 april 1999. web. 8 december 2012. moving forward, falling back, or staying put middle tennessee state university 41 connors, brittany. “christopher marlowe: an advocate or critic of christianity?” universal journal. the association of young journalists and writers. 2009. web. 8 december 2012. erne, lukas. beyond the spanish tragedy: a study of the works of thomas kyd. new york: manchester university press, 2001. print. everyman. medieval drama: an anthology. ed. greg walker. oxford: blackwell, 2000. 281297. print. knoell, david. the resurrection of ‘everyman.’ ma thesis. university of central florida, orlando, 2006. florida virtual campus state library services. web. 8 december 2012. kyd, thomas. the spanish tragedy. english renaissance drama. ed. david m. bevington, lars engle, katharine eisaman maus, and eric rasmussen. new york: norton, 2002. 3-73. print. “the life of thomas kyd (1558 – c.1594).” encyclopedia britannica, 11th ed., vol. xv. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1910. luminarium. ed. anniina jokinen. 7 may 2007. web. 8 december 2012. larque, thomas. “a lecture on elizabethan theatre (originally given to btec in performing arts students as part of their course in 2001).” shakespeare and his critics. shakespearean.org.uk. 2005. web. 8 december 2012. larson, john. “doctor faustus selling his soul to make a point.” christopher marlowe. luminarium: anthology of english literature. ed. anniina jokinen. 5 june 2010. web. 8 december 2012. love, mark. “1582 censorship.” in search of shakespeare: timeline. maya vision international & pbs. 2003. web. 8 december 2012. marlowe, christopher. doctor faustus. english renaissance drama. ed. david m. bevington, lars engle, katharine eisaman maus, and eric rasmussen. new york: norton, 2002. 245-285. print. pavao, paul f., ed. “the protestant reformation for everyman.” christian history for everyman. 2009. web. 8 december 2012. shakespeare, william. hamlet: complete authoritative text with biographical and historical context, critical history, and essays from five contemporary critical perspectives. ed. susanne l. wofford. case studies in contemporary criticism. ed. ross c. murfin. boston, ma: bedford/st. martin’s, 1994. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2015 spinrad, phoebe s. “death as educator: everyman.” the summons of death on the medieval and renaissance english stage. columbus: ohio state university press, 1987. 6885. print. “thomas kyd.” elizabethan and stuart plays. ed. charles read baskerville, virgil barney heltzel, and arthur hobart nethercot. new york: henry holt and company, 1934. pp. 421-422. theatrehistory.com. 2002. web. 8 december 2012. corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle* hillary k. yeager abstract the york corpus christi plays were a trade guild or “mystery” series of medieval pageants that venerated the body of christ during the summertime feast of corpus christi. the pageant cycle persisted for over 200 years and reflects a strong devotion to the spiritual and communal benefits. in this paper, i discuss connections between the medieval understanding of sight as experience to present the corpus christi plays as a form of extra-physical communion, where participants were able to experience the eucharist by attending and participating in the pageant cycle. * winner: deans’ distinguished essay award: graduate student 6 spring 2017 middle tennessee state university 7 corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle the york corpus christi plays (also known as the “mystery cycle” for the connection to the trade guilds1 or “mysteries”) originated sometime around 1370 in the city of york, england. they are recognized by medieval and dramatic scholars as key “monuments” in the development of literary playwriting and dramatic staging during the late middle ages (beadle x). the pageants2 were held in honor of the roman catholic feast of corpus christi, a church midsummer festival that celebrated the “real presence of the body of christ in the host at mass” (beadle x). one of the festival requirements included an outdoor processional involving the elevation of the host (the consecrated bread) carried by a priest, where laity and clergy followed in devout reverence in order to “venerate” the eucharistic bread and stimulate devotion to both the church and the catholic faith (davidson, “introduction”) the corpus christi pageants were similarly structured: processions, presented on wagons, moved through stations set up throughout the town. this processional served as a way for citizens to participate in a religious and cultural celebration where the “‘invisible things’ of the divine order ‘from the creation of the world’ might be displayed . . . in order to bring these things into the orbit of the collective memory” (davidson, “introduction”). each pageant and the entire play sequence celebrated the eucharistic act and the life of christ through showcase and spectacle. i argue that the involvement in the pageants served a multitude of purposes, benefiting both the guilds who sponsored them and the audiences who participated in them. although some scholars, such as alan justice, argue for a link between guild assignments and the themes of the sponsored pageants, and other scholars, such as clifford davidson, suggest that participation by the community was a civic and charitable duty, a combination of these views seems more likely. since pageants were sponsored by the guilds, sponsorship could act as a means not only of self-promotion but also of fostering community goodwill and, by operating as a form of charity, a meaningful spiritual act toward moral salvation. similarly, the audience received moral and spiritual benefits, not only from attending the performances but also through the process of viewing itself. in this paper, i begin by offering an overview of the history of the pageants in order to contextualize them for a contemporary audience. my next section discusses medieval understandings of the moral and spiritual benefits of putting 1. medieval trade guilds, organized by craftsmen or merchants, were formed for the mutual benefit of members, occasionally resulting in monopolies but also in the standardization of quality for certain goods and services, as well as setting and upholding consumer expectations of trading practices and guild integrity. 2. according to meg twycross, an entire cycle denotes a “play,” whereas individual sessions were called “pageants” (“theatricality” 11). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 8 spring 2017 on the dramas, and my concluding section offers an overview of the medieval act of seeing in order to frame an argument for a type of proxy communion. this concept of “seeing” as “experience” suggests that, through the act of viewing, the medieval audience was provided with a proxy-experience of the act of holy communion merely by watching the pageant and seeing the body of christ. the history and themes of the york mystery cycle when studying the impact of religious drama on guilds and audience, the risk arises of a static understanding of the dramas that ignores how the pageants would have changed over two hundred years. the history and complexity of the cycle, however, gives some indication of the dynamic impact of religious drama on medieval communities over this period. today, 47 extant pageants survive from the york cycle from the original 50. the entire text of the cycle is contained in a volume known as the ordo paginarium. it lists, in detail, the guilds involved with each play, noting any changes in guild possession of a pageant, revisions to the pageant texts themselves (such as when the passion sequence was reworked by the anonymous author known as the “york realist”), or any complaints issued by the guilds. like most medieval drama, the corpus christi pageants are biblical in nature and present a series of moral imperatives to the audience. the liturgical calendar rather than the bible, however, organizes the order of events, beginning with the fall of angels from heaven and concluding with the final judgment (king, city 8). the cycle focuses on a redemption narrative, not a “historical” narrative, following “a common medieval pattern [that was] imposed on history” (8). although the average layperson of the time had some working knowledge of latin, most lay people probably only knew the bible in terms of the worship or liturgical cycle.3 the 1600s saw a rise of the return to orthodoxy in the sacrament, a “reaffirmation of the doctrine of transubstantiation” and a “vogue for devotion of the sacrament at the altar” in the medieval church (9). these trends can be seen not only in the subject matter of the liturgical worship during the period, which has a thematic pattern of fall and redemption, but also in the selection of liturgical materials integrated into pageant content. the thematic content relies heavily on discussing the ten commandments, the fourteen articles of faith (the apostolic articles of faith, or the “apostle’s creed” with seven articles for the godhead and seven for christ), the seven sacraments, the seven corporeal works of mary, and the seven spiritual works of mary. the thematic significance of such broad subject matter, ranging from creation 3. this theme can be observed by examining the york liturgical missals from the time period. middle tennessee state university 9 corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle to final judgment, emphasizes the “element of the broken covenant between god and adam, and the nature of the new covenant [between christ and mankind] . . . grounded in lenten themes of penance and reciprocal forgiveness” (king, city 57). each pageant was carefully constructed with brief, attention-grabbing openers, and some even took textual liberties, deviating from the bible. one deviation includes a conversation eve has with the serpent in the garden during the expulsion from the garden, followed by adam and eve’s expressing deep sadness for disobeying god, communicating a need for atonement (57). such adaptations provided a different dimension on the “standard” biblical stories the audience would have known while also providing a strict moral objective. pageant 22, the temptation in the wilderness, features a surprising twist when the “devil” directly addresses the audience. he asks, “make rome, belyve, and late me gang / who makis here all this thrang?”4(davidson, temptation 1-2). this address serves as an attention-getting device designed to refocus the audience’s attention prior to discussing satan’s fall from heaven before his attempted temptation of jesus. in this instance, it is likely the question served more of a practical purpose than a narrative one. on a festival day, it seems safe to assume that not everyone would watch every single play passing along the pageant route. several scholars (such as twycross “places,” davidson; others) suggest the possibility that not all 50 pageants were put on every year, as it would have been impossible to do so. regardless of the function, direct address is an innovative device for plays of this type during this particular time period. furthermore, the plays thematically sought to hammer home the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual components of jesus. this was communicated through his visceral image as well as his teachings and precepts. in the pageant abraham and issac, the ordo paginarum notes that the individual playing the “isaac” of the pageant ought to be young and resemble christ as much as possible. this is used as a device to allow the audience to make connections between the biblical figures. for example, during the scene of sacrifice in the play, isaac asks to be bound. this request serves as visual symbolism and is typologically symbolic of the passion sequence (king, city 65). these denotations in the ordo paginarium serve as intentional reflections of the church’s strong imperative to highlight the significance and relevance of the passion for churchgoers as well as the importance of venerating the image of jesus. these elements served as a means to evoke a strong personal and spiritual connection with the audience. the exact origin date of the mystery cycle is unknown, but the first official 4. “make room, quickly and let me go; / who here makes all this noise?” (davidson, temptation 1-2). 10 spring 2017 record of pageant wagons appears in the town’s york record book in 1377 and again in 1387 (beadle xxi). by 1394, a city ordinance referred directly to the pageants themselves, so a start time around the 1360s seems likely. pageant plays on wagons were hardly a new phenomenon: cities such as bruges, antwerp, leuven, and brussels commonly held “tableaux vivant”-style pageants paraded on wagons, which may have inspired affluent tradespeople from york (davidson, “introduction”). by 1415, the ambling, pageant style wagons (which were propelled by men rather than beasts) were fully employed by the people of york with an additional mandate from the city that each station should be marked with a banner bearing the city’s coat of arms (davidson, “introduction”). a 1398 ordinance indicated there would be twelve stations for the wagons to pass through, perhaps modeled on the catholic convention of the stations of the cross.5 the plays began as early as 4:30 a.m. on the morning of the festival. during the earliest years of the celebration, the feast and pageants were held on the same day. however, after years of delay and issues with crowds becoming unruly the two events were separated, with the feast and festival held on one day and the pageants on the following (twycross, “theatricality” 12). the first pageant, the creation of the angels and the fall of lucifer, was presented by the barkers (leather tanners) at mickelgate station before the play would move on to the second station, where they would start the process over again, and the second pageant, the creation through the fifth day (by the plasters), would begin at mickelgate (12). the plays varied in length, ranging from 10 to 40 minutes, and the geographical layout of york created an ideal setting for a day filled with the theatrical productions. putting on the play: benefits of the corpus christi experience while many questions remain about the exact nature of the staging of the pageants along the pageant route, some questions can be answered given extant material found in the ordo paginarium. these answers reveal much about the interwoven, complex nature of guild promotion and charity, as well as how the feast of corpus christi rendered promotion and charity mutually exclusive. trade and merchant guilds sponsored the construction of their custom built pageant wagons, sometimes quite simple in their construction, sometimes quite elaborate with multiple “stage” layers. while no artifacts survive of the actual wooden wagons, detailed written descriptions remain in the ordo paginarium. for an example of the best guild marketing and pro5. while the franciscan order initiated this liturgical practice in 1342, it did not become fully adopted into all churches until the mid-1500s, but there is evidence to support its use and practice at york in the late 1300s. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle middle tennessee state university 11 motion practices, the mercer’s (i.e., grocer’s) last judgment pageant wagon warranted a detailed description in the ordo paginarium of its opulent appointments, complete with “winching gear” to lower god from heaven and a “hell mouth.” the elaborate design of the staging, saved for the final performance of the pageant route, was meant to leave an impression with the audience. the god character had a special “brandreth of iron” that richard beadle surmises acted as a fire basket “with four ropes in the corners, in which he came and went from heaven” (xx). for heaven, the mercer’s guild outfitted the sky with red and blue clouds, stars, sunbeams, and a rainbow, as well as mechanical angels to “run about in the heaven” as per the stage directions (xx). the wagon was, by all intentions, the “best of the best,” creating a fantastic scene to wow the audience with its spectacle while also showcasing the wealth and success of the mercers as a guild. in 1463, the mercers upgraded their pageant wagon so that souls could “rise” out of it; in 1501 they had a new one built that lists a “hell-door, windows, angels, an iron seat, several pulleys, and a cloud” (xxi). a great deal of the pageant was, in fact, about self-promotion and wealth accumulation: the annual production of the pageants was funded by pageant silver collected by pageant masters who “produced” the play in the modern sense (twycross, “theatricality” 11). these masters were separate from the guilds, yet served as an ultimate authority to decide which guilds would participate in each year of production. being included in the annual production was a great honor: inclusion afforded an annual opportunity to promote a guild both in terms of the services and wares of the guild and in terms of helping to elevate that guild’s status in the community. yet the guild system in york during the period of the pageants underwent significant alteration thanks to shifts in economic structure, population fluctuation, and political and social upheaval. heather swanson presents the medieval craft guild as a fraternal organization that focused on the regulation of industrial relations, serving a clear political and administrative purpose in the medieval oligarchical structure (31). swanson further illustrates how “craft guilds can be seen as a deliberate and artificial construct of medieval urban authorities” (31). a reduction in the overall population, declining from 11,000 at the close of the 1300s to a low of 8,000 in 1600, resulted in lowered taxes, decreased building development, and a decline in the number of overall rents collected (bho, “economy”). in evaluating the guilds’ trade registry (where all guild freemen were registered and noted), a marked downturn occurred for all trades in the 1500s due to the rise in “professional trades” such as lawyers, clerks, and scriveners 12 spring 2017 (bho, “economy”).6 this decline in guild membership, as well as decline in the overall population, meant that paying the pageant silver became increasingly more difficult—and the added expense of putting on the pageants became burdensome for many. the pageants were funded through a system of fines divided between the pageants and the city; in order to keep the feast day pageants afloat, wealthier guilds often had to contribute to the pageants of less economically fortunate guilds, and the refusal to pay—or even a disdain against authority when speaking out—was treated as a rebellious act (davidson xxii). despite the fact that the costs of the pageants were often high in a town where the birth rate did not match its death rate, as well as the fact that the economy was clearly not flourishing, the corpus christi pageants continued with widespread support for nearly 200 years until they were suppressed (davidson, corpus 16). as davidson argues, non economic factors in any case outweighed economics. the play cycle, while it depended on the skills of the crafts for its wagons, costumes, and stage properties, was successful and long lasting because it tapped into the religious climate of a city which, though apparently not universally pious for its time, nevertheless held firmly to a conventional but strong belief in the efficacy of the rights and practices of traditional christianity. (18) therefore, the merchants of york were willing, at great expense, to perpetuate an activity due to its religious significance and apparent spiritual benefits. the financial expense, in other words, did not compare to the moral cost of ceasing production of the plays. because each guild was assigned pageants as part of their “self identity and their perception of their participation in the larger reality of salvation history” (davidson, corpus 21), the guilds would have the required materials for certain props or the means to display their wares and, therefore, would have advertised their products during the pageants (davidson, “york guilds” 21). this display reflects some of miri rubin’s argument that the participation of the guilds advanced the personal interests of the guilds themselves, acting as a form of “conspicuous consumption” through “lavish displays” (197). some assignments featured thematic relevance (for example, the flood for the shipwrights) or showcased a guild’s products or wares. in the case of the mercers, who put on the last judgment, the pageant afforded an opportunity to 6. the causes of such a downturn is likely due to a recession in the wool trade industry that unseated york as the highest economy, excepting only london, in england (bho, “economy”). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle middle tennessee state university 13 reflect the guild’s prominence in the community, showcase their merchandise, and reveal the significance of their craft. the mercer’s placement in the pageant program, as the grand finale after a long day of pageants, provided a symbolic representation of the guild’s import—both materially and symbolically—to the community. alan justice connects 23 pageants with their “demonstrable associations” to their crafts or services, and he offers a tenuous association with another six (48). the remaining pageants, while not having a clear association, were perhaps chosen for circumstance or honored placement—since being involved in the corpus christi pageants processionals was not only a civic honor but a great charitable contribution as well. charity, salvation, and the medieval act of seeing a strong push for alms giving by the medieval church, motivated by economic declines in the 12thand 13th-centuries and rampant poverty, increased the visible efforts of charitable giving by churchgoers. the medieval concept of caritas, while referring to the love for and of god, could also be performative for the devotee—it could reflect one’s love and devotion to one’s fellow man (davis 936). this aspect of perfomative charity could be tied to showing goodwill and generosity to others but also through elaborate efforts such as participating in the corpus christi pageants. charitable acts were understood as acts of mercy rooted “in scriptural and patristic thought that emphasized the responsibility of all christians to perform charitable works,” which directly related to the six corporal works of mercy (937). this message was furthered by the doctrines of ambrose and augustine, who advocated the idea that “almsgiving had the capacity to erase sin and deliver the almsgiver from death” (936). in this respect, the corpus christi plays served as a form of charitable work that offered an ideal opportunity to secure moral goodwill and earn the potential eternal salvation for those that put on the plays. the guild members, in essence, believed their involvement with the plays acted as a charitable contribution to their community that might “buy” them an easement of sin and the promise of heaven in the afterlife as a form of indulgence. charitable acts and giving fall under the tenants and teachings of jesus and serve as recurrent themes within the texts of the pageants. consider the seven corporal works of mary (or “works of mercy” as they are known in contemporary catholicism): feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the sick, visit the prisoner, and bury the dead—all count as clearly charitable acts. the mercers’s play in the pageant, as discussed by kate crassons, focuses on the act of 14 spring 2017 almsgiving, placing “special emphasis” on the importance of aiding the hungry, sick, and naked, evoking again the seven corporal works of mary (308). jesus reappears in this pageant wounded, crucified, and emerging as symbol extending beyond his own sacrifice on the cross to encompass the poor as well as the wider community to which they belong, christ draws attention to the suffering he endured for humanity. questioning the community’s commitment to charity, he asks his people: how have you sacrificed for me? how have you sacrificed for one another?. . . the play begins by evoking the memento mori tradition so as to remind the audience members of their own impending death. (crassons 308) in many ways, the last judgment is a pageant imbued with lessons on how to commit acts of charity and live a good, christian life. christ directly addresses the audience to remind them of these precepts, suggesting that one should always hear and respond to those in need, just as god had heard mankind’s need and delivered unto earth his son: when any that nede hadde, nyght or day askid you helpe and hadde it sone youre fre hartis saide them nevere nay erely ne late, mydday ne none but als ofte sithis as thei wolde praye thame thurte but bide and have ther bone.7 (davidson, doomsday 310-15) the illustrative point here is that, according to “jesus” and thus the church, the most charitable individuals or organizations were always willing to give. during night or day, their hearts gave freely and never denied another human in need. crassons rightfully illustrates that this is an important point for the time period, where “this extreme version of generosity opposes the kind of painstaking concern that drives theories of discriminate almsgiving, theories that seemed to be rapidly becoming the norm in late fourteenth and early fifteenth century england” (308). the importance of such a distinction in appropriate almsgiving stemmed from anxieties regarding a 7. “when any that would need, in either day or night asked [ the lord] (for) help and (was given) a son your free heart (or free will) would never deny not early in the morning nor late in the evening but all of this truly, as they would pray, they need not but endure and have their requests.” (davidson, doomsday 310-15) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle middle tennessee state university 15 rise in the population of abject poor and a collective societal questioning of how one should give alms to others. selective almsgiving mandated that “a person must be physically disabled . . . lame, blind, or feeble to be considered deserving of alms” (310). despite this, the last judgment lacks criteria for establishing who is or is not worthy of receiving charity. christ consistently refers to the need of the hungry, sick, and naked but otherwise does not offer any other precept for who qualifies for charitable acts, encouraging generosity to and from all. but it is not enough to think of staging the pageants themselves as the only charitable act. the medieval audience itself received clear moral and spiritual benefits by attending the plays. davidson and katherine walker discuss these positive impacts through the understanding of the medieval act of seeing. walker discusses the combination of spoken word and visual performance as an opportunity for audiences to “contemplate internally the meaning of christ’s sacrifice” where the pageants’ “continual call for spectators to listen, imagine, and remember encourages medieval audiences to move beyond the immediate visual presentation to a more contemplative state” (walker 170). davidson reveals how, in the middle ages, seeing was “in fact commonly identified with touching. the eye might even be regarded as joined to that which it sees. and seeing also could be a channel that, through faith, might lead one to access god’s grace” (corpus 37). much of the medieval theory of vision is later clarified by roger bacon, who originated the idea that vision originated with an object that “sends its visible qualities through the intervening air to the observer’s eye” (miles 97). walker clarifies this concept, bringing in the scholarship of suzanna biernoff and her sight and embodiment in the middle ages, noting that “in the middle ages sight was an embodied practice that involved a transmission of rays from one material object to another and influenced the body of the devotee” (179). this concept of seeing and touching stemmed from classical understandings of the “active eye”: the aristotelian belief that the eye received input (intermission) and that, through sight, the “visible object was able, in this way, to assimilate the eye and soul to its nature and essence, a tangible contact and change that was commonly understood on a popular level” (woolgar 22). walker rightfully argues that it is jesus’s direct gaze that serves as his “direct address” to the medieval audience, thus making an indelible impression. this is a significant element not only because of the intimacy of the gaze but also because of the figure ( jesus) who presents the look. walker’s argument allows for a platform of entry for what i would like to present as a type of spiritual transformation undergone scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 16 spring 2017 by the spectator when viewing the york pageants. if the medieval audience understood sight as physically transformative, then the very act of watching the pageants and seeing religious iconography brought to life through the physical embodiment of jesus, particularly in his life and death, would have served as a very powerful emotional and religious experience. as previously discussed, the corpus christi feast is a celebration of the eucharist, and the medieval audience understood the eucharist in social terms, defining it as “the sacrament of duty towards others, the sign of unity, the bond of charity” (crassons 305). the corpus christi plays themselves offer reminders of almsgiving and charity, serving as echoes of the lenten season of sacrifice and giving where “christ’s body and blood forge the bonds of community and remind people of their obligations to treat others with generosity and love” (306). taking this one step further, there is also a very physical manifestation of the eucharist: the embodied personification of christ in the form of the “bodily christ” in the plays, where the body/bodies of christ breathe, speak, and look in front of an audience of crowded bodies . . . [serving] a devotional role, one in which vision plays a key function. in this case, to perform christ is to both physicalize and to fictionalize him. . . . the performing of christ momentarily blurs for the audience the distinction between actor and savior, role and divine incarnation. (walker 173) “seeing” christ made his presence real and felt by the audience, but this was amplified by the presence of the physical eucharist itself. the body of christ, as blessed bread, was on display and celebrated throughout the corpus christi feast. most medieval people rarely actually partook in communion. instead, the body and bread were put on display at mass, and it was through the eyes that devotees practiced the spiritual act. to encourage this habit, churches elevated the eucharist to become of even greater spiritual import, such as showcasing the body and blood on an altar surrounded with candles or by celebrating the processional of the host through the crowded streets as it was elevated above the head of the priest. this process of elevation had “become a true substitute for communion for the laity” and resulted in mass becoming “essentially a voyeuristic experience” (king, city 21). consider, for a moment, the fact that the medieval laity took communion once a year yet attended mass up to three times a day, and that the act of transubstantiation was a “miracle” that could only be performed by a priest: a miracle performed during the elevation corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle middle tennessee state university 17 rite. there are multiple examples of the elevation rite within the york pageants that expressively mirror scenes in the nativity pageant, as discussed below. medieval english elevation lyrics all have a form of greeting and usually open with “hail” or “welcome.” in this way, christ was liturgically “being greeted in person as his presence reaffirmed the active bond between heaven and earth, the forgiveness of sin guaranteed by his sacrifice which was about to be re-enacted by the celebrating clergy” (king, city 21). consider the parallel of the nativity with the consecration of the host, as mary greets her newborn son with the elevation lyrics typically used during the blessing of the eucharist: hayle my lorde god, hayle prince of pees hayle my fadir, and hayle my sone hayle souereyne sege all synnes to seese hayle god and man in erth to wonne hayle, thurgh whos myth all pis world was first begonne merknes and light.8 (davidson, nativity 57-63) king convincingly argues that, in this play, the virgin mary functions as a sort of priest-like figure able to “bring forth” god: mary “gently but firmly [lifts the baby] above her head with both hands while uttering her words of greeting, in explicit imitation of the celebrant of mass” (city 24). if we are to view moments such as these as symbolic of the eucharistic act itself, as i argue, then perhaps they held even greater purpose than reminding both audience and guilds to commit acts of charity daily. the pageants, then, might have served as a type of eucharistic act in themselves. while we see repeated acts of and requests for charity, we must also consider the references and emblematic aspects of jesus as a living, breathing representation in the pageants. this presentation is not unlike looking up at the illuminated elevated host at mass. during the course of the pageant cycles, the audience witnesses the miracle of the birth of jesus with an abundance of light imagery, where it is told in the nativity that christ was “born of a virgin, the sun of a star/a sun knowing no setting, a star always shining, always bright” (qtd. in king, city 101). here, just as the sun produces a ray, 8 “hail my lord, god and the prince of peace hail my father and hail my son. hail sovereign man, all sins to cease hail god and man on earth as one hail, through whose might all peace in the world was first begun darkness and light.” (davidson, nativity 57-63) scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the virgin produces a son in the same way. these light-based descriptions are paired with accompanying stage directions: when joseph returns to the manger, he notices light shining from the stable, important because “christ’s coming is [represented] as an influx of light” (101). light imagery is tied to christ, and the christmas liturgy makes adamant the connection between the salvation and the ingestion of the host as celebrated at mass, as witnessed through the york missal: “grant to us lord, we beg, to be refreshed by considering again the nativity of your only begotten son by whose celestial mystery we are given food and drink” (qtd. in 102). if we know there is a clear connection between seeing and the body, between seeing these elevation prayers and rites and the act of communion and the eucharist, it is not so far removed to imagine that the pageants themselves were, in some respect, rites that could have served as a form of ceremonial communion. after all, the priests of the day told parishioners that just looking upon the host was akin to taking communion, for “it was considered out of the question that the laity should receive communion more than occasionally, so regular eucharistic worship for them focused on the need to look upon the consecrated host only” (king, city 16). indeed, this act of “just looking” had a multitude of powers, from “a reduction of pain in childbirth, and from toothache, a day’s guarantee of not going hungry, going blind, dying, or even aging, of finding work easy, and having all sorrows cured” (18). the act of looking upon christ in the pageants, with christ-figures as a representative of the “real” jesus, may have provided a spiritual renewal greater than what we could possibly imagine today. this, possibly, is why the corpus christi pageants persisted for nearly two hundred years despite economic distress and population decline, for the possibility of a mystical and spiritual resonance went beyond mere spectatorship from the audience and community engagement by the guilds. the participation in and experience of the york corpus christi plays potentially meant a chance of getting closer to the divine, a spiritual connection even more visceral than the experience of mass. it was akin to a sacrament, a festival and a religious rite so entwined with both civic and spiritual identity that the york community continually asked for the return of the plays even after their suppression. 18 spring 2017 middle tennessee state university 19 corpus christi, superstar? decoding the enigma of the york mystery cycle works cited beadle, richard. “introduction.” the york plays: a critical edition of the corpus christi play as recorded in british library. vol 1. ed. richard beadle. london: oxford up, 2009. x-xi. print. british history online (bho). “the later middle ages: economy and industrial prosperity.” a history of the county of york: the city of york. ed. p. m. tillott. london: victoria county history, 1961. 84-91. british history online. web. 25 nov. 2015. biernoff, suzanna. sight and embodiment in the middle ages. new york: palgrave, 2002. print. crassons, kate. “the challenges of social unity: the last judgment pageant and guild relations in york.” journal of medieval and early modern studies 37.2 (2007): 305-326. jstor. web. 22 nov. 2015. davidson, clifford. corpus christi plays at york: a context for religious drama. new york: ams press, 2013. print. ---. doomsday. york corpus christi cycle. ed. clifford davison. robbins library digital projects, 2011. n.p. web. 25 sep. 2015. ---.“introduction.” york corpus christi cycle. ed. clifford davison. robbins library digital projects, 2011. n.p. web. 25 sep. 2015. ---. the nativity. york corpus christi cycle. ed. clifford davison. robbins library digital projects, 2011. n.p. web. 25 sep. 2015. ---.“york guilds and the corpus christi plays: unwilling participants?” early theatre 9.2 (2006): 1-26. jstor. web. 21 nov. 2015. davis, adam j. “the social and religious meanings of charity in medieval europe.” history compass 12.12 (2014): 936-950. jstor. web. 22 mar. 2017. justice, alan d. “trade symbolism in the york cycle.” theatre journal 31.1 (1979): 47-58. jstor. web. 28. nov. 2015. king, pamela. “seeing and hearing: looking and listening.” early theatre 3.1 (2000): 155-166. jstor. web. 20 nov. 2015. ---. the york mystery cycle and worship in the city. london: d. s. brewer, 2006. print. miles, margaret r. image as insight: visual understanding in western christianity and secular culture. oregon: wipf and stock, 1985. print. the records of early english drama: york (reed). 2 vols. ed. alexandra f. johnston and margaret rogerson. toronto: u of toronto p, 1979. print rubin, miri. “whose eucharist? eucharistic identity as historical subject.” modern theology 15.2 (1999): 197-208. print. swanson, heather. “the illusion of economic structure: craft guilds in late medieval english towns.” past & present 121 (1988): 29-48. jstor. web. 28 nov. 2015. twycross, meg. “‘places to hear the play:’ pageant stations at york, 1398-1572.” reed newsletter 3.2 (1978): 10-33. web. 26 nov. 2015. ---. “the theatricality of medieval english plays.” the cambridge companion to medieval english theater. 2nd ed. ed. richard beadle and alan j. fletcher. new york/cambridge: electronic edition, 2008. 26-74. walker, greg. “the cultural work of early drama.” the cambridge companion to medieval english theater. 2nd ed. ed. richard beadle and alan j. fletcher. new york/cambridge: electronic edition, 2008. 75-98. walker, katherine. “spectatorship and vision in the york corpus christi plays.” comitatus: a journal of medieval and renaissance studies 45 (2014): 169-189. project muse. web. 5 nov. 2015. woolgar, c. m. the senses in late medieval europe. new haven: yale up, 2006. print. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 20 spring 2017 still misunderstanding the oedipus tyrannos middle tennessee state university 53 still misunderstanding the oedipus tyrannos luke howard judkins in modern literary analysis of sophocles’ oedipus tyrannos, many scholars apply theories upon the play without noting or including textual scholarship or authorial intention into their criticism, resulting in anachronism and misinterpretation of the greek tragedy. in providing criticism of the oedipus that displays importance for historical contexts, i assert each scholar’s duty to ensure the proper continuation of the oedipus in literary criticism so that this valuable work of art may live on respectably. despite critics such as e.r. dodds, who have reminded scholars of our intended focus on the tragedy, many scholars still loosely apply modern ideological theories, misinterpreting the play and ignoring key elements and conventions that compose the intentions of the tragedy. using aristotelian support in my argument, i provide readers and viewers of the oedipus tyrannos with a perspective that will consider sophocles’ intentions for the tragedy within the context of the fifth century b.c., so we can limit misinterpretations and anachronisms in modern criticism as we encounter this work of art. abstract 54 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research since the fifth century b.c., a large discussion of sophocles’ objective in the oedipus tyrannos has accumulated in written criticism, debating the character of oedipus and how responsible he is for his actions. however, if we are to attempt to understand sophocles’ objective, or at the very least intelligibly discuss it in any manner, we must look at oedipus tyrannos from the perspective of the greeks in that era. it is utterly useless to attempt to apply any ideological or modern theory or principle to the play in an attempt to address these concerns. if justice is to be done in discussion and analysis, we must adapt the mindset of the culture of that time and view the tragedy in terms of its emotional effects on the greek audience as sophocles’ contemporaries, such as aristotle, would have. without doing so, the results of our own cultural views upon the play are hazardous, since that would imply sophocles’ culture and ideas are synonymous with those in this era, which would result in an anachronistic crime. in light of addressing modern critics’ views of free will or determinism, e.r. dodds said, “we are examining the intentions of a dramatist, and we are not entitled to ask questions that the dramatist did not intend us to ask” (40), and “we [dodds’s emphasis] think of two clear-cut alternative views [. . .]. but fifth century greeks did not think in these terms [. . .]” (42). agreeing with dodds, i confront the current interpretations that seem to ignore dodds’s warnings and advice of relying on greek culture, history, and tragic conventions as the basis for our analysis and what we should address when viewing, reading, and studying the tragedy. examples of these interpretations are evident in some critics such as simon o. lesser, who views the play from a psychoanalytic perspective. to understand oedipus tyrannos we must examine sophocles’ intentions for both the nature of oedipus and the nature of the gods as though we were the greek audience. confronting many modern views of the oedipus, we must affirm textual scholarship, cultural studies, historical scholarship, and authorial intention. if any of my ideas or notions presented throughout my analysis seem redundant and pre-established to any classical scholars, i must sympathize with dodds on the continual “flogging a dead horse” of these “ancient confusions” – apparently, the animal of misinterpretation that dodds attempted to thwart is still alive (38). i will begin by addressing the issue of sophocles’ intentions for oedipus. more specifically, i wish to clarify and establish how we should look at the character of oedipus in the context of the greek tragic plot. many critics are guilty of far too much analysis into the character of oedipus. for example, simon lesser argues the importance of the concept of “two” while discussing the play. though he initially draws upon brief historical context, lesser also continues to draw attention to the two levels of drama – what he terms as “foreground drama” and “background drama,” or expressed drama and implied drama, which are informed by ideological theory. he uses aspects of this point throughout his lengthy analysis of oedipus with psychoanalytic views of his mental processes, which is what he believes has been slightly addressed by other critics but not substantially enough for a proper reading of the oedipus. lesser’s focus upon “background drama” (lesser’s inferred psychology) completely ignores what dodds establishes as “an essential critical principle” that “what is not mentioned in the play does not exist [dodds’s emphasis]” (40). that is, since still misunderstanding the oedipus tyrannos middle tennessee state university 55 sophocles does not mention oedipus’s thought processes directly or indirectly in the tragedy, we ought not to impose them into it and ask questions that lie outside of his objectives. in lesser’s psychoanalytic interpretation, he intends to explicate the oedipus as displaying the emergence of two levels of drama, relying on ironic structures evident in the play. in doing so, he attempts to assert oedipus’s guilt for not avoiding his killing of the travelers and his marriage to someone old enough to be his mother. thus, lesser infers that his oedipal mentality shows that there is “no chance [. . .] that this [marriage to someone as old as his mother] could have passed unnoticed” (192). through oedipal, freudian psychology, this seems acceptable. nevertheless, i urge that we analyze the tragedy as greek drama and not analyze it as though a modern perspective can be superimposed upon the play’s structure and worldview. my primary goal is to address what is present in the play and not add to it as we examine oedipus’s character. we must take oedipus for what he does and not for what he could or should do. hence, my notion that we should be mindful of sophocles’ intentions in regards to oedipus’ innate psychology, so that we can avoid the pitfall of anachronism. continuing with another misinterpretation of the character of oedipus, a further criticism made to oedipus is that he is completely guilty of his crimes. if oedipus is guilty or has no complete control of his decisions, i would have to say that this tragedy is a complete failure with entirely different effects on the greek audience. this criticism results in a new plot of the oedipus. the primary aspect of the greek tragedy is the emotional affect it has on the audience through formal and affective conventions, as aristotle postulated. since the primary emotions transferred in a greek tragedy are fear and pity, the protagonist should invoke these emotions by his reactions to his environment and setting both in act and word. if oedipus is fully guilty of his crimes due to hubris, i, as an advocate of greek historical and cultural contexts, have neither pity nor fear to see someone receive just what he deserves for his actions – by watching a criminal receive justice. conversely, i have pity and fear for the character of oedipus if he is fully innocent; however, in this type of criticism, sophocles’ formal conventions are lost, as no hubris would exist for hamartia to stem the reversal, or peripeteia. for historical and contemporary support, especially concerning the affective conventions of greek tragedy, we should rely on a greek contemporary, aristotle in the poetics (currently believed to be one of his student’s lecture notes), to shed some light on how the plot and protagonist can achieve the ideal emotional intentions, especially since aristotle believed that the oedipus was the exemplum of greek tragedy in this way. since i support the interpretation presented by aristotle and dodds, i will disagree with r. drew griffith in his unsourced comment, “texts contemporary with sophocles suggest that, while feeling about the play much as we do, many members of its original audience would have questioned dodds’s analysis” (194). in chapter 13 of the poetics, aristotle defines the ideal plot structure for a greek tragedy. he establishes that the plot must have the protagonist falling in action not due to evil, but to hamartia. hamartia is either “a definite action or failure to act” where “the fortunes of the hero of a tragedy are reversed” (“hamartia”). more accurately, hamartia is an archery term defined as “to miss a mark” (“άμαρτάυω”). but i stress that hamartia is an action taken without complete awareness of 56 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the consequences. thus, oedipus’s deed, which begins his downfall, makes him somewhat innocent in his parricide and incest that he commits. in fact, we should additionally note that oedipus, while running from his moira that apollo had prophesied, unknowingly falls into that which he assumes he has escaped. i would further argue against griffith’s inclusion of hubris into the analysis of oedipus’s guilt. “he killed laius by free choice, thereby abdicating any claim to essential moral innocence,” says griffith, as he expounds on fifth century greek legal proceedings and announces oedipus not morally innocent (204), but i believe this is far from the intentions of sophocles and the greeks’ reception of the tragedy. even though hubris is “overweening insolence” to the extent of violence and a flaw in oedipus, it is merely the character’s motivation in the plot for the hamartia (“hubris”). i trust that i can interpret oedipus’s violent pride as such by comparing the crossroads scene to how the character later treats teiresias in lines 340-526 and creon in lines 594-750, and the chorus echoes this trait in line 963 as “pride breeds the tyrant.” considering oedipus’ hubris and his hamartia, i do not wish to prove oedipus not guilty, but i do not wish to prove his innocence. my discussion of hubris and hamartia extend as far as an argument might go that respects the integrity of the greek tragic drama. to return to aristotle’s poetics, i conclude that the greeks were not primarily concerned with the specific morality of the tragic protagonist at all, especially because he “is one who is not preeminent in virtue and justice, and one who falls into affliction not because of evil and wickedness [. . .]” (44). the resulting fear and pity from tragedy originates from our reaction to the plot structure and construction and development of the protagonist “towards one who is like ourselves,” says aristotle in the poetics (163). how can oedipus be either fully guilty or innocent, and we still have this emotional effect from they play? the answer is we do not; he is as innocent as he is guilty. therefore, in response to those who wish to assign guilt to oedipus or otherwise vindicate him, i respond, as i believe the greeks would: if you wish to say so, he is only as guilty and fated as we are. in addition to analyzing what i believe to be sophocles’ intentions with oedipus’ character, an effective study also needs to address sophocles’ intention with the nature of the gods. it is necessary to quote dodds again in his observation concerning apollo’s oracle, “the oracle was unconditional [dodds’s emphasis] [. . .]. equally unconditional was the original oracle given to laius: apollo said that he must [dodds’s emphasis] die at the hands of jocasta’s child; there is no saving clause” (41). but in dodds’s research, he does encounter in aeschylus’ septem that laius’s oracle was conditional, saying “do not beget a child; for if you do, that child will kill you” (41). it is important to ask ourselves sophocles’ intentions for altering the oracle from conditional to unconditional and notice how that might change the tragedy. in fact, the oedipus would not be much of a greek tragedy at all if the conditional oracle cursed laius and his family for not heeding its advice. rather, it would be the fulfillment of apollo’s curse upon the house of thebes and would not give us necessary elements customary of a greek tragedy, chiefly the emotional effect. not only does the change of nature lend itself to tragedy, but it also lends itself unfortunately to the popular debate still misunderstanding the oedipus tyrannos middle tennessee state university 57 of interpretation between oedipus’ free will or his predetermined fate, or moira, through the tendency to apply modern views. this issue is probably the hardest to discuss continuously and accurately in the eyes of the greeks. thus, most interpretations are skeptical due to inconsistencies, such as lauren silberman, who writes, “the oracle impels oedipus to an inquiry into his own past, which will reveal how the course of his entire life has been the working-out of the gods’ curse” (295). but as we have seen, apollo did not curse oedipus at all due to sophocles actually changing the nature of the oracle. silberman also relies heavily on determinism so that her only notion of free will lies in her (as dodds would say) “two clear-cut alternative views” (dodds 42). silberman continues, “if they wholly believed the prophecy, no action to evade it would be possible; if they wholly disbelieved it, none would be necessary. on the one hand, the catastrophe reveals that there was nothing oedipus could have done [. . .]. on the other, oedipus’s fate is shown to be the direct result of his actions” (296). so according to silberman, free will only exists in disbelief. but according to her theory, would not a disbelieving greek also be predetermined to disbelieve? moreover, would the actions from that greek assumed to be, but really not, free? does a greek’s disbelief abolish forever his need to rely on a deity, even by her interpretation that divine power is itself the product of human mortal desire for securities in an ordered universe? as we can see by forcing modern interpretations upon the oedipus, we raise more questions external of the play than we answer concerning the play and the nature of the gods and of oedipus. i will clarify. our focus should not between free will and predetermined moira, especially since many inconstancies and contradictions are frequent in the greeks’ belief system and mythology. by altering the nature of the oracle, sophocles was able to present the gods in conjunction with moira – not necessarily in full control of it. that is, through allowing apollo’s oracle to state fact of future events, enacting his prophetic nature, rather than curse the house of laius, sophocles prepared the character of oedipus to act of his own free will throughout events in the play. though it appears as though i have modernly “taken a side,” i will add that sophocles also wishes for the greeks to worship the gods reverently. therefore, our answer lies in griffith’s research, even though i do not advocate his argument: “fate [moira] is an impersonal force, not an olympian deity or even a lackey of the gods like the furies, and it is as binding upon gods as upon mortals” (griffith 204-205). (an example of his research can be found in hesiod’s theogony with fate as the child of night in line 211.) again, we see that the oracle merely stated a fact of oedipus’ life, since phoebus apollo was a god known for his truthful responses and prophetic abilities, and this fact was oedipus’ moira. moira, which appears to reveal time, has acted on oedipus’ life as a metaphysical force solely letting events unfold, allowing sophocles’ cosmic irony to create oedipus’s circumstance. apollo and his priestess merely played the role of prophetic mediator, since he possesses the power to know the future and to expect certain events in moira. however, this does not reduce the power of the gods. the gods have the power to act, and discussion tends to arise on whether the gods are just by their action or occasional lack of action in the play. though sophocles clearly establishes that he did not think “the gods 58 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research are in any human sense just [,] he nevertheless held that they are entitled to our worship,” as evident in his style and treatment of the gods (dodds 47). for the greeks, the gods were just as much under rule of moira as they, but that still did not place the gods’ actions within the grasp of human understanding. i agree with dodds as he compares the theology of heraclitus with sophocles: “there is an objective world-order which man must respect, but which he cannot hope to fully understand” (47). greeks might have seen some actions in the play to be unjust because the gods did not intervene and might have seen other actions to be just in ways because they did intervene, and vice-versa, complying with the contradictory nature of greek myth. either way, the oracle did have intentions by its answers to concerns brought to it; however, those answers were never truly made clear to the audience, revealing sophocles’ intentions with the mysterious nature of the gods, namely apollo, as revered deities that cannot be fully comprehended. not only are misinterpretations of the oedipus useless and unproductive, but they also lead to a decline in the skillful study of pedagogical works of literary art. misinterpretations, as i have attempted to display, only raise more confusing questions rather than answer any questions or raise the right questions. that is, the study of literature should propose to advance and cultivate the art of literature as a whole. therefore, by relying on historical scholarship, authorial intention, textual scholarship, and cultural studies, the integrity of the art will remain intact by allowing the correct and appropriate context – that is, as close as we may possibly come to that cultural context. if we do not abide by these contexts to extrapolate the messages in the oedipus and other great works of literature, we are asserting that the works’ origins have no great importance, the works’ contexts to be irrelevant, and the authors to be servants to our own intellect, rather than allow our intellect to be expanded by the authors’ geniuses. by ignoring my proposition for correct scholarship, critics, teachers, and students of literature run the risk of misinterpretation and anachronism by selfishly placing themselves above these works of art and their authors, neglecting the importance of artistic integrity of the oedipus and, furthermore, disrespecting the artistic nature of literature as a whole. to examine and discuss the oedipus tyrannos, we should look at sophocles’ intentions from the perspective of the contemporary greeks. otherwise, we risk inferring modern ideological interpretations from what is not stated or established during the play. dodds accurately comments, “we are examining the intentions of a dramatist, and we are not entitled to ask questions that the dramatist did not intend us to ask” (40). i believe that in any manner, we should address and ask what sophocles’ intentions were with the nature of oedipus and with the nature of the gods. aristotle’s poetics addresses and defends against clumsy attempts at forcing current western culture upon the reading and performance of the oedipus by allowing scholars to view the play as if they were a contemporary of sophocles. i hope that my re-clarification of the oedipus will move critical discussion on the play to new levels and do away with old misinterpretations. i will also add that any critical view will affect future pedagogical literature; thus, we all need to be careful and wise in how we address and treat literature, as it will certainly have its effect on the next generation. literature is art still misunderstanding the oedipus tyrannos middle tennessee state university 59 and needs extreme care and respect. even though some notable life questions result from interesting theories of analysis (such as lesser, silberman, and griffith) of great literature as the oedipus, i still urge that we view and teach sophocles’ conventions and intentions with this play as enhanced by textual and historical scholarship. i am not attempting to overthrow theories as a whole, as they can be regarded to reflect authorial intentions. for example, a sociological criticism informed by the new criticism movement aligns with the oedipus’s affective conventions and cultural context. kenneth burke in “literature as equipment for living” posits, “art forms like ‘tragedy,’ ‘comedy,’ or ‘satire’ would be treated as equipments for living [burke’s emphasis], that size up situations in various ways and in keeping with correspondingly various attitudes” (304). he is exactly right, as the oedipus’s form holds “sociological” value by invoking fear and pity and supplying us with a katharsis of them (a purge, purification, or even understanding of these emotions) (golden 114-120, 133-137). sophocles’ metaphysical and ethical thematic conventions, plot structure in formal conventions, and intended emotional responses in affective conventions all must focus our discussion. by focusing on these aspects, we might define that the oedipus has a place in literature due to its content, structure, design, and katharsis. observing the tragedy’s literary value and even its rich history and culture, particularly the deletion of the tragedy’s exodus and reinstatement while being preserved in monasteries, i urge the continuation of the oedipus tyrannos in the literary cannon if we call attention to the art forms evident in it respectably and without illogical misinterpretations of classical antiquity. after all, this is our duty as a literary community. 60 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research works cited aristotle. the poetics of aristotle: translation and commentary. trans. stephen halliwell. chapel hill: u of north carolina p, 1987. print. burke, kenneth. “literature as equipment for living.” the philosophy of literary form: studies in symbolic action. 3rd ed. berkeley: u of california p, 1974. 293-304. print. dodds, e.r. “on misunderstanding the oedipus rex.” greece & rome, 2nd ser. 13.1 (1966): 124-138. print. golden, leon, trans. o.b. hardison, jr., comm. aristotle’s poetics: a translation and commentary for students of literature. new york: florida atlantic u, 1968. 114 120. 133-137. print. griffith, r. drew. “asserting eternal providence: theodicy in sophocles’ oedipus the king.” illinois classical studies 17.2 (1992): 193-211. print. “άμαρτάυω.” the analytical greek lexicon revised. ed. harold k. moulton. grand rapids: zondervan, 1978. print. “hamartia.” a handbook to literature. ed. william harmon. 12th ed. boston: longman, 2012. print. “hubris.” a handbook to literature. ed. william harmon. 12th ed. boston: longman, 2012. print. hesiod. theogony. trans. stanley lombardo. classical mythology: images and insights. 6thed. eds. stephen l. harris and gloria platzner. sacramento: california state up, 2012. print. 88-105. lesser, simon o. “oedipus the king: the two dramas, the two conflicts.” college english 29.3 (1967): 175-197. print. silberman, lauren. “god and man in oedipus rex.” college literature 13.3 (1986): 292 299. print. sophocles. ajax. electra. oedipus tyrannus. ed. and trans. hugh lloyd-jones. the loeb classical library: sophocles volume i. vol. 20. cambridge: harvard up, 1994. 323 483. print. sophocles. oedipus the king. trans. robert fagles. the norton anthology of western literature. 8th ed. vol. 1. gen. ed. sarah lawall. new york: norton, 2006. 607 652. print. self-leadership strategies and performance perspectives within student aviation teams* christopher r. bearden abstract the use of teams to achieve organizational goals requires companies to employ individuals who are competent at both performing individual tasks and working well with others. this study examines the relationship between performance strategies and the performance perceived by teammates and supervisors. previous research indicates a positive relationship between individual work role performance and performances strategies associated with self-leadership. self-leadership can be conceptualized as a set of self-influence strategies used by individuals to increase personal effectiveness. these strategies include functions such as self-goal setting and positive self-talk. in this study, experts supervised and rated individual work role performance using instruments developed within the research setting, and peers rated one another using the comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness (ohland et al., 2012). ratings from peers, supervisors, and self-reported self-leadership were compared with one another in a correlational design. self-leadership was measured using the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire (houghton & neck, 2012), the psychometric properties of which were also examined. participants were aerospace students at a southern university engaged in operating a simulated flight dispatch center for course credit. a positive, statistically significant relationship was found between perceived team member effectiveness and expert-rated individual performance; however, the self-leadership strategies measured in this study were unrelated to the criterion variables. the examination of the self-leadership measure indicates that the construct was not adequately captured. keywords: self-leadership, team member effectiveness, individual performance *winner: deans’ distinguished essay award: undergraduate student middle tennessee state university 21 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research manz (1986) expanded upon his pre-existing theory of self-management (manz & sims, 1980) by incorporating many developments in psychology to explain a comprehensive self-influence process. he calls this process self-leadership, which entails both proactive behaviors and thought processes geared towards engineering more productive and positive affective experiences. it is literally leadership of the self toward “personal standards and natural rewards” (manz, 1986, p. 585). many of the underlying theories are descriptive in that they provide an explanation for how phenomena occur. for example, bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory explains the mutually influential interaction among personal behavior, the environment, and personal qualities. however, self-leadership is a normative theory, which means it is prescriptive, describing how individuals should act rather than explaining why they do. organization-level outcomes may be contingent upon individual-level performance strategies (krokos, baker, alonso, & day, 2009), and self-leadership strategies may be able to improve individuals’ effectiveness at work (andressen, konradt, & neck, 2012). the aim of the present study is to explore the psychometric properties of a measure of self-leadership and compare how self-leadership relates to both individual performance and perceived team member effectiveness in a team-based aviation work setting. finally, since performance is perceived differently by peers and supervisors (murphy & cleveland, 1991), the study will provide a comparison between the perspectives of inside team members and outside observers on work role performance using a correlational design. literature review self-leadership rests on the assumption that learning is an internal mental process and that individuals use feedback from the environment to inform behavior. social cognitive theory (bandura, 1986) describes this process through reciprocal determinism, wherein the environment influences individual behavior and personal qualities such as self-efficacy, i.e. the belief in one’s capacity to succeed. according to manz (1986), a person utilizing self-leadership “chooses externally controlled situations to achieve personally chosen standards” (p. 589). houghton, dawley, and diliello (2012) use the example of choosing routinely to jog down a scenic trail. this example embodies the way in which individuals structure their environment in order to enjoy a task, activity or and increase personal motivation. self-leaders are able to incorporate intrinsic motives into tasks that are typically not naturally motivating through self-goal setting (manz, 1986). locke, 22 spring 2017 shaw, saari, and latham’s (1981) seminal work on the power of goal setting suggests that merely establishing reasonable goals increases performance and intrinsic motivation. according to intrinsic motivation theory (deci, 1975), this is because individuals develop specific intrinsic motives in order to meet a need for competence or self-efficacy, and goal achievements provide the recipient with positive feedback on performance, which both meets the need for self-efficacy and enhances intrinsic motivation (deci & ryan, 1985). therefore, by incorporating tangible accomplishments into tasks, self-goal setters may be more engaged in tasks they find difficult or even unpleasant (houghton et al., 2012). behavior strategies self-leadership encompasses several behavior-focused strategies related to self-regulation and self-management (andrasik & heimberg, 1982; luthans & davis, 1979; mahoney & arnkoff, 1978; manz & sims, 1980). manz suggested that several processes extant in the literature can be functions of a more comprehensive system of self-influence, i.e. self-leadership. for instance, self-punishment, self-cueing, and rehearsal are self-management strategies proposed by mahoney and arnkoff, which manz and sims hypothesized could motivate future performance by a desire for favorable long-term consequences. however, the self-influence process proposed by manz (1986) suggests that these strategies are adopted to reduce reliance on external factors and include intrinsically appealing aspects of work. therefore, self-leadership includes behavioral components of self-management theory and expands them by incorporating a higher level of rationale for guiding behavior, providing reasons for behavior management. cognitive strategies several cognitive-oriented strategies in self-leadership are explained by vygotsky’s (1986) verbal theory of self-regulation and the positive psychology movement (burns, 1980; ellis, 1977; seligman, 1991). functional strategies associated with self-leadership include evaluating assumptions and eliminating dysfunctional beliefs (burns, 1980; ellis, 1977) and consciously initiating positive internal dialogues (seligman, 1991). in support of the usefulness of these types of cognitive process, driskell, copper, and morran’s (1994) meta-analysis of 62 studies on mental imagery found that mental task practice has a significant positive effect on performance. selftalk has also been shown to improve performance for children in tasks (lee, 1999; winsler, manfra, & diaz, 2007). moreover, brinthaupt, hein, and kramer (2009) conclude that self-talk does serve a vital role in adult self-regulation. further, their middle tennessee state university 23 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research results show that individuals who engage in higher levels of self-reinforcing self-talk report more positive self-esteem. rationale self-leadership & individual performance since its inception, several studies have focused on self-leadership and tested its implications to determine if self-leaders exhibit better individual performance. in fact, several studies have identified a significant positive relationship between self-leadership and the user’s performance (andressen et al., 2012; hauschildt & konradt, 2012; neubert & wu, 2006; prussia, anderson, & manz, 1998; stewart & barrick, 2000). hauschildt and konradt found that individual self-leadership is related to the individual work role performance of team members in a variety of interdependent teams in germany. a positive relationship between students’ self-leadership and academic performance has been discovered by prussia et al. (1998). additionally, self-leadership strategies may also improve employee motivation and overall job performance (andressen et al., 2012). hence, hypothesis 1: self-leadership will be positively and significantly correlated with observer-rated individual performance. self-leadership & perceived team member effectiveness an efficacy judgment (i.e. a judgment of competence) is one of the two universal ways individuals automatically assess one another (fiske, cuddy, & glick, 2007). further, for contexts in which influence is shared, burke, fiore, and salas (2003) assert that team members must have confidence in the abilities of one another. therefore, perceptions of other members are an important perspective when determining overall performance. behavioral self-leadership strategies, such as engaging in audible self-talk, may affect how the user is perceived by his or her teammates, and while previous research suggests performance can be predicted by the cognitive-behavioral performance strategies subsumed under self-leadership, no empirical study to date has confirmed whether these strategies manifest in performance as perceived by teammates. nevertheless, a current theoretical paper suggests individual level self-leadership strategies may lead to overall enhanced team efficacy, trust, and commitment over time through member-to-member interactions (bligh, pearce, & kohles, 2006). therefore, the following hypothesis was formulated, hypothesis 2: self-leadership will be positively and significantly correlated with perceived teammate effectiveness. 24 spring 2017 individual performance and perceived team member effectiveness individual work behaviors are perceived differently by peers and supervisors (murphy & cleveland, 1991). for example, team member talking may lead to perceived competence by team members (littlepage, schmidt, whisler, & frost, 1995); however, talking may not lead to increased job performance on individual taskwork or job duties. vance, maccallum, coovert, and hedge (1988) provide evidence that there can be multiple valid perspectives on team member performance. ratings may differ because the focus of supervisors is on overall effectiveness, while team ratings may be influenced by other factors (holzbach, 1978). furthermore, supervisors may be able to recognize and distinguish performance behaviors better due to their greater awareness and sensitivity (holzbach, 1978). however, team members (i.e. peers) and supervisors should observe and favorably rate constructive behaviors in a workplace setting, and although individual behaviors could be interpreted slightly differently by peers and observers, ratings should display some convergence. therefore, hypothesis 3: observable individual performance will be correlated with peer-rated/perceived team member effectiveness. methodology participants all participants (n = 98) were students enrolled in a southern university’s aerospace seminar. the pool of participants is from spring semester 2016 and fall semester 2016. no data on participant demographics were collected; however, all participants were enrolled in an undergraduate senior-level aerospace capstone course designed to be completed the semester prior to graduation. participation in the laboratory portion of the class is required for graduation; however, participation in the research portion was voluntary. institutional review board approval and informed consent was obtained before commencing data collection. no compensation was provided to participants. participants were assigned to teams of approximately 10 participants by the instructor of the aerospace seminar according to their major discipline/concentration within the aerospace program. data from participants in a total of 10 teams are included. six teams were formed in the spring semester of 2016 and four teams were formed in the fall semester of 2016. the average team size was 10 participants (sd = 0.63). procedure laboratory. the flight operations center – unified simulation (focus) lab itself incorporates multiple software components and technologies to simulate a middle tennessee state university 25 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research regional flight dispatch center (lester, 2015). large-screen monitors display weather, radar, and the airline’s flight schedule. students are situated at computers with headsets, access to job-aid materials, and have operational control of the simulated airline. each semester, every student enrolled in the aerospace seminar is assigned to a team. students receive an on-boarding brief as well as job and team training. the training process in the focus lab is designed to build cross-specialization coordination (littlepage, hein, moffett, craig, & georgiou, 2016). each team completes a minimum of three simulations during the course of the academic semester. see figure 1 for a layout of the research setting. dispatching flights within the lab requires coordination and information sharing from every student position. the positions featured in the lab include: flight operations coordinator, weather and forecasting, crew scheduling, flight operations data 1 – scheduling, flight operations data 2 – planning, maintenance, and pilot. outside the nuclear team (central positions seated within the lab), several student positions make contributions to the team’s work and facilitate creating a more realistic experience. these positions include student pilots operating a canadair regional jet (crj) flight simulator at the campus airport and a duty pilot performing the duties of the ramp tower coordinator. the crj flight simulations and communications are incorporated into the dispatching simulations of the focus lab. figure 1. student roles in the flight operations center – unified simulation lab. each student role is represented by a triangle (▲). in the immediate lab, seven key positions are situated in close proximity to simulate a regional flight dispatch center. these positions interact face-toface and electronically in order to share information, coordinate actions, and complete the team’s work. 26 spring 2017 measures abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire (aslq). the aslq is a 9-item scale used to measure self-leadership. it was first published by houghton and his colleagues (2012) and is supported as a reliable and valid measure of global self-leadership (nel & zyl, 2015; şahin, 2015). self-leadership is assessed using three 3-item subscales. each subscale can be traced to the self-leadership literature: behavior awareness and volition (georgianna, 2007), constructive cognition (anderson & prussia, 1997), and task motivation (houghton & neck, 2002). an example of an item measuring behavior awareness and volition is “i make a point to keep track of how well i’m doing at work,” and an example of an item measuring constructive cognition is “sometimes i talk to myself (out loud or in my head) to work through difficult situations.” lab participants self-reported on the aslq using a 5-point likert scale from 1 (rarely) to 5 (usually) during the final class meeting of the semester. behaviorally-anchored comprehensive assessment team member of effectiveness (catme-b). each lab participant rates his or her team members (i.e. peers) using the catme-b (ohland et al., 2012). the catme-b is a behaviorally-anchored rating scale (bars) ranging from 1 (below average) to 5 (excellent). in a bars, participants are given a list of “anchors” describing behaviors that would typify or represent each category of excellent, average, or below average. team members did not rate themselves because self-ratings tend to be overly biased (holzbach, 1978), especially for poor performers (murphy & cleveland, 1991). each team member is reported on by his or her peers using three dimensions: contributions to the team’s work, teammate interaction, and possession of related knowledge, skills, and abilities (ksa): 1. contributions to the team’s work: does high-quality work; helps teammates; completes tasks; is timely in completing assignments. 2. teammate interaction: is supportive; asks for teammate contributions; respects others; communicates clearly; shares information. 3. possession of related knowledge, skills, and abilities (ksas): acquires skills needed to meet requirements; is able to perform duties of other teammates; demonstrates skill in contributing to the team’s work. every dimension is measured with a single item and has its own set of relevant behavior-anchors. in the following example question, “rate each team member on his or her contributions to the team’s work,” some anchors for excellent are as follows: “does more or higher-quality work than expected; makes important contributions that improve middle tennessee state university 27 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the team’s work; helps teammates who are having difficulty completing their work.” contrastingly, some anchors for below average on the same item are: “does not do a fair share of the team’s work; misses deadlines; does not assist teammates.” the scale is a published, reliable, and valid measure of team member effectiveness (ohland et al., 2012). team member effectiveness data was collected after the third simulation. individual performance measures. a series of 8-, 9-, and 10-item scales were used to assess participants’ individual performance during the simulations. the number of items varies by position within the lab: flight operations coordinator, 10 items; weather and forecasting, nine items; crew scheduling, nine items; flight operations data 1 – scheduling, eight items; flight operations data 2 – planning, nine items; and maintenance positions, nine items. each scale was created by researchers in the lab through the process of task analysis, in which essential work role behaviors were identified for each position. the task analysis information was translated into items that assess the frequency with which each participant engages in these behaviors. each scale contains three items related to communication that remain the same, but all other items are unique because they relate to the specific behaviors that each respective position must perform. individual performance is not measured for pilots who operate the flight simulator connected to the focus lab. after every simulation, trained observers (i.e. research staff ) rate how often an individual performed the essential functions during the simulation on a likert scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always). some example items are “shares relevant information as needed with other team members” and “performs dispatch duties in a timely manner.” as each participant engages more frequently in each of his or her work role behaviors, the overall team performance in the lab is increased, demonstrating the criterion validity of the measures (ivakh, 2013). ratings of individual performance presented in the study were assigned during the participants’ third iteration in the simulation. data management not all participants completed all portions of the research. further, students that were in either a pilot position (19.4%; n = 19) or the ramp tower coordinator (8.2%; n = 8) provided data that were not used in comparison of performance analyses or in calculating rater agreement; however, this data was used in the factor analysis of the self-leadership instrument. these positions are situated outside the immediate physical lab, and their perspectives, while arguably valid, may be markedly different and could greatly impact reliability. therefore, most analyses do not include the full number of participants (n = 98). the instruments previously mentioned 28 spring 2017 were either already in use within the lab or selected by the researcher specifically for minimizing the time burden to the participants without compromising the value of the possible contributions to the research literature. all surveys of team member effectiveness and self-leadership were administered via qualtrics under the supervision of a researcher in the aerospace computer lab. researcher ratings of individual performance were completed on personal electronic devices during or immediately following the simulations. data analyses were conducted using ibm spss, amos 23.0.0, and r version 3.3.2. results initial analyses unless otherwise denoted, all analyses were conducted using spss. see table 1 for descriptive statistics. cronbach’s alpha (α) is widely accepted as a measure of internal consistency or is interpreted as the lower bound of the scale’s reliability (cortina, 1993). it describes the degree of interrelatedness a set of items possesses on a scale from .00 to 1.00. typically, values of .70 are considered acceptable levels of reliability on a unidimensional scale (cortina, 1993). the scales for individual performance demonstrated acceptable levels of reliability (α = .70 .97). the lowest estimate of reliability for a measure of individual performance was the “flight operations data 1 – scheduling” position (.70) and the highest estimate was the “weather & forecasting” position (.97). the overall abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .78); however, when assessing the subscales of behavior awareness and volition (α = .70), task motivation (α = .64), and constructive cognition (α = .38), the reliability estimates were at or below an acceptable value. because participants do not rate their own effectiveness themselves, there are missing values within the matrix of ratings. cronbach’s alpha could not be calculated for the catme-b because the calculations require no missing values. to achieve a metric of interrelatedness for team member ratings similar to coefficient alpha, an index of within-team agreement was calculated using r version 3.3.2. the correlation of ratings within a group (rwg) must be calculated per item and provides a value between .00 (no agreement) and 1.00 (perfect agreement) ( james, demaree, & wolf, 1984). ideally, each team would have at least a moderate level of consensus on the ratings of effectiveness per position. if there is perfect agreement, then each rater assigned the same score to the team member rated. generally, a minimum value of .70 is considered an acceptable level of agreement ( james et al., 1984; woehr, loignon, schmidt, loughry, & ohland, 2015). ratings assigned middle tennessee state university 29 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research by a participant in either the ramp tower or pilot position were not used in these calculations. the average level of within-team agreement on the catme-b for all teams (across all positions) is listed sequentially here: .81, .87, .79, .88, .84, .78, .94, .54, .85, .72 (min. = .00, max. = 1.00). on average, across the three catme-b items, the 10 teams generally had the most agreement on the maintenance position, rwg = .89, and the least amount of agreement on the weather position, rwg = .70. agreement, per item, was weakest on contributions to teammate interaction, rwg = .79. on average, both of the other items, contributions to the team’s work (rwg = .82; min = .73, max = .92) and possession of knowledge, skills, and abilities (rwg = .82; min = .71, max = .88), had strong agreement across teams (woehr et al., 2015). each measure varies slightly in rating scale: the abbreviate self-leadership questionnaire contains nine items rated on a one-to-five scale, and the individual performance measures vary for each position (8 to 10 items) on a scale from one to seven. therefore, the average scores were used for each participant (rather than an aggregate score) to calculate correlations. average scores for self-leadership (χ = 4.10, sd = 0.45, n = 59), team member effectiveness (χ = 4.42, sd = 0.33, n = 57), and individual performance (χ = 5.43, sd = 0.88, n = 42) are displayed with descriptive statistics in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics see table 2 for correlations. self-leadership of participants was not correlated with perceived team member effectiveness as rated by his or her peers (r = .14, p = .23). similarly, self-leadership was not correlated with individual performance as rated by the lab supervisors (r = -.06, p = .65). therefore, insufficient evidence was provided 30 spring 2017 by the study to support hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2. however, team member effectiveness was positively correlated with individual performance (r = .41, p < .001), which provides support for hypothesis 3. table 2 correlations between measured variables confirming the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire see figure 2 for factor model. in confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), the covariance structure implied by the theoretical model is compared to the covariance matrix of the sample data (cheung & rensvold, 2002). the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire data were analyzed using cfa in spss amos version 23.0.0. each item was loaded onto a single factor, or latent variable (i.e. self-leadership), and the model was estimated using maximum likelihood. values seen in figure 2 indicate most of the items were poorly accounted for by the latent variable, with squared multiple correlation coefficients (r ) displayed above the box representing each item. typically, values above .70 or 70% are desirable. additionally, several of the items were not explained by self-leadership, namely constructive cognition item 1 (cc_1), “i try to mentally evaluate the accuracy of my own beliefs about situations i am having problems with,” b = .23, se = .11, r = .06 and task motivation item 1 (tm_1), “when i have successfully completed a task, i often reward myself with something i like,” b= .24, se = .13, r 2 = .05. further, the model is evaluated by how well the sample data “fits with” the model-implied matrix. this is accomplished using goodness-of-fit indices, which are middle tennessee state university 31 2 2 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research used in determining whether the model is a plausible explanation for the observed data. the cfa results indicated a lack of fit, χ2 (27, n = 85) = 48.82, p = .006, comparative fit index (cfi; bentler, 1990) = .88; tucker-lewis index (tli; tucker & lewis, 1973) = .83; and root mean square error of approximation (rmsea, steiger & lind, 1980) = .10. a minimum value of .90 for the cfi and the tli are generally required for the model to be accepted as plausible (cheung & rensvold, 2002). furthermore, the rule-of-thumb for an acceptable rmsea value is typically a maximum of .08 (thompson, 2004). combined, these results suggest that the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire (aslq) does not adequately measure self-leadership in the sample. figure 2. model of self-leadership as proposed by houghton, dawley, and diliello (2012). the model was created in ibm spss amos version 23.0.0 and estimated using maximum likelihood. standardized estimates are depicted, χ2 (27, n = 85) = 48.82, p = .006, cfi = .88; tli = .83; and rmsea = .10. bav = behavior awareness and volition; tm = task motivation; cc = constructive cognition. discussion the full measure of self-leadership demonstrated acceptable internal consistency using cronbach’s alpha; however, when examining the constituent subscales, two of the subscales had poor reliability (task motivation, α= .64; constructive cognition, α= .38). all of the individual performance scales demonstrated acceptable levels of reliability (α = .70.97). moreover, there was sufficient within-team agreement across the 10 teams to compare perceived team member effectiveness with other constructs such as participant self-leadership and individual performance. although 32 spring 2017 the catme-b scale was designed so that a 3.00 on the scale would represent average team member effectiveness (ohland et al., 2012), the average across the three items in this study was 4.00. despite the behavior anchors provided to the raters, it appears that they did not utilize the full scale. team members may have been unwilling to rate their teammates as below average or did not perceive their teammates as below average. another interpretation is that the behavior anchors do not generalize to the work setting in such a way as to allow the raters to assign accurate ratings of effectiveness. average inter-rater agreement was weakest on contributions to teammate interaction (rwg =.79), which could indicate a need for more specific or different behavior anchors for teammate interaction. this could also reflect discrepancies in the way that individuals define teammate contributions to team interaction in certain positions within the lab. for example, the flight operations coordinator has a clearly defined role in team interaction (average rwg = .75) through dispatching of flights at regular intervals, and therefore may be judged more on supportive statements or solicitations for teammate contributions. contrastingly, the weather and forecasting position does not require systematic information exchange in the same way, and therefore his or her contributions to teammate interaction (average rwg = .65) may be evaluated more on information sharing or clear communication. the strong average agreement across the 10 teams on contributions to the team’s work (rwg = .82; min = .73, max = .92) and possession of knowledge, skills, and abilities (rwg = .82; min = .71, max = .88) could indicate a shared perception of overall general effectiveness of team members, which may be easier to rate using these items. another explanation is that it reflects participants’ shared understanding of the valuable contributions of the various aviation specialties to the success of the team in running the dispatch center. across the three items, teams generally shared the most amount of agreement on the effectiveness of the maintenance position (rwg = .89) and the least amount of agreement on the effectiveness of the weather and forecasting position (rwg = .70). individual performance was found to be significantly and moderately correlated with team member effectiveness (r = .41, p < .001), which supports hypothesis 3. on average, as team members were perceived as more effective by their peers, they were also rated more favorably by their supervisors on the frequency of job-related behaviors. therefore, team members seen by their peers as possessing superior knowledge, skills, and abilities, and contributing to teammate interaction and contributing to the team’s work were also rated as higher performers by the researchers in the lab. middle tennessee state university 33 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research this third comparison between team member effectiveness and individual performance provides evidence for the convergent validity of the individual performance measures. team member effectiveness was measured using an established instrument, the comprehensive evaluation of team member effectiveness (ohland et al., 2012), and individual performance was measured using an instrument developed by researchers within the lab. because individual performance and team member effectiveness were found to be positively related, this suggests that the instrument developed in the lab is a viable measure of performance. the first and second hypotheses, stating that self-leadership would be positively and significantly correlated with both individual performance and team member effectiveness, were not supported by the initial analyses. team member effectiveness was positively correlated with self-leadership (r = .14, p = .23), but the correlation was not statistically significant. interestingly, self-leadership’s correlation with individual performance was also not statistically significant (r = -.06, p = .65). however, results from the cfa determined self-leadership was not reliably captured by the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire, especially task motivation and constructive cognition strategies. therefore, it is not clear whether self-leadership is truly unrelated to performance in the focus lab. overall, the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire (aslq) performed poorly when compared to previous psychometric evaluations (nel & zyl, 2015; şahin, 2015). the reliability estimates reported by nel and zyl for the questionnaire and its subscales were much higher than the results presented in this study: the 9-item scale reliability decreased from .89 to .78. further, the coefficient alphas decreased in each of the subscale dimensions: behavior awareness and volition from .85 to .70, constructive cognition from .78 to .64, and task motivation from .71 to .38. moreover, the same model, as tested in nel and zyl’s research (2015; n = 405), had higher cfa fit-indices (indicating a better statistical fit of the model to the data) than in the present, e.g., cfi = .99 versus cfi = .88 in this study, and rmsea = .07 versus rmsea = .10 in the present study. şahin’s reliability estimates for the self-leadership subscales (between .42 and .76) were lower than those reported by nel and zyl and similar to those found in this study. however, the cfa conducted on the aslq by şahin (n = 324) resulted in fit-indices that closely approximated nel and zyl’s findings, cfi = .98 and rmsea = .06. overall, both nel and zyl as well as şahin indicate that the single-factor model of the aslq is plausible. fit indices reported in the previous studies may be better due to their larger sample sizes. 34 spring 2017 the aslq was selected to establish a quick measure of performance strategies that could be used to predict individual performance in the research setting while minimizing the burden to participants. as an established measure, the reliabilities of the scale and subscales should supersede the minimum values (.70). results from this study show that the three factors of behavior awareness and volition, constructive cognition, and task motivation, as measured by the aslq, may not be specifically relevant to the sample of participants. another possible reason for failed reproducibility of the studies in the literature is this study’s small sample size. still, this sample of participants in this study is markedly different from those in nel and zyl’s study, as well as şahin’s examination. therefore, results from this study could reflect sample characteristics rather than a global self-leadership construct. the generalizability of the results of this study is not known, but future attempts to utilize the aslq as a measure of self-leadership (especially in the aviation industry) should consider a pilot study to test whether the measure will adequately capture the construct. the positive relationship between self-leadership and individual performance has been found using self-reported individual performance (hauschildt & konradt, 2012) and more extensive measures of self-leadership (andressen et al., 2012), but not with the shorter 9-item abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire. the studies by andressen et al. and hauschildt and konradt provided the basis for hypotheses one and two, yet because the self-leadership construct was measured in both studies using a more diversified instrument that included a wider scope of dimensions identified by manz to be associated with the construct of self-leadership, future research in a similar setting should consider utilizing a more robust measure. item sampling error is error introduced into the analysis because the specific set of items selected failed to measure the intended construct within the sample and is one of the possible explanations for why the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire failed to reliably measure the constructs included. more specifically, participants may use task motivation or constructive cognition to improve their performance, but the specific items included in the instrument did not accurately represent the construct to the sample of participants. the first several psychological instruments to be used to measure self-leadership included a minimum of 34 items that spanned nine dimensions of self-leadership (cox, 1993; manz, 1993). additional scales for measuring self-leadership have been designed by researchers since 1993, including those presented by anderson and prussia (1997) and houghton and neck (2002). most of these scales include more factors and may be more appropriate to measure self-leadership within the research setting. middle tennessee state university 35 self-leadership strategies & performance perspectives within student aviation teams scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research some example constructs included in these measures are self-problem-solving initiative and self-observation. participants in the lab may utilize several of these strategies, which are associated with self-leadership, but were not included in the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire. in other words, future research should widen the scope of the instruments to ensure that enough sample characteristics are measured, which will require more items that measure additional dimensions to ensure the construct of self-leadership is adequately captured. conclusion initial results investigating the internal consistency of the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire were questionable; however, upon further review, the results presented in this study suggest that the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire is not a reliable measure of self-leadership in the present research setting. the generalizability of these results is unknown, but future application of the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire in an aviation science or aviation work setting may require a pilot study to determine if the measure is able to capture the self-leadership construct. a more robust measure of self-leadership, such as the self-leadership questionnaire (anderson & prussia), may be a better measure because not all dimensions of self-leadership or items measuring these dimensions may generalize to various settings (neubert & wu). additionally, peer ratings of team member effectiveness were found to be positively correlated with observed individual performance as rated by lab researchers. this provides evidence supporting the construct validity (especially convergent validity) of the individual performance measures, which were designed within the lab acknowledgments i would like to acknowledge the entire focus lab team, including the graduate assistants, professors, supporting faculty, and students. their professionalism, incredible expertise, selfless service, and esprit de corps have created a place of fantastic growth and provided me with the privileged opportunity to conduct this study. additionally, i would like to thank the peer reviewers and journal staff without whose invaluable feedback this accomplishment would not have been possible. i would also like to thank my thesis advisor, dr. michael hein, to whom i owe a great deal for taking me on as his first undergraduate mentee on an honors undergraduate thesis project. 36 spring 2017 references anderson, j. & prussia, g. 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(2015). justifying aggregation with consensus-based constructs: a review and examination of cutoff values for common aggregation indices. organizational research methods, 18(4), 704-737. doi:10.1177/1094428115582090 40 spring 2017 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research a collision of influences: rationalizing the use of religious images in the new england primer’s pictorial alphabet middle tennessee state university 61 a collision of influences: rationalizing the use of religious images in the new england primer’s pictorial alphabet rachel donegan much of the existing research on the new england primer fails to account for the wide range of influences that contributed to this watershed american textbook’s creation. in this essay, i consider the primer alphabet’s corresponding images from a variety of perspectives, including educational, artistic, and theological. after exploring the critical work of patricia crain, charles carpenter, and henry pitz (among others), i combine these critical lenses together instead to provide a greater understanding of the forces that allowed an iconoclastic puritan society to include religious images as a means of educational instruction abstract scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 62 spring 2015 as an educational schoolbook, the new england primer is a watershed text that has provided a foundation for much of what american schooling looks like today. however, the new england primer is a much more complex document than a simple textbook. the use of images in the new england primer’s alphabet poses an intriguing problem for those familiar with calvinist theology. to the lay reader, these crude woodcuts pose no issue whatsoever. but these seemingly innocent inclusions are at direct opposition with the prevailing reformed theology at the time, which expressly forbade the use of representational imagery in religious contexts. in order to discuss such an intricate topic clearly and effectively, i must make some distinct initial clarifications. throughout this essay, i will be using the terms “reformed” and “calvinist” interchangeably, as is commonly done in contemporary theological contexts. i will be using “puritan” to refer specifically to the group of american colonists who settled in the new england area and who adhered to calvinist doctrines. much of the prior literary scholarship on the use of images in the new england primer’s alphabet has reduced the complexity of influences to a simple causal relationship. the new england primer represents conventions of printing, graphics, theology, history, and education colliding at once. each of these factors plays a key role in the use of images as a whole and in understanding the controversial nature of their use. i am proposing that a complex variety of influences—theological, educational, historical, and artistic—combined to allow for the use of images in the new england primer. the initial question of images in the new england primer arises from its seemingly antithetical relationship to the reformed theology present at the time of its initial publication in 1690. in his institutes of the christian religion, john calvin spends several chapters discussing the dangers of using images as exclusive forms of learning. calvin calls into question pope gregory’s assertion that “images are the books of the unlearned,” countering with biblical examples that scriptural doctrine maintains “every thing respecting god which is learned from images is futile and false” (53). john calvin’s distrust of imagery was explicit, strong, and universally accepted amongst reformed denominations for centuries, well into the enlightenment. many contemporary literature scholars have reduced calvin’s views about images to mere anti-catholic rhetoric rather than examining the underlying theology behind them. for calvin and other reformation theologians, this issue of images was not necessarily a denominational issue, but chiefly one of salvation: “for many reformers, it was not merely impossible to create an image of god (who by his very nature was beyond depiction); it was also blasphemous to try, as the biblical prohibition on ‘graven images’ made clear” (“reformation and iconoclasm”). additionally, “according to calvin, every time a person misunderstood god even in the slightest way, the incorrect idea of god became an idol[;] calvinists had to avoid creating these incorrect ideas of god as much as possible” (schnorbus 256). puritans and other calvinists at this time viewed a reliance on secular and even religious educational images as a dangerous gateway to possible sin and idolatry. to them, words and their precise, controlled usage were clear, so the lack of a specified context cona collision of influences: rationalizing the use of religious images in the new england primer’s pictorial alphabet middle tennessee state university 63 tained in images left far too much up to personal interpretation and manipulation. understanding these theological tenets while reading the new england primer only seems to emphasize the contradictory nature of the images themselves. if the puritans felt so strongly against the use of images as educational tools, then why are they so predominantly featured in the new england primer’s alphabet? london printer benjamin harris first printed the new england primer in around 1690. the new england primer was not a collection of completely original literary content; in fact, harris adapted much of the material in the new england primer from an earlier work of his, the protestant tutor. like the new england primer, the protestant tutor has been referred to by some writers as a ‘religious primer,’ but it can properly be called a school primer. the protestant tutor was strongly anti-catholic, and had more religious than secular matter in it; but many of the elementary schoolbooks of the time…could equally well be designated as religious texts. (carpenter 23) the tutor’s success allowed harris then to create the new england primer, a volume that avoided its predecessor’s “savage political attacks on catholicism but retain[ed] a protestant emphasis that was attractive to new england’s puritan audience” (zipes 87). like its predecessor, the primer was a wildly successful publication, selling an estimated six million copies between 1690 and 1830 (griswold 120). patricia crain adds how much of the primer’s success was due to its timely publication: “when benjamin harris began publishing [the new england primer] there, arguably in about 1690, the spiritual fate of the colonists, especially the young, was a growing concern” (39). puritan doctrine centered on the idea of “sola scriptura,” or scripture as the sole authority, so learning to read served a practical, yet important purpose—it enabled children to read and understand the bible. in the puritans’ eyes, literacy was merely a means to obtain salvation, and finding the means to foster this ability in their children was of paramount importance. to this end, the puritans produced texts for children that served both educational and theological purposes. these included the new england primer, whose earliest extant copy of the new england primer dates to 1727, but scholarship has suggested that images were included with the alphabet in printings prior to the 1727 issue. to this effect, charles carpenter states in his history of american schoolbooks, “the majority of the early issues of the new england primer were similar in having an illustrated alphabet at the beginning….in the earliest issues the alphabet rhymes were of a religious nature” (26). this use of religious images in the new england primer from the very start further complicates this issue. while the new england primer is known more today for its contributions to american education, the word “primer” itself lacked secular connotations in 17thand 18th-century new england. strictly speaking, a “primer” merely referred to a devotional or prayer book rather than a secular educational text. and while the new england primer is the most well-known colonial primer today, e. jennifer monaghan, in her book learning to read and write in colonial america, points out that nearly every christian denomination at this time had its own associated primer, and distrusted the authority of all others, regardless of theological similarities (84). scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2015 from an educational standpoint, the primer as a complete text “draws upon the hornbook and primer traditions of early print culture” (crain 38). in terms of connecting words with pictures in order to foster meaning, the primer’s picture alphabet “follows the tradition of emblem books, in which a picture illustrates the literal aspects of some metaphorical point” (monaghan 99). these emblem books, which were popular educational texts in the 16th and 17th centuries, paired various pictures (or “emblems”) together with explanatory type, a didactic strategy mirrored in the primer. monaghan mentions one interesting source of inspiration for many of the alphabet’s images—tavern signs and street signs. these signs served as a visual reference for both secular and religious rhymes in the new england primer’s alphabet. however, these less-than-highbrow muses did not go unnoticed for long. monaghan notes how by the mid-18th century, “evangelicals found these images so crude that they were banished from later versions of the primer and replaced by clearly religious pictures and rhymes” (99). street signs may have served as an influence for some primer printings, but the overwhelming majority of the images present in the alphabet lack such low-brow inspiration. in many ways, the new england primer’s use of images in its alphabet was groundbreaking, both in terms of associating images with reformed doctrine as well as including images in locally-produced educational texts. monaghan states, “the new england primer had always woodcuts illustrating its introductory alphabet…no locally printed spelling book up to this point, however, including the youth’s instructor (which also included fables) had ever had illustrations” (231). the puritans’ pairings of text and image was, from the start, an intentional choice and an innovative addition to the educational text genre. with the new england primer, when direct and overt rationales for image inclusion are hard to come by, something as simple as the arrangement of the images themselves can reveal much about their intentionality. david watters notes how the specific order of the images and text on the page signify an inherent power structure within the pictorial alphabet (197). since the images and text are placed in a left-to-right arrangement, thus mimicking the natural english language reading tendency, the emphasis and initial gaze of the reader both lie on the image, not the text. the image instead of the rhyme is the initial holder of significance. watters further postulates how the alphabet’s images, when paired with the accompanying rhyme impact the overall meaning: emblems often employ a middle term, a prose gloss, that relates poetic text and image, and acts as the voice of the community of interpreters. in this case of the parent who drills the child in memorization of the text can provide this gloss or point to a place in the catechism or the bible which does so. (197) also asserting the necessity of images in the new england primer’s alphabet in order to aid reading instruction, patricia crain asserts that “[t]he verbal and visual tropes that surround the alphabet cloak the fact that the unit of textual meaning—the letter—lacks meaning itself ” (18). without the help of images as a referencing tool, learning basic literacy skills is a much more difficult task. while the illustrated image is the first portion of the page to be processed, its function a collision of influences: rationalizing the use of religious images in the new england primer’s pictorial alphabet middle tennessee state university 65 and meaning lie in partnership with the corresponding rhyme. a crude woodcut of a cross on a hilltop holds more meaning when paired with the rhyme “criſt crucify’d/ for finners dy’d” than it would by simply existing alone (zipes 93). also, the simplistic nature of the images themselves helps deemphasize and diminish any other possible interpretations than that provided in the associated rhyme. by directly pairing the images together with doctrinally based rhymes, harris leaves little room open for alternative interpretation of these images, thus easing the calvinist anxiety and hesitance about the use of religious imagery. the connection between image and rhyme as holders of meaning is significant in light of other scholarship pertaining to puritan educational materials. an interesting perspective on this rationale for included images lies in the history of illustrating children’s books. illustrator and scholar henry pitz notes multiple instances where puritan writers had intentionally included images so as to increase their circulation and to better target their books to children. pitz states that not only did the puritans write numerous texts intended for children, but “the calvinists knew the value of pictures as long as they served their own creed” (23). to this end, patricia crain remarks, “[l]ike the rest of american puritan teaching, the primer seems to take an any-means-necessary approach to its task” (39). for these reformed printers and writers, it seems that the end goal of teaching children to read in order to learn the bible justifies the use of images as educational accessories, even when they must overcome potential sacerdotal objections. this concept of the end justifying the means corresponds well with schnorbus’ hypothesis of the influence of philosopher john locke’s educational ideas being a reason for these images. in her article “calvin and locke: dueling epistemologies in the new england primer,” schnorbus notes how “the lockean approach sought to engage the child as an active partner who would respond to the text, evaluate text and image together, and compare written information with past experience. thus, the child would absorb the content and the technique of learning in general” (253). later in the same article, schnorbus points out how by harris’ yielding on the issue of images, “lockean epistemology sparked a reaffirmation of key calvinist doctrines…instead of secularizing the new england primer” (254). in relation to the new england primer, it seems that by conceding on this one aspect of calvinist doctrine, harris enabled thousands of puritan children to better their visual literacy skills without sacrificing the ideological end goal of learning the bible. tracy fessenden, in her book culture and redemption: religion, the secular, and american culture, echoes this rationale by noting the connections with “the prevalence of religious imagery in the alphabet with the primer’s textual purpose” (donegan 3). she reinforces this idea by noting the established “puritanical belief of education as a way ‘to introduce literacy as a means to spiritual maturity’ and notes that the new england primer’s linking literacy to theology enabled children to learn the ‘anxious lessons of puritan theology along with the basic information they needed to participate in the social world’” (qtd. in donegan 3). another fascinating aspect of this question of images in the new england primer is the artistic nature of the images themselves. the images are crude and amateurish, which could be written off as a reflection of the time period. however, this lack of detail is more scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 66 spring 2015 of a reflection of the individual artists who created them and not an accurate reflection of the quality of woodcuts that were created at this time. david bland, in his a history of book illustration, notes how other christian religious texts that were produced around the same time as the primer had woodcuts and engravings of a much higher technical quality and that contained much more artistic merit. an example bland provides of such religious artistic merit is the 1663 printing of the cambridge bible, which contains “some incredibly fine and delicate work…many of the original engravings, notably those for the apocalypse, show a high order of imagination” (191). bland’s specification of engravings, rather than the more antiquated woodcuts, is significant, as it indicates a change in the printing technology. with an illustrated religious work like this pre-dating the first publication of the new england primer, it is clear that the images used in the primer are both sub-standard in their quality and outdated in terms of their mode of creation. for example, the “b” rhyme, “thy life to mend/ this book attend,” is paired with a picture of an open book, but the book lacks any discernable text on the pages (zipes 93.) perhaps this begrudging acceptance of the image as an educational tool can account for the quality of the woodcuts themselves. the woodcuts that accompany the new england primer’s alphabet are, at best, a crude attempt to represent and signify meaning. the images themselves serve a pragmatic function, not an aesthetically pleasing one. they are simply meant to aid a child in learning enough literacy to read the bible—no more, no less, and certainly without any attempt at artistic flair. by intentionally including these substandard images, the puritans are permitting the existence of representational imagery, as long as the aesthetic appeal is minimized to avoid any traces of popery or of possible idolatry. in subsequent reprints of the new england primer, various artists upheld this same commitment to rustic imagery. to this effect, monaghan notes that with primer: “the fidelity of an american reprint to its original was such that american printers felt obligated to find someone who could create woodcuts to reproduce the pictures—something that was much harder to do than merely copying the text” (231). given that benjamin harris was an established and successful publisher by the time of the primer’s first printing, it can be assumed that he could have afforded to commission higher-quality images. however, this use of poor quality images seems intentional, especially in light of fessenden’s comments on the growing puritan society’s emphasis on literacy. she also notes that in a growing puritan society, illiteracy was a greater evil than the possible means used to achieve it: reading represented a movement away from potentially enslaving dependence on images for children, who confronted the primer’s woodcuts and then moved beyond them to master the letters they prompted. […] the form of the primer severs images…and fixes them as unassimilable, ‘earthly’ residue of the language-acquisition process. (50) within this context, the rudimentary nature of the images essentially marks them as educationally singular—since these woodcuts do not provide any aesthetic value or personal enjoyment to a child, they can easily be disposed of and forgotten once the task of learning a collision of influences: rationalizing the use of religious images in the new england primer’s pictorial alphabet middle tennessee state university 67 to read is complete. moreover, by intending for these images to be temporary educational tools rather than permanent fixtures in a child’s life, a puritan reading and educational public further downgrades the value of and place for religious representational imagery. david watters begins his “i spake as a child—authority, metaphor and the new england primer” by lamenting on how few works of literary criticism exist on the primer, despite its clear historical, educational, and literary influence on american culture. he mentions how one reason for this lack of critical texts is likely a prevailing contemporary aversion to the doctrine of original sin. many scholars, he states, are turned off by this theological idea and avoid the critical opportunities that the new england primer contains. however, another reason watters gives for this hole in scholarship is the lack of complete primer manuscripts. indeed, this lack of primary documents does make any form of analysis difficult. charles carpenter attributes this absence of complete editions of the primer to two main factors: 18th-century higher academia’s attitude towards the primer and the nature of library and print culture in this period. he states: the fact that there are no known copies of printings [of the new england primer] between 1727 and 1735 indicates how little attention was paid to the preservation of schoolbooks from a biographical standpoint prior to the 19th century, since it is probable that copies were issued during this period. (25) additionally, carpenter maintains that “[i]t is well known that university libraries in the early days did not consider the various issues of the new england primer worthy of preservation” (25). at this point in history, libraries found little value in preserving older editions of books in general. carpenter even notes how even the bodleian library would get rid of older versions of books once newer editions were published rather than preserve the older copies (carpenter 25). but even with the fragments and extant copies of the primer still accessible today, there is much left to sift through, to question, and to discover. what appears to be a common schoolbook is much more than that. these rough, unpolished woodcuts that appear next to alphabet rhymes hold much more significance than their crude forms may initially suggest. their very inclusion represents a variety of intellectual influences combining at once, which is something much more remarkable than a simple causal relationship could produce. while none of these factors individually comprises an earth-shattering ideological shift, collectively, they provide enough of a philosophical push to merit the presence of images in the new england primer. this collision of intellectual forces offers great opportunities for scholars from a variety of disciplines—composition studies, linguistics, and even the educational field—to take a turn pouring over the primer and searching for meaning through its overlooked pages. scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 68 spring 2015 works cited bland, david. a history of book illustration: the illuminated manuscript and the printed book. cleveland: world pub. co., 1958. print. carpenter, charles h. history of american schoolbooks. philadelphia: u of pennsylvania p, 1963. print. crain, patricia. the story of a: the alphabetization of america from the new england primer to the scarlet letter. stanford: stanford up, 2000. print. donegan, rachel. “but where do they come from?: the presence of illustrated woodcuts in the new england primer’s alphabet.” 22 february 2013. middle tennessee state university. fessenden, tracy.  culture and redemption: religion, the secular, and american literature. princeton, n.j: princeton up, 2007. print. griswold, jerome. “early american children’s literature: a bibliographic primer.” early american literature 18.2 (fall 1983): 119-126. print. monaghan, e j.  learning to read and write in colonial america. amherst: u of massachusetts p, 2005. print. pitz, henry c. illustrating children’s books: history, technique, production. new york: watson-guptill publications, 1963. print. schnorbus, stephanie. “calvin and locke: dueling epistemologies in the new england primer, 1720-1790.” early american studies: an interdisciplinary journal 8.2 (2010): 250-287. mla international bibliography. web. 17 feb 2013. watters, david h. “‘i spake as a child’: authority, metaphor and the new england primer.” early american literature. 20.3 (1985): 193-213. print. zipes, jack. “the new england primer.” the norton anthology of children’s literature: the traditions in english. new york: w.w. norton, 2005. print. robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 65 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 64 spring 2014 robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche a critical essay luke judkins abstract this critical essay argues that robert frost’s poem, “the road not taken” is not a poem about taking a road less traveled but about regret and the state of the human psyche during the process of decision. frost argues against indecisiveness and regret via the speaker’s battle to decide between two virtually identical roads—neither one more or less traveled than the other. readers should look beyond the last two lines of frost’s poem in order to develop a structured perspective concerning frost’s point. historical contextualization provides readers with a sense of the biographical elements of the poem, written in 1916 and inspired by his friend edward thomas. thomas was indecisive about which path to take when they both proceeded into nature for a walk, giving frost a beginning for the speaker in the poem. close analysis of each stanza, reveals that frost’s “the road not taken” has psychological implications of regret and uncertainty regarding decision-making and provides a solution by having the speaker immediately imagining himself in the future romanticizing his choice. robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 6766 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” robert frost’s “the road not taken” (19-20) since its publication, robert frost’s (1874-1963) masterpiece “the road not taken” (1916) has been subjected to much misconstrued analysis, which has led to its being stereotyped as a poem about “following his [the speaker’s] instinct, choosing the road less traveled by” (booth 1057 and sampley 197). as such, choosing the right, less traveled “road” in life leads to a beneficial future. although taking a more tedious or moral “road” may provide a great future, this does not seem to be frost’s focus in “the road not taken.” in fact, frost seems, instead, to allude to the psychological struggle inherent in decision-making. furthermore, he illustrates through a speaker—who not only comes to an important decision in his life but who also imagines himself in the future romanticizing his “good” decision—an alternative to the regret often associated with difficult decisions. breaking the poem down by stanza, one can see that frost wishes to reveal to his readers a possible strategy for overcoming regret. frost’s original inspiration for “the road not taken” came from his friend edward thomas. frost once said in a letter to louis untermeyer, “i’ll bet not half a dozen people can tell you who was hit and where he was hit in my ‘road not taken’” (pritchard 128). the “he” frost refers to is none other than thomas, because when the two would take walks together, thomas “castigated himself for not having taken another path than the one they took” (pritchard 128). frost sent “the road not taken” to thomas to inform him of his habits through his mischievous style in the poem. however, thomas missed the meaning of the poem and did not realize the poem was about him. thomas, and many critics since the poem’s composition, did not see frost’s attempts to provide a solution for regret by allowing the speaker to face and overcome his regretful thoughts and continue with his journey. in the introductory stanza, frost provides readers with his setting, his speaker, and the intellectual qualities of his speaker. frost also manipulates metaphors in his poem in order to achieve his purpose. readers often assume his symbols of the “roads” and the “traveler” as not merely a traveler in the woods but as a person on a journey through life. frost uses the scenario of the “life-altering” decision to relate not only to thomas but to his readers as well. in reality, life presents many choices that sometimes are in an “either-or” context as the speaker finds himself within the first line of our poem. frost describes this situation with a fork in the road for the purposes of pointing out the human qualities in the speaker; thus, he further attempts to relate the speaker to his readers. the speaker must make a choice between the two roads on his journey and is sorry that he “could not travel both” (frost 2). the desire for extracting ourselves from our human situations to overpower them is a common trait of human psychology, as frost demonstrates here; however, the speaker cannot travel both and still be human and “be one traveler” (3). he must choose. therefore, as is common practice, he attempts to look down the first road as far as he can, beginning to rationalize which one is better (4). however, as he does not have the power of overcoming his circumstances, he cannot see what each path may hold for him; thus, he is subordinate to the world about him (5). frost must first set up the human qualities in the speaker by his limited sight of the roads (into the future) and the important occurrence of the choice in the opening stanza before pressing on to his primary focus of human psychology in decision-making. in the second stanza, the speaker further analyzes his choice. i must call attention to frost uses the term wanted to describe the second road, as it “was grassy and wanted wear” (8). however, this term is ambiguous in the sense that it can mean both “to be lacking” (“want,” def. 1a) and “to desire or wish for” (“want,” def. 5a). frost was almost certainly aware of this ambiguity. if one employs the definition “to desire,” the speaker is personifying the second road, suggesting that it wants him to travel it. however, inanimate objects do not want things; rather, this is the speaker revealing a hidden desire for the second road without directly expressing it. this is another instance where readers see that the frost’s focus is the human psyche. however, if one interprets the term as “to be lacking,” then this might change the focus of the line from the speaker’s psychological condition to the condition of the road, which also becomes an important feature in frost’s perspective since the speaker describes both roads as identical. either interpretation of the term “wanted” leads readers to the possibility that frost’s objective is to draw parallels between the speaker’s psychological condition and the condition of the roads, which are both significant and crucial later in the poem. frost uses descriptive and weighted lines both here at the midpoint of the poem and at the end of the poem in order to contrast the two ideas he presents in them. frost’s form here gives us a more focused idea of his objective by ensuring the significance of the last two lines in the stanza. although one knows that the speaker takes the second road (6-7), one also knows that there is no difference between it and the first road in terms of deterioration; neither shows more wear than the other (9-10). if frost is aware of the ambiguity of wanted, the term more arguably refers to a personification of the speaker’s desire to take the second road. the first road lies in nature’s wood and responds neutrally to the speaker; it has not made an impression upon the speaker as wanting or otherwise. recalling the understanding that the roads are both the same, strong implications arise that frost wants his readers to see the first stage of the speaker’s justification for his choice of the second road amidst indecision. once frost sets up the indecision and mental qualities of the speaker, he intensifies his expression of choice by the third stanza. one now knows by connection that there is no difference between either road. in this stanza, frost presents his readers with another reference to the roads’ appearances, yet this time he refines the setting by mentioning that it is morning (11). in addition, “no step had trodden black” the leaves on the ground, indicating that it is likely fall (12). this statement builds the speaker’s character by metaphorically depicting the speaker’s declining stage of life, which might explain the speaker’s wisdom and knowledge of himself, as we will see in the last stanza. otherwise, this might be a further reference to frost’s friend, thomas, and the time(s) that they would walk together during the fall. both views support frost’s objective of illustrating how regret affects the robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 6766 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” robert frost’s “the road not taken” (19-20) since its publication, robert frost’s (1874-1963) masterpiece “the road not taken” (1916) has been subjected to much misconstrued analysis, which has led to its being stereotyped as a poem about “following his [the speaker’s] instinct, choosing the road less traveled by” (booth 1057 and sampley 197). as such, choosing the right, less traveled “road” in life leads to a beneficial future. although taking a more tedious or moral “road” may provide a great future, this does not seem to be frost’s focus in “the road not taken.” in fact, frost seems, instead, to allude to the psychological struggle inherent in decision-making. furthermore, he illustrates through a speaker—who not only comes to an important decision in his life but who also imagines himself in the future romanticizing his “good” decision—an alternative to the regret often associated with difficult decisions. breaking the poem down by stanza, one can see that frost wishes to reveal to his readers a possible strategy for overcoming regret. frost’s original inspiration for “the road not taken” came from his friend edward thomas. frost once said in a letter to louis untermeyer, “i’ll bet not half a dozen people can tell you who was hit and where he was hit in my ‘road not taken’” (pritchard 128). the “he” frost refers to is none other than thomas, because when the two would take walks together, thomas “castigated himself for not having taken another path than the one they took” (pritchard 128). frost sent “the road not taken” to thomas to inform him of his habits through his mischievous style in the poem. however, thomas missed the meaning of the poem and did not realize the poem was about him. thomas, and many critics since the poem’s composition, did not see frost’s attempts to provide a solution for regret by allowing the speaker to face and overcome his regretful thoughts and continue with his journey. in the introductory stanza, frost provides readers with his setting, his speaker, and the intellectual qualities of his speaker. frost also manipulates metaphors in his poem in order to achieve his purpose. readers often assume his symbols of the “roads” and the “traveler” as not merely a traveler in the woods but as a person on a journey through life. frost uses the scenario of the “life-altering” decision to relate not only to thomas but to his readers as well. in reality, life presents many choices that sometimes are in an “either-or” context as the speaker finds himself within the first line of our poem. frost describes this situation with a fork in the road for the purposes of pointing out the human qualities in the speaker; thus, he further attempts to relate the speaker to his readers. the speaker must make a choice between the two roads on his journey and is sorry that he “could not travel both” (frost 2). the desire for extracting ourselves from our human situations to overpower them is a common trait of human psychology, as frost demonstrates here; however, the speaker cannot travel both and still be human and “be one traveler” (3). he must choose. therefore, as is common practice, he attempts to look down the first road as far as he can, beginning to rationalize which one is better (4). however, as he does not have the power of overcoming his circumstances, he cannot see what each path may hold for him; thus, he is subordinate to the world about him (5). frost must first set up the human qualities in the speaker by his limited sight of the roads (into the future) and the important occurrence of the choice in the opening stanza before pressing on to his primary focus of human psychology in decision-making. in the second stanza, the speaker further analyzes his choice. i must call attention to frost uses the term wanted to describe the second road, as it “was grassy and wanted wear” (8). however, this term is ambiguous in the sense that it can mean both “to be lacking” (“want,” def. 1a) and “to desire or wish for” (“want,” def. 5a). frost was almost certainly aware of this ambiguity. if one employs the definition “to desire,” the speaker is personifying the second road, suggesting that it wants him to travel it. however, inanimate objects do not want things; rather, this is the speaker revealing a hidden desire for the second road without directly expressing it. this is another instance where readers see that the frost’s focus is the human psyche. however, if one interprets the term as “to be lacking,” then this might change the focus of the line from the speaker’s psychological condition to the condition of the road, which also becomes an important feature in frost’s perspective since the speaker describes both roads as identical. either interpretation of the term “wanted” leads readers to the possibility that frost’s objective is to draw parallels between the speaker’s psychological condition and the condition of the roads, which are both significant and crucial later in the poem. frost uses descriptive and weighted lines both here at the midpoint of the poem and at the end of the poem in order to contrast the two ideas he presents in them. frost’s form here gives us a more focused idea of his objective by ensuring the significance of the last two lines in the stanza. although one knows that the speaker takes the second road (6-7), one also knows that there is no difference between it and the first road in terms of deterioration; neither shows more wear than the other (9-10). if frost is aware of the ambiguity of wanted, the term more arguably refers to a personification of the speaker’s desire to take the second road. the first road lies in nature’s wood and responds neutrally to the speaker; it has not made an impression upon the speaker as wanting or otherwise. recalling the understanding that the roads are both the same, strong implications arise that frost wants his readers to see the first stage of the speaker’s justification for his choice of the second road amidst indecision. once frost sets up the indecision and mental qualities of the speaker, he intensifies his expression of choice by the third stanza. one now knows by connection that there is no difference between either road. in this stanza, frost presents his readers with another reference to the roads’ appearances, yet this time he refines the setting by mentioning that it is morning (11). in addition, “no step had trodden black” the leaves on the ground, indicating that it is likely fall (12). this statement builds the speaker’s character by metaphorically depicting the speaker’s declining stage of life, which might explain the speaker’s wisdom and knowledge of himself, as we will see in the last stanza. otherwise, this might be a further reference to frost’s friend, thomas, and the time(s) that they would walk together during the fall. both views support frost’s objective of illustrating how regret affects the robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 6968 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research human psyche. nevertheless, more importantly in this stanza, the speaker conducts a second stage of justification for his choice of the second road by convincing himself that he “kept the first for another day” even though he knows “how way leads on to way,” and he will never return to that point, that choice, in his journey again (13-14). usually when one attempts to rationalize a choice in this way, one is attempting to relieve guilt or feelings of doubt regarding one’s choice. the speaker purges his worries and curiosities from his mind temporarily by comforting himself with something he knows is not true. the last line in this stanza adds a sense of regret to the speaker’s tone by revealing his doubts that his travels will ever return him to this place in his journey again. the speaker knows he cannot relive a defining moment such as this and must choose to keep moving forward. probably the most crucial word to an efficient reading of this poem occurs in the last stanza and provides support for my interpretation of frost’s argument against regret – “sigh” (16). many readers focus more on the over-popularized last two lines of the poem, “i took the one less traveled by/and that has made all the difference,” and read them with a positive and inspirational meaning, missing the fact that the poem rests on the single word, sigh (19-20). the word sigh can denote a number of conflicting feelings, “especially indicating or expressing dejection, weariness, longing, pain, or relief ” (“sigh,” def. 1). whether “sigh” is construed as positive or negative leads to varying interpretations of the poem. that is, whether the speaker rejoices with a sigh of relief about his achievement, regrets with a sigh of pain his choice, or sighs with dejection, since he withholds the truth of the roads’ conditions from himself. by examining the speaker’s psychological patterns thus far, we can see that he must have some sense of regret about what he has chosen considering his previous efforts to rationalize and wishes to take the more traveled road, and it seems as though all three views of sigh will be evident in the speaker. it is interesting to notice that the speaker seems to hold a certain expectation for a destination he will reach by stating “somewhere ages and ages hence,” when the speaker mentions no destination but seems to expect a point of reflection with a sigh for his past, far into his future (17). arguably, the speaker does seem to recognize the importance of the decision of the road he took and notices it was a fundamental point in his journey, potentially making the choice either worthwhile or pointless. thus, the speaker calls more attention to romanticizing his choice in the future, since he has greater worries to consider. the speaker appears very intelligent and aware of how to manipulate his own psychological condition, because immediately after he makes his choice, he imagines himself far in the future romanticizing this moment by saying he took “the one less traveled by” (19). the reader is aware that both roads are essentially identical, apart from the speaker’s personification of the second road, which ultimately leads to his choosing it. the speaker seems quite confident that he will be thinking about this choice in the future with a sigh, especially by frost’s repetition of the pronoun i repeated twice, not just for the abaab rhyme scheme, but also to show the speaker desires to be in control of his circumstances. the speaker emphasizes that he has chosen heroically on his own. another interesting perspective on the speaker’s thoughts is that he fantasizes telling someone of his personal choice when he is on his journey alone. perhaps the psychology of decision-making that frost wants to highlight for readers stems from the loneliness of the speaker on his journey. nevertheless, whether he is telling someone else in the future or relishing his past to himself, there is still an underlying sense of regret and a need to romanticize that moment to overcome his regret and indecision. frost knew thomas’s desire to go back and choose the path they never took on their walks. to contrast thomas with frost’s speaker, the speaker seems to come to a point in his journey where he romanticizes and attempts to support his choice rather than regret it and chastise himself as thomas did. the speaker imagines a stronger self who is able to overcome regret with a knowing sigh that the other road was not important in comparison to his choice. understanding this, the sigh becomes slightly regretful with a suggestion of the personal knowledge that it was never the road less traveled that was important and he had created a myth about what caused all the difference in his life. it is particularly odd that the speaker should become sorrowful because of the road he chose. when he is actually imagining the future, he does not know what the second road may hold for him or whether it will be beneficial or not, but the speaker comes to realize this and imagines the scenario positively in order to assuage any doubt he has about making his choice. the reader sees that the speaker is actually pessimistic in several ways. the speaker wants to travel down both roads but cannot and thus regrets this; he also regrets his choice after he makes his decision, implying that he regrets his humanity and his subordination to the world around him. however, by imagining himself romanticizing his choice in the future, he is able to overcome his doubts, a significant accomplishment and, perhaps, a subtle implication from frost that though his readers do not have direct power over circumstances, they do have power over themselves. frost informs readers of the psychological implications of decision-making and warns readers regarding their mindset in their individual lives by revealing the speaker’s regret and the methods the speaker uses to overcome that regret and make the choice. frost attempts to convince readers not to regret our choices by providing a speaker who must make a choice and battle his own contested feelings regarding it, and who uses his imagination to overcome doubt and indecision. even though the sigh may still evidence some regret on the speaker’s part, it also reveals that the speaker recognizes the true condition of the roads and that he is relieved that he chose to live no longer with regret and indecision by setting this goal for himself in the future. when he states that he chose the less traveled path “and that has made all the difference” (20), frost uses that not to refer to the choice (19), as might be traditionally thought by readers and critics, but to refer to the change in the speaker’s implied state of mind in the previous line. removing the doubt associated with choice has made all the difference as the speaker attempts to let go of any regret by confidently imagining himself in the future, relishing in his power over his journey, and as a result, conquering his inner pessimist along the way. robert frost’s “the road not taken” has another meaning, contrary to popular theories that tend to focus on the last two lines of the poem. understanding that the poem robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 6968 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research human psyche. nevertheless, more importantly in this stanza, the speaker conducts a second stage of justification for his choice of the second road by convincing himself that he “kept the first for another day” even though he knows “how way leads on to way,” and he will never return to that point, that choice, in his journey again (13-14). usually when one attempts to rationalize a choice in this way, one is attempting to relieve guilt or feelings of doubt regarding one’s choice. the speaker purges his worries and curiosities from his mind temporarily by comforting himself with something he knows is not true. the last line in this stanza adds a sense of regret to the speaker’s tone by revealing his doubts that his travels will ever return him to this place in his journey again. the speaker knows he cannot relive a defining moment such as this and must choose to keep moving forward. probably the most crucial word to an efficient reading of this poem occurs in the last stanza and provides support for my interpretation of frost’s argument against regret – “sigh” (16). many readers focus more on the over-popularized last two lines of the poem, “i took the one less traveled by/and that has made all the difference,” and read them with a positive and inspirational meaning, missing the fact that the poem rests on the single word, sigh (19-20). the word sigh can denote a number of conflicting feelings, “especially indicating or expressing dejection, weariness, longing, pain, or relief ” (“sigh,” def. 1). whether “sigh” is construed as positive or negative leads to varying interpretations of the poem. that is, whether the speaker rejoices with a sigh of relief about his achievement, regrets with a sigh of pain his choice, or sighs with dejection, since he withholds the truth of the roads’ conditions from himself. by examining the speaker’s psychological patterns thus far, we can see that he must have some sense of regret about what he has chosen considering his previous efforts to rationalize and wishes to take the more traveled road, and it seems as though all three views of sigh will be evident in the speaker. it is interesting to notice that the speaker seems to hold a certain expectation for a destination he will reach by stating “somewhere ages and ages hence,” when the speaker mentions no destination but seems to expect a point of reflection with a sigh for his past, far into his future (17). arguably, the speaker does seem to recognize the importance of the decision of the road he took and notices it was a fundamental point in his journey, potentially making the choice either worthwhile or pointless. thus, the speaker calls more attention to romanticizing his choice in the future, since he has greater worries to consider. the speaker appears very intelligent and aware of how to manipulate his own psychological condition, because immediately after he makes his choice, he imagines himself far in the future romanticizing this moment by saying he took “the one less traveled by” (19). the reader is aware that both roads are essentially identical, apart from the speaker’s personification of the second road, which ultimately leads to his choosing it. the speaker seems quite confident that he will be thinking about this choice in the future with a sigh, especially by frost’s repetition of the pronoun i repeated twice, not just for the abaab rhyme scheme, but also to show the speaker desires to be in control of his circumstances. the speaker emphasizes that he has chosen heroically on his own. another interesting perspective on the speaker’s thoughts is that he fantasizes telling someone of his personal choice when he is on his journey alone. perhaps the psychology of decision-making that frost wants to highlight for readers stems from the loneliness of the speaker on his journey. nevertheless, whether he is telling someone else in the future or relishing his past to himself, there is still an underlying sense of regret and a need to romanticize that moment to overcome his regret and indecision. frost knew thomas’s desire to go back and choose the path they never took on their walks. to contrast thomas with frost’s speaker, the speaker seems to come to a point in his journey where he romanticizes and attempts to support his choice rather than regret it and chastise himself as thomas did. the speaker imagines a stronger self who is able to overcome regret with a knowing sigh that the other road was not important in comparison to his choice. understanding this, the sigh becomes slightly regretful with a suggestion of the personal knowledge that it was never the road less traveled that was important and he had created a myth about what caused all the difference in his life. it is particularly odd that the speaker should become sorrowful because of the road he chose. when he is actually imagining the future, he does not know what the second road may hold for him or whether it will be beneficial or not, but the speaker comes to realize this and imagines the scenario positively in order to assuage any doubt he has about making his choice. the reader sees that the speaker is actually pessimistic in several ways. the speaker wants to travel down both roads but cannot and thus regrets this; he also regrets his choice after he makes his decision, implying that he regrets his humanity and his subordination to the world around him. however, by imagining himself romanticizing his choice in the future, he is able to overcome his doubts, a significant accomplishment and, perhaps, a subtle implication from frost that though his readers do not have direct power over circumstances, they do have power over themselves. frost informs readers of the psychological implications of decision-making and warns readers regarding their mindset in their individual lives by revealing the speaker’s regret and the methods the speaker uses to overcome that regret and make the choice. frost attempts to convince readers not to regret our choices by providing a speaker who must make a choice and battle his own contested feelings regarding it, and who uses his imagination to overcome doubt and indecision. even though the sigh may still evidence some regret on the speaker’s part, it also reveals that the speaker recognizes the true condition of the roads and that he is relieved that he chose to live no longer with regret and indecision by setting this goal for himself in the future. when he states that he chose the less traveled path “and that has made all the difference” (20), frost uses that not to refer to the choice (19), as might be traditionally thought by readers and critics, but to refer to the change in the speaker’s implied state of mind in the previous line. removing the doubt associated with choice has made all the difference as the speaker attempts to let go of any regret by confidently imagining himself in the future, relishing in his power over his journey, and as a result, conquering his inner pessimist along the way. robert frost’s “the road not taken” has another meaning, contrary to popular theories that tend to focus on the last two lines of the poem. understanding that the poem robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 7170 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was written with a particular “traveler,” edward thomas, in mind allows us to interpret the poem’s emphasis on psychological processes and importance of overcoming regret. by providing us with a speaker who comes to terms with his humanity and attempts to purge regret and the doubt associated with choosing the second road over the first, frost alludes to the psychology of human decision-making and argues against the regret of irrevocable decisions by proposing a solution to overcome regret. works cited booth, alison and kelly j. mays, ed. “robert frost.” the norton introduction to literature: shorter tenth edition. new york: norton, 2010. 1057. print. frost, robert. “the road not taken.” 1916. the norton introduction to literature: shorter tenth edition. ed. alison booth and kelly j. mays. new york: norton, 2010. 1019. print. pritchard, william h. frost: a literary life reconsidered. 1984. 2nd ed. amherst: university of massachusetts press, 1993. print. sampley, arthur m. “the myth and the quest: the stature of robert frost.” 1971. critical essays on robert frost. ed. philip l. gerber. boston: g. k. hall & co., 1982. 189-198. print. “sigh.” def. n. 1. the oxford english dictionary. oed online. december 2013. oxford university press. web. 8 feb. 2014. “want.” def. v. 1a. and 5a. the oxford english dictionary. oed online. december 2013. oxford university press. web. 8 feb. 2014. robert frost’s “the road not taken”: regret in the human psyche – a critical essay middle tennessee state university 7170 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research was written with a particular “traveler,” edward thomas, in mind allows us to interpret the poem’s emphasis on psychological processes and importance of overcoming regret. by providing us with a speaker who comes to terms with his humanity and attempts to purge regret and the doubt associated with choosing the second road over the first, frost alludes to the psychology of human decision-making and argues against the regret of irrevocable decisions by proposing a solution to overcome regret. works cited booth, alison and kelly j. mays, ed. “robert frost.” the norton introduction to literature: shorter tenth edition. new york: norton, 2010. 1057. print. frost, robert. “the road not taken.” 1916. the norton introduction to literature: shorter tenth edition. ed. alison booth and kelly j. mays. new york: norton, 2010. 1019. print. pritchard, william h. frost: a literary life reconsidered. 1984. 2nd ed. amherst: university of massachusetts press, 1993. print. sampley, arthur m. “the myth and the quest: the stature of robert frost.” 1971. critical essays on robert frost. ed. philip l. gerber. boston: g. k. hall & co., 1982. 189-198. print. “sigh.” def. n. 1. the oxford english dictionary. oed online. december 2013. oxford university press. web. 8 feb. 2014. “want.” def. v. 1a. and 5a. the oxford english dictionary. oed online. december 2013. oxford university press. web. 8 feb. 2014. whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in ( william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet middle tennessee state university 7372 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research whose “womanish tears” are these?: performativity in (william shakespeare’s) romeo and/+ juliet cori mathis abstract this paper examines the ways in which baz luhrmann’s william shakespeare’s romeo + juliet explores the gender concerns addressed in the original play. luhrmann’s film picks up on the theme of performativity—a term that this paper uses in the manner of judith butler—that runs throughout romeo and juliet and foregrounds the ways in which romeo and juliet perform a feminine and masculine gender, respectively. their first meeting in the text acts as the impetus for a permanent performance; they are agents of change in each other’s lives. romeo chooses a feminine performance to inhabit more fully the identity of the petrarchan lover that he prefers, while juliet enacts masculinity to gain more agency over her own life. luhrmann takes this preoccupation of the text and amplifies it in his film. his changes and casting choices also help to highlight the issues of performativity; leonardo dicaprio’s more feminine appearance and claire danes’s peculiar mix of naiveté and intelligence telegraph the message luhrmann hopes to send. in addition, luhrmann chooses to make the families part of rival gangs who divide the city based on race and socioeconomic class. juliet’s family is hispanic, which adds another layer to her defiance of patriarchal values. in the past, the film has been dismissed by many scholars as “just a teen film,” but it is clear that luhrmann’s careful attention to the thematic concerns of the text demand a reconsideration of the film’s place in adaptation studies. an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union* kayla mccrary abstract in june 2016, the united kingdom held an in/out referendum on membership in the european union (eu) resulting in a narrow victory for euroskeptics. historically, britain has notably been a euroskeptic nation, and the following analysis of britain’s relationship with the eu will explore the implications of brexit in context with euroskepticism. this analysis is a result of previous research on the british vote to the leave the eu and draws substantially on research in the fields of voting patterns, social identity, and britain’s unique characteristics that culminated in the vote to leave the eu. as a result, this paper relies heavily on historical implications of euroskepticism as well as recent literature on the theories of euroskeptic voting, demographics, and the history of the relationship between the uk and the eu. the paper concludes that populist and anti-globalist sentiments driven by political parties such as the united kingdom independence party (ukip) mobilized euroskepticism, allowing for a philosophy to transform into effective policy change. the main driving factors behind britain’s unique position of leaving the eu were economic and social. this conclusion is substantiated by a constituency-based analysis, which utilizes demographic data, voter turnout, and the referendum result data in order to quantify euroskepticism and its impact on the top constituencies that voted to leave the eu. keywords: european union, euroskepticism, brexit, ukip, britain, referenda *adapted from “an analysis of british euroscepticism and britain’s vote to leave the european union,” a university honors thesis for middle tennessee state university. middle tennessee state university 109 110 spring 2017 since the inception of the european project following world war ii, britain was considered a skeptical partner, thus leading to the notion of britain being a “euroskeptic” nation. in 2016, the united kingdom (uk) held an in/out referendum regarding membership in the european union (eu). the withdrawal of britain from the eu, also known as “brexit,” was considered a lengthy, multi-step process essentially signaled by the referendum in favor of leaving. after a hotly contentious political battle between the leave and remain campaigns, the result of the referendum was a close victory for pro-leave, the most dedicated of the euroskeptics. the aim of this analysis is to understand the elements of euroskepticism that contributed to the strained relationship between britain and the eu and ultimately led to the result of the eu membership referendum. this essay will explore the multifaceted and unique elements of british euroskepticism in regard to brexit, analyze identifiable british euroskepticism vis-à-vis political parties and the referendum, and conclude with an observation of voter turnout data in top euroskeptic constituency areas. defining euroskepticism the term eurosceptic/euroskeptic has differing connotations and definitions. generally, the term denotes a sense of disillusion from europe, the european union, the eu’s aims and goals (usually further political integration), or eu institutions. moreover, scholars have further defined euroskepticism as a “barometer that measures non-adherence to the european union,” as “hostility to participation in or the entire enterprise of the eu,” and as an “expression of doubt or disbelief in europe and european integration in general” (condruz-bacescu, 2014, p. 53; george, 2000, p. 15; hooghe & marks, 2007, p. 120). foundational research into euroskepticism by taggart and szczerbiak (2005) creates a hard-versus-soft dichotomy that essentially allows for comparisons and categorizations of the identifiable variations of euroskepticism. euroskepticism is observable in political parties’ philosophies, proposed or implemented national or local policies, and the beliefs espoused by politicians. in “soft euroskepticism,” there is an observable opposition or concern regarding one or several policies or policy areas. soft euroskepticism could be expressed in terms of an opposition to a single european policy that interferes with a specific national interest. opposition to the eu’s freedom of movement policy, but not the eu as a whole, on the basis of national interest being at stake or compromised, is an example of soft euroskepticism. “hard euroskepticism” is the highest degree of opposition to the eu. hard euroskepticism includes a principled opposition to the eu and its policy aims, especially further political integration, and is clearly observable in political parties scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research that support national withdrawal from the european union or the dismantling of the eu altogether. similar to soft euroskepticism, hard euroskeptics are acting on the basis of their respective national interest or philosophical opposition to foundational aspects of the eu, such as supranationalism. voting to leave the eu is one of the clearest examples of hard euroskepticism. other examples include political parties such as the united kingdom independence party and british member of european parliament (mep) nigel farage’s clearly observable opposition to the eu through anti-eu imposed immigration discourse and support of britain’s withdrawal from the eu. there are four types of euroskepticism relevant to britain’s vote to leave the eu. these types are based on specific subsidiary issues of economics, sovereignty, democratic legitimacy, and political criterion (condruz-bacescu, 2014). while euroskepticism is not solely a british issue, and britain’s relationship with the eu is not wholly contentious, the result of the eu referendum made the ultimate “hard euroskeptic” decision to leave the european union. british euroskepticism the uniqueness of british euroskepticism can be hypothesized as stemming from several defining characteristics of the uk: geography, the cultural notion of “britishness,” preferred political system and style of governance, and media (grant, 2008; geddes, 2003). in the following sections, the implications of these characteristics will be analyzed in relation to euroskepticism and brexit. geography: physical and philosophical distance. the uk shares a border with only one eu member state, ireland, and is separated from the rest of europe by ocean. the notion of geographic distance from europe, often referred to as “the continent” by the british, offers insight into britain’s unique characteristics in reference to its relationship with the eu. charles grant (2008) offered four explanations as to why the british are euroskeptic, with the first of the four reasons being geographic distance and its effect on british history and perception of europe. according to grant (2008), britain was oriented to other continents more so than any other european continental power. maritime britain’s superior trade and colonial expansion into north and south america, asia, and africa led not only to strong economic ties to these regions, but also altered patterns of immigration and cultural exchange. similarly, other european powers sought influence and trade ties with continental partners, especially amongst themselves. european countries, including britain, were also involved in numerous wars and conflicts, with world war ii being most notable for an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union middle tennessee state university 111 112 spring 2017 british euroskeptics. furthermore, grant (2008) noted the prevalent british belief of britain’s involvement in world war ii as being the nation’s “finest hour,” providing a “smug sense of superiority vis-à-vis most of the other peoples of europe” (p. 3). conversely, some writers disagree with the notion of geography being a negative feature contributing to the idea of a “british identity” separate from “europe” or “european.” notably, baron bhikhu parekh (2009), a political theorist and labour member of the house of lords, wrote on the implications of british history and identity in accordance with its geography. parekh (2009) noted britain’s complex global relationships as a positive feature of its position in the world, citing examples of “a common european heritage,” “close ties with the [united states],” and a “[british] political consciousness” shaped by the empire and “commonwealth of over fifty countries” (p. 38). furthermore, parekh (2009) celebrated britain’s identity as a trifecta simultaneously encompassing european, atlantic, and globalized identities. writing in 2009, parekh’s claim that britain should not “define itself in isolation from the rest of the world” and should instead embrace “all three [identities], and not just the first two [european and atlantic]” is a reference to britain’s struggle to identify itself geopolitically and culturally in a modern context (p. 38). in 2017, britain is still struggling to place itself in a position where a multifaceted identity can be embraced and cultivated, not only in terms of external relations with other nations, but also internally. undoubtedly, the relationship between identity and euroskepticism is identifiable. in 2015, a study of national identity from the british social attitudes data from 1996–2014 gathered in order to map a trend of social attitude toward the european union was published (ormston, 2015). in this report, one of the main conclusions derived from the available data indicated that while identities are difficult to measure, as some may hold multiple identities with differing levels of importance, most respondents did not see themselves as europeans. starting in 1996, the percentage of respondents who described themselves as “european” was at 10%, followed by a slight decrease in 1997 and a substantial increase from 9% to 12–17% in 1998–1999 (ormston, 2015). interestingly, while 1998–1999 are the height of this survey’s results, the percentage of respondents who described themselves as european decreased substantially and fluctuated between 11% and 12% for the following five years—2000–2005 (ormston, 2015). while the percentage of respondents describing themselves as european increased sharply during 2005–2006, the rate once again dropped and fluctuated again with a 1% 4% change from 2007–2014 (ormston, 2015). the british social attitudes surveys measured the scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “extent to which people in britain identify with multiple national (and in the case of european, supranational) identities that are commonly associated with great britain and/or ireland” (ormston, 2015). as individuals can hold multiple identities, this raises the question of how strongly “europeanism” can compete with the british and subsidiary identities. thomas risse (2000) remarked on this notion, stating that individuals can hold multiple identities that are contextually bound, and membership of a group can lead to distinctions from other groups e.g. british, french, or german (as cited in geddes, 2013, pp. 198-200). furthermore, the cohesiveness of member groups is “often based on emotional ties” to the group linked closely to ideas about nationality, nation state, and sovereignty (geddes, 2013, p. 33). in 2015, a eurobarometer poll indicated that 64% of british respondents only saw themselves as british, which was the highest percentage amongst all responding countries, followed by cyprus and greece (eurobarometer report may 2015, 2015). furthermore, an additional report composed with british social attitudes data by natcan social research concluded with the interpretation of british euroskepticism by noting that few britons “feel a sense of european identity” and, as a result, britons “are not convinced of the practical benefits of [eu] membership as [they] were in the 1990s” (curtice & evans, 2015, p. 32). the identity debate, while multifaceted, has implications far beyond those of answering the question of who is british, especially in light of brexit. in regard to brexit, the identity question stretches over into immigration and migration, globalization, and britain’s future with the eu and the world. governance. an important source of tension between britain and the european union since its inception was the conflict involving preferred styles of governance. the eu, as it is currently conceived, is a supranational entity, meaning that its member states have pooled sovereignty to an overarching institution of decision making. in addition to political integration, there is also economic integration in the eu—mostly notably the free trade area in which there are no tariffs or trade barriers within member states, as well as an economic monetary union with a single currency, the euro (although some have opted out). the uk is not a member of the eurozone and has opted out of the single currency provision. supranationalism also entails that eu law supersedes law made at the national level. some scholars contend that britain prefers a system of governance with intergovernmental cooperation, or intergovernmentalism, which would conflict with the an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union middle tennessee state university 113 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 114 spring 2017 eu’s supranational governmental structure. intergovernmentalism, as noted by geddes (2013), places power in “unanimity as the basis of decision making” and “allows a veto to be exercised to protect national interests” (p. 24). neofunctionalism, a contrasting theory on integration, places value on a collective and regional process of integration, reducing the role of the nation state. media. british media is undeniably unique in its ability to shape euroskeptic opinion. according to grant (2008), the british media is “uniquely powerful and [euroskeptic]” (p. 3). furthermore, grant (2008) posed that three-quarters of the 30 million individuals who read british newspapers are reading euroskeptic material (p. 3). this claim was justified by noting that british newspapers often print falsehoods about the eu because journalists are “allowed” to do so, and often newspapers’ owners encourage or demand anti-eu material (grant, 2008, p. 3). one of the most widely circulated newspapers in britain, the sun, boasts a circulation of approximately 1.8 million and is owned by media giant rupert murdoch. according to a post published directly by the sun, the outlet urged readers to “beleave in britain and vote to quit the eu” and “free ourselves from dictatorial brussels” (the sun, 2016). following the sun in circulation figures, daily mail secures second place with 1.6 million in circulation in 2016.daily mail supported britain’s withdrawal from the eu with the headline: “if you believe in britain, vote leave: lies, greedy elites and a divided, dying europe—we could have a great future outside a broken eu” (daily mail comment, 2016). perhaps less ostentatiously, the daily telegraph, which has approximately 472,000 in circulation in 2016 and 490,000 in 2015, was seen as neutral. yet, the telegraph eventually posted on june 20, 2016 in support of britain leaving the eu, noting that there was a “benefit from a world of opportunity” in voting to leave (telegraph view, 2016). member of parliament, former mayor of london, and a leader of the brexit campaign, boris johnson was often a star columnist for the telegraph. yet, the telegraph also published an opinion piece by united states president barack obama, which urged for a vote to remain in the eu, with the headline: “barack obama: as your friend, let me say that the eu makes britain even greater” (obama, 2016). the sunday telegraph, their sister paper, also supported brexit. while many of the top media outlets in britain were backing brexit, there were several news entities that were in favor of remaining in the eu: the times, the daily mirror, the guardian, evening standard, the financial times, and the observer (spence, 2016). political parties. when considering the elements of british euroskepticism, it is important to note the philosophies of political parties in britain that have historically been euroskeptic. while there are euroskeptics of all political affiliations, notably the most euroskeptic of most modern political parties in the uk has been the united kingdom independence party (ukip), which is analyzed below. united kingdom independence party. inarguably one of the most impactful political upsets in modern british history, a political party which started with a group of 20-somethings and operated out of a caffè nero for months managed to usher in the ultimate euroskeptic dream: a decisive victory to leave the eu in a referendum vote. drawing upon populism, right-wing exasperation with “political elites” in both parliament and the eu, and british unionism, the ukip is interesting yet categorically indescribable. starting in 1991, alan sked founded the anti-federalist league, which would eventually turn into the ukip in 1993. for many years, the ukip remained in the shadows until nigel farage entered the fray in 2009, bolstered by the backlash regarding the lisbon treaty and the seeming influx of immigrants after eu enlargement of former communist eastern european bloc countries. farage, a figure that now serves as a divisive reminder of brexit woes and conjures up feelings of xenophobia and racism for many, worked diligently to distance himself from political elites and those “posh boys” he despised. most of the inside analysis of farage will be gleaned from an interpretation of the recently published the brexit club, authored by owen bennett, on the leave campaign in 2016. additionally, drawing upon literature on the ukip, right wing extremism in modern britain, the euroskeptic tendencies of the conservative party, populism, and anti-globalism will help further explain and substantiate the rise of the ukip and its effect on the overall outcome of the eu referendum vote. bennett characterized farage as a political gambler and an anti-establishment man who has great disdain for the posh elite, especially within the conservative party. bennett is not the only author to do so. farage, especially in his own political works and speeches, sets himself apart as a figure of anti-establishment and as a man of the ordinary people. as a self-declared maverick and anti-establishment politician, he serves as a member of european parliament in the very institution he claimed to despise since 1999, winning re-elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. in 2016, politico eu named farage as the fifth most influential mep out of a list of forty and as one of middle tennessee state university 115 an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 116 spring 2017 the two most influential and effective speakers in the ep chamber (schmidt, 2016). farage, despite his own claims, is far from ordinary. the wave on which farage rode to victory in the brexit referendum is also far from ordinary. the populist, anti-establishment, and anti-globalist wave across europe has been fueled incessantly by tensions with the fundamental framework of the eu: freedom of movement of people. anti-immigration has become, by far, one of the most influential policy points of right-wing extremist movements across europe and the uk. the “left behind” of globalization also exhibit backlash against those who have benefited from globalization. the terms “left behind” and “havenots” were used in recent literature on brexit and the rise of right-wing extremism and populist movements in europe and the united states. in a working paper on the recent mobilizations of anti-establishment populism in the united states and europe, authors inglehart and norris (2016) proposed several theories on the matter. the economic inequality perspective, which “emphasises the consequences for electoral behavior arising from profound changes transforming the workforce and society in post-industrial economies,” is applicable to brexit britain (inglehart & norris, 2016, p. 2). supporters of brexit and the ukip, who inglehart and norris (2016) would perhaps categorize as a “less secure strata of society,”1 have reportedly been more skeptical of immigration than, for example, respondents with college degrees or skilled workers (p. 2). however, the theory of cultural backlash, which inglehart and norris (2016) have surmised as building upon a silent revolution theory of value change, with cultural shifts experiencing a negative backlash, may prove more pertinent to explain the appeal of the ukip and its populist, anti-establishment rhetoric. authors ford and goodwin (2014) wrote that the ukip’s emergence was based on changes to britain’s economic and social structure that pushed the “left behind” to the side. relatedly, the generational changes in the values of britain have left the older, more traditional voters behind in the sense that those traditional views are seen as parochial by the young, university-educated strata. as a result of these shifts in social change, alongside an increasingly multicultural and liberalized britain, the “left behind” were drawn to a political party that promised to represent them and their views. ford and goodwin’s (2014) additional research surmised three motives of ukip support as the following: 1. the “less secure strata of society” category includes “low-waged unskilled workers, the long-term unemployed, households dependent on shrinking social benefits, residents of public housing, single-parent families, and poorer white populations living in inner city areas with concentrations of immigrants” (inglehart & norris, 2016, p. 2). 1. a “hard” brand of euroskepticism that opposes the principle of britain’s eumembership; 2. strong opposition to immigration and concern about its effects on the british economy and society; 3. dissatisfaction with established politics in westminster and how the established political parties have managed immigration and the [eurozone] post-2008 financial crisis (p. 278). drawing on previous research, it can be concluded that the ukip and the cultural backlash theory best explains the mobilization of the ukip’s politics, which served as a vehicle for hard euroskeptic policy change vis-à-vis withdrawal from the eu. while these sentiments have existed in the uk before the existence of the ukip, the ukip brought the hard euroskeptic movement to the forefront and capitalized on the movement to create effectual policy change. moreover, the ukip capitalized on the shift in political change with those “left behind” by mainstream parties, most notably the conservative party. according to ford and goodwin (2014), britons with no formal qualifications were twice more likely than middle-class britons and graduates to feel that they had no say in government (p. 281). the politically “left behind” electorate were disenchanted from the political process, the mainstream political parties, and traditional society. ford and goodwin (2014) seemed to agree that the ukip mobilized the “left behind,” especially the blue-collar, white, and male voters who fell into the “less secure strata” as explained by inglehart and norris (2016). another facet of the success of the ukip once again relies on the argument of the politics of identity. hayton (2016) noted that one of the overlooked facets of the ukip includes the politics of national identity. while it can be contended that the ukip is indeed simultaneously a unionist and nationalist party, hayton (2016) argued that englishness is the pivot around which key elements of the party’s appeal revolved; moreover, the “anglo-britishness” aspect of the ukip does not challenge the uk as a set of devolved nations, but rather celebrates english identity more so, and exacerbates the divide between scottish and english identities (pp. 2-5). the ukip is undeniably nationalist. moreover, the ukip seemingly favors “englishness” as a defining factor of “britishness.” for example, an excerpt from ukip material declaring that britain faces an existential crisis from the rise of scottish, irish, and welsh nationalism seems to indicate an uncompromising view of britishness middle tennessee state university 117 an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union 118 spring 2017 by rejecting notions of scottish, irish, and welsh nationalism as anti-british and therefore anti-english. in campaigning, the ukip was affiliated with two organizations: vote leave and leave.eu. farage endorsed leave.eu and was a member of vote leave. leave. eu was started by arron banks, a ukip donor and businessman out of bristol, england. vote leave was established as the official campaign in favor of leaving the eu by the electoral commission and was founded by political analysts matthew elliot and dominic cummings. vote leave was a multi-party coalition that held a committee with heavyweight names such as michael gove (conservative mp for surrey heath), douglas carswell (ukip mp for clacton), iain duncan smith (mp for chingford and woodford green), boris johnson (former mayor of london and mp for uxbridge and south ruislip), daniel hannan (mep for south east england), and andrea leadsom (mp for south northamptonshire). vote leave focused on the economic and domestic rule aspects of leaving the eu whereas leave.eu handled social aspects such as immigration. analysis: the eu referendum on june 23, 2016, a majority in england and wales voted to leave the eu; scotland, northern ireland, and gibraltar voted to remain. outside the capital city boroughs of london, almost every region had a majority voting to leave, some by merely one percentage point. overall, 17,410,742 votes (52%) were cast to leave the eu, and 16,141,241 votes (48%) were cast to remain. impressively, the remain campaign took a majority of london (59.9%) and scotland (62%). the turn-out was 72% with over 30 million votes overall. turn-out was lower, however, in areas with a younger population. areas with higher percentages of residents with higher education and formal qualifications saw a positive relationship between level of education and qualifications and voting to remain (rosenbaum, 2017). when considering this pattern, an analysis of the top euroskeptic constituency areas substantiates the characteristics of the british euroskeptic and the result of the referendum. the following section is a test of relationship between elements of euroskeptic identity and voting patterns. the methodology included taking the results of the referendum by constituency area and noting the top five areas with an overall percentage in favor of leaving the eu. following this calculation, an analysis of the constituency in regard to its euroskeptic qualities, as well as an investigation into which characteristics could fuel such a high percentage (70% or more) turnout for scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research leave, aims to serve as a way by which an otherwise qualitative explanation of british euroskepticism can be quantified by empirical data. voting to leave: the 70% club in the eu referendum, the narrow majority of the voting population voted to leave. however, in constituency areas such as boston, south holland, castle point, thurrock, great yarmouth, fenland, mansfield, bolsover, and east lindsey, the vote percentage to leave was over or equal to 70%, topping out at 75% in boston. such a high percentage of votes cast for leaving the eu raises the question: why did these areas predominately vote to leave? constituency: boston and skegness (and south holland). in lincolnshire, boston and skegness, with neighboring south holland, had 75.56% and 73.9% leave vote percentages, respectively. according to 2011–2012 census data, 10.6% of boston’s population of roughly 65,000 are migrants from the newest eu member states such as poland, lithuania, latvia, and romania (gallagher, 2016). in 2012, the local councilor responsible for housing, population, and communities, mike gilbert, said that the biggest challenge brought about by the high levels of immigration was the perceived disadvantages of immigration. throughout 2001–2011, boston saw a six-fold increase in foreign-born residents (freytas-tamusa, 2016). as a result of the growing migrant and migrant-born population, tensions between native british and eu citizens became a “microcosm for the brexit vote’s immigration debate” (moore, 2016). seemingly, a major factor in the high percentage of votes for leave has to do with disapproval of immigration. as non-british citizens (eu and non-eu citizens) were not allowed to vote even if they lived in britain, the reflection of the vote is only that of native british and those with british citizenship. moreover, the policy exchange think tank named boston as the least integrated area in britain, adding a quantifiable measure to the idea that racial tensions exist in boston (boyle, 2016). the high amount of immigrants has been linked to the substantial opportunity for agricultural and low-skilled work in boston (bbc news, 2016). constituency: castle point. with a reported population of 86,608 in 2001, castle point is in the british county of essex. in the referendum, castle point had a turnout of 75.38%; 72.7% of the vote cast was in favor of withdrawal from the eu. currently, castle point’s member of parliament is rebecca harris of the conservative party. castle point has 21 conservative local councilors, 14 canvey island independent party councilors, 5 ukip councilors, and 1 independent councilor. in 2011, the average an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union middle tennessee state university 119 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 120 spring 2017 median age of castle point citizens was 45 years old. in a report by the essex county council in 2015, between 25.86%–28.78% of castle point citizens were aged 65 or older (essex county council, 2015). according to the same report, 9% of households are older singles with private pensions, aged 66 or older; 7.4% of households are elderly couples with “traditional views” aged 66 or older; and 7.3% of households are couples without children or with adult children living with them aged 55-65 (essex county council, 2015, p. 5). constituency: thurrock. neighboring castle point, the constituency of thurrock has similar concerns. with a population of 163,270, thurrock is in the county of essex and has a conservative member of parliament, jackie doyle-price. in thurrock, the leave percentage of the vote cast was 72.3%. according to investigative reports, in the port town of tilbury, many of those who voted to leave the eu were swayed by the economic arguments (noack, 2016). tilbury and its surrounding area are a caricature of the “left behind.” massive layoffs in the 1980s due to modernization and emerging industries left the era behind (noack, 2016). those who voted to leave were reportedly in industries such as the car manufacturing industry—industries that could be effected substantially by eu trade and the allure of new trade deals (noack, 2016). immigration does not seem to be as distinctive a factor as trade and industry, but it still is reported as important with local council and supporters from the ukip in the area. theories according to the top in the 70% plus range, the commonalities seem to correlate with previous discussion on euroskepticism and the “left behind” strata. as a result, it can be hypothesized that the main driving factors for the top euroskeptic, and thereby top leave constituencies, are economic and social. within the economic factor was the appeal of new markets outside of the eu, which vote leave indicated as a possibility only by leaving the eu, and the backlash against foreign migrant workers. additionally, there are several social factors that are important for understanding the higher vote leave percentage. firstly, a majority of the areas analyzed (boston, south holland, castle point, great yarmouth, fenland, mansfield, bolsover, and east lindsey) have portions of the population that would most likely be euroskeptic, such as the pensioner age, with the exception of thurrock. as previously discussed by robert and ford (2014), the ukip’s emergence was based on changes to britain’s economic and social structure that pushed the “left behind” to the side. as mentioned prior, the generational changes in the values of britain have left the older, more traditional voters behind in the sense that those traditional views are seen as parochial by the young, university-educated strata. as a result of these shifts in social change, alongside an increasingly multicultural and liberalized britain, the “left behind” were drawn to a political party which promised to represent them and their views. in this case, the ukip and vote leave/leave.eu mobilized the “left behind” in these areas to fulfill the hard euroskeptic decision to leave the eu in order to right the supposed wrongs caused by the eu and the out-of-touch political establishment in westminster. the point is then raised as to how one can explain the remaining portions of england and wales that voted to leave the eu, especially those which do not exhibit obvious correlations with the theories posed. in looking to analyze the possible answers to such questions, it is imperative to understand the voter turnout for the referendum. overall, the turn-out for those more likely to vote to remain in the eu (young, college educated, and middle-class) was lower than that of over-65s. chart 1: turnout vs. percentage of over-65s in voting region turn-out for those more likely to be euroskeptic (aged 60+) was higher than 60% in most cases, as can be seen in chart 1: turnout vs. percentage of over-65s in voting region.2 for those aged 18-24 and eligible, 64% voted compared to 90% of 2. data for this chart was taken from the ons. this chart depicts the percentage of turnout for the eu referendum vote by voting region (or constituency area) in relation to the percentage of population over the age of 65. there is a positive relationship between the increased turnout percentage by voting area and the percentage of population over the age of 65, indicating that areas with an older population had higher voter turnout rates than that of areas with younger populations. middle tennessee state university 121 an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research middle tennessee state university 122 over-65s. the results found that 64% of young people who were registered did vote, rising to 65% among 25-to-39-year-olds and 66% among those aged between 40 and 54. it increased to 74% among the 55-to-64 year age group and 90% for those aged 65 and over. it is speculated that more than 70% of young voters chose to remain in the eu (helm, 2016). in analyzing motivations for voting choice, one can subscribe to the social group theory for explaining many of the questions regarding brexit’s turnout. barring any consideration of the somewhat untruthful campaigns and any misconceptions or misunderstandings of the vote choice, social group theory can explain the way individuals choose to vote as per the social characteristics and properties of the group in which they belong or identify. essentially, the argument is that people vote politically as they are socially. additionally, economic and cultural backlash theories follow in the same regard with overlapping imposition of social variables confounding the results. without oversimplifying the explanation, it seems as if the data points to a correlation between how the region is categorically “left behind” in the globalized world and how willing they would be to reject the notions of the eu and accept the fervor of an anti-establishment populism movement as one which encapsulates the needs of the ordinary british people who have been “left behind.” moreover, the issue of immigration, while a driving factor in the votes of many, was reportedly second to issues over national sovereignty and the principle that decisions about the uk should be made in and by the uk parliament alone. in lord ashcroft’s poll of 12,369 voters after the referendum, one-third of leave voters indicated that the most important factor driving their vote was national sovereignty, followed secondly by immigration and border control, and thirdly by concerns over the eu’s expansion of powers (lord ashcroft polls, 2016). thus, one can consider the relationship between the “national sovereignty” and “immigration and border control” variables as interlinked. essentially, while the uk is not part of the borderless europe vis-à-vis the schengen agreement, the fact remains that the uk is obligated to meet some of the eu’s immigration requirements. therefore, it can be hypothesized that the relationship between being concerned with national sovereignty and being able to legislate the control of borders is interlinked in many cases. conclusion the 2016 european union membership referendum held in great britain resulted in a narrow victory for the euroskeptics. historically, britain has exhibited euroskeptic tendencies in its relationship with the eu, and undoubtedly the result of the referendum has exacerbated both the leave and remain campaigns’ calls for a change in relationship with the eu. for some remainers, leaving the eu is considered a major loss. for the leave campaign, leaving the eu is long overdue—the eu has made hard euroskeptics of them all. however, with the continued pressure placed on britain to stake its claim in regard to its relationship with europe and the rest of the world, britain must show its flexibility and not succumb to rigid isolationism. as euroskepticism rides on the political waves of anti-establishment and anti-globalization rhetoric, nations in the eu and the united states have exhibited some of the same defining skeptical characteristics. with brexit comes great consequences of plunging into an unknown territory outside the realm of the eu, but the possibilities of continuing a relationship with the eu whilst seeking trade agreements and global partnerships across the world are enticing for an emerging british power. in essence, euroskepticism has not seen its ultimate moment, but it has seen its greatest victory thus far. across the eu, additional member states are dealing with rising momentum for euroskeptic politicians and policies. the political climate is ripe for euoskeptics to seek additional victories. in turn, the onus is on the europhiles to keep the european union before the momentum reaches its peak and results in yet another victory. middle tennessee state university 123 an analysis of euroskepticism’s influence on britain’s vote to leave the european union scientia et humanitas: a journal of student 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(2016, april 23). barack obama: as your friend, let me say that the eu makes britain even greater. the telegraph. retrieved from http://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/as-your-friend-let-me-tell-you-that-theeu-makes-britain-even-gr/ ormston, r. (2015). do we feel european and does it matter? natcen british social attitudes. retrieved from http://whatukthinks.org/eu/analysis/do-we-feeleuropean-and-does-it-matter parekh, b. (2007). being british. the political quarterly, 78, 32–40. doi:10.1111/j.1467923x.2007.02017.x risse, t. (2000). regionalism and collective identities: the european experience. retrieved from http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/polwiss/forschung/international/ atasp/publikationen/4_artikel_papiere/23/buenosaires.pdf ?1367709664 rosenbaum, m. (2017, february 6). local voting figures shed new light on eu referendum. bbc news. retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/ukpolitics-38762034 schmidt, s. (2016). the 40 meps who actually matter: nigel farage. politico eu. retrieved from http://www.politico.eu/list/the-40-meps-who-actuallymatter-european-parliament-mep/nigel-farage/ spence, a. (2016, may 19). where the british press stands on brexit. politico eu. retrieved from http://www.politico.eu/blogs/on-media/2016/05/wherethe-british-press-stands-on-brexit-2016-june-newspaper-best-bet/ taggart, p., & szczerbiak, a. (2005). three patterns of party competition over europe. retrieved from http://www.ibrarian.net/navon/paper/three_patterns_of_ party_competition_over_europe.pdf ?paperid=3547952 telegraph view. (2016, june 20). vote leave to benefit from a world of opportunity. the telegraph. retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ opinion/2016/06/20/vote-leave-to-benefit-from-a-world-of-opportunity/ the sun. (2016, june 13). we urge our readers to beleave in britain and vote to quit the eu on june 23. the sun. retrieved from https://www.thesun. co.uk/news/1277920/we-urge-our-readers-to-believe-in-britain-and-voteto-leave-the-eu-in-referendum-on-june-23/ scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 121 the evolution of industrial food production: mcdonaldization and population health andrew d. currey brian p. hinote, ph.d. abstract this paper is an examination of modern food production and its consequences, and of how food production on a mass scale negatively affects health in the united states. the link between food and health at first seems obvious and simple, but the food industry itself affects our health in significant ways. what exists now is a food industrial complex, which focuses on efficiency, high volume production, and profitability. many citizens, students, and policymakers are simply unaware of the inner workings of the food-industrial complex, along with the dangers inherent in factory farms and other sites of production within this economic sector. we employ ritzer’s theory of mcdonaldization to analyze these processes. emerging from weber’s classic sociological work on rationality and bureaucracy, mcdonaldization focuses on themes of profitability, efficiency, calculability, and control. we first introduce the food industrial complex and then discuss the latent and manifest effects of mcdonaldization on institutions and industries like agriculture. finally, we explore the many ways that the food-industrial complex is affecting our health at the population and individual levels. this paper takes a critical look at how food production is affecting health across the united states. we also discuss other major consequences of these processes. scientia et humanitas 122 spring 2011 introduction the link between food and health at first seems obvious and simple: eat healthy and you will be healthy. but this connection is far more complex, as it is more than just counting calories and carbohydrates, more than eating less and exercising regularly. there exists a whole world outside of the grocery store that is involved in the production of the foods we eat, and the origins of our everyday food products are a major influence on our overall health and well-being. this is the industry of food production – an industry that directly or indirectly affects our health in very significant ways. over the past two centuries, agriculture and food production in the united states have undergone a number of significant changes. today, multi-million dollar, large-scale farms, produce and profit more than small-scale farms despite the higher numbers of small-scale farms. (hoppe & banker 2010) as well, these large-scale farms show a trend of increasing in size while small-scale farms are growing smaller. small-scale farms outnumber the large-scale ones yet generate substantially less revenue. for example, “ [i]n 2002, 90% of the product (agricultural products) was produced on 15% of the farms.(ahearn, korb, & banker, 2005 (parentheses added)) the 2007 census of agriculture shows that small-scale farms (farms with $250, 000 or less in sales) count for 91% of all farms; this number even increased 1% from 2002 to 2007. yet, the increase was only for small-scale farms with sales less than $10, 000 while the number of farms with sales more than $10, 000 decreased. (2007 census of agriculture) however, trends toward large-scale production and corporatization have come to dominate virtually all spheres of social and economic life during this period as well, from health care to corrections to education, and now, also to food production. what now exists is a food-industrial complex, where fewer and fewer farms are independently and/ or family-owned but are instead built around the concept of mass production – like the manufacture of cars or computer chips. in this paper we take a critical look at these processes, and examine the many ways that this mode of food production is harmful to consumers, animals, the environment, and perhaps most importantly, human health. in doing so, we employ the important concept of mcdonaldization to analyze the industrial production of food in the united states. briefly, mcdonaldization examines the trend of social structures and institutions adopting the business practices of the fast-food restaurant. (see section titled mcdonaldization and rationalization) many citizens, students, and policymakers are simply unaware (or misinformed) of the inner workings of the food-industrial complex, along with the dangers inherent in factory farms and other sites of production within this economic sector. so the objectives of this analysis are fourfold. first we must define and deconstruct the foodindustrial complex. after exploring these ideas more thoroughly, we will then apply the concept of mcdonaldization to better understand the contemporary production of food in the united states. third, we will also discuss the latent and manifest effects (see merton, 1949) of mcdonaldization on institutions and industries like agriculture. finally, our discussion will explore the many ways that the food-industrial complex is affecting our health at the population and individual levels. the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 123 the food-industrial complex the food-industrial complex is a critical component of modern agriculture, and is essentially a complex, cooperative agreement among farmers, private industry, and government, which ensures the uninterrupted flow of materials, equipment, and supplies through the food economy. this complex refers to everything involved in the production of food and food products. to better understand these processes, we examine two similar industrial complexes: the medical industrial complex and the military industrial complex. in each instance we can observe symbiotic relationships built around the production of goods, the industries that use these goods, the government that regulates these economic sectors and processes, and finally, the citizens involved in consuming these goods. bruce brunton (1991) discusses the american military industrial complex and how it developed into what it is today. many trace the military-industrial complex to president eisenhower’s famous farewell speech where he warned americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex” (www.eisenhowermemorial.org). however, this term likely originates earlier, specifically in the work of classical sociologist c. wright mills and the power elite (1956). in this work mills discusses the importance of military power in a capitalist society. through this military power, “corporate chieftains” become the power elite and advance their positions. in other words, power is held by the corporations and industries that supply the military with equipment, armaments, and technology, and these companies thrive and grow as the military does. as mills (1956:4) writes, the power elite “are in the positions to make decisions having major consequences.” this conception remains more important when considering who has the power at the local, state, national, and global levels. brunton (1991) also discusses the set of institutions necessary in order to promote the military-industrial complex. institutions are described as “habitual patterns of behavior or ways of thinking” (p. 43) and there are five specific institutions that, together, define this massive complex. first, there is reliance upon private contractors for military procurement; the boeing company, lockheed martin, and halliburton corporation are all examples of private industry. secondly, there exists a revolving door among top personnel from these private firms and key interest groups and positions of economic power. third, there exist defense pressure groups that perpetuate the demands for both the complex and its associated preparedness ethos. next, there is the preparedness ethos itself, which involves the idea that even during times of peace, the military must be constantly ready and well-equipped for war. finally, state support of strategic industry refers to instances where government contracts with private corporations maintain a defense production base, where military production remains in operation. medicine also lends itself well to this type of analysis. in the average doctor’s office one can find a number of supplies that originate in the medical industrial complex. tongue depressors, gloves, soap, clip boards, tiny plastic cups for medicine, even the paper smock you are forced to wear are all products of the connection between industry and medical practice, but the connection is more deeply rooted than this. on the one hand, this complex scientia et humanitas 124 spring 2011 is helping advance medical technology, as it requires and demands new products to be produced and developed. our health care system depends upon technological advancement as well as the products, materials, and equipment that come along with it. on the other hand, we must see that the medical world itself is an industry, and this industry’s goal is to produce healthy or well individuals with profitability and output at the forefront. grace budrys (2005) succinctly discusses the medical-industrial complex and more specifically how doctors, though they may seem to hold much of the power, are actually as powerless as patients themselves. the medical-industrial complex promotes and requires a steady influx of new products and technologies. these products vary in their overall usefulness, but the promotion and demand of equipment and supplies means that interest groups within the medical-industrial complex can maintain their powerful hold over the medical world and continue or increase their profits. so it may be easy to imagine only physicians collecting profit from surgeries and other medical procedures, putting the doctors in the place of power and the patient in a disadvantaged, subservient position. but doctors are in many ways involved in this complex in the same sense we, the consumers (or patients) are—at the whim of the industry. in this situation the manufacturer of the tools, equipment and supplies are concerned primarily with profit motives, while the health of the consumer, or patient, is relegated to a secondary role. similarly, the military industrial complex operates with the same goal-oriented outcome. for the industries that create the machinery, weaponry, and ammunition, war is a good thing, leading to more profit. the connection between the military and industry is now characterized by corporations striving for the next large contract with the military and government. in the united states (where defense budgets dwarf most other government spending: for 2012 the department of defense requests a total of 670.9 billion dollars (united states department of defense fiscal year 2012 budget request overview), investing in the military, and becoming an integral part of this complex, is good for business. so in both the military and medical industrial complexes we can easily discern many connections between and among government, business, and industry, all engaged in systematic processes of production and profit in their respective economic sectors. the same patterns and relationships exist in the food-industrial complex. for this complex, industry manufactures the machines to harvest our crops, equipment to process the meat, packaging for goods, and chemicals for fertilizer and pesticides. companies like monsanto and conagra (and countless others) maintain power through the production of these goods and maintenance of this complex. we can apply the example of the medical industrial complex here. the major interests of the food-industrial complex must maintain economic control over the production of food, so companies strive to keep prices of meat low, vegetables year round, and costs cheap. this enables the consumer to buy large quantities of foods at any time, across regions, and in each store find the same or similar selection of goods. for the consumer it can seem as if these choices are undoubtedly the best and offer a wide range of products and choices, but as will be discussed below, these choices do not come without hidden consequences. the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 125 the transformation of agriculture and agribusiness agriculture has historically been at the forefront of civilization and society. societies advanced from hunter-gatherer means of food procurement to low-level food production (smith, 2001) to eventually what we have today with modern agriculture. research points to two factors involved in the adoption of agriculture in early societies. these are termed external and internal pressures (bettinger, richerson, & boyd, 2009). external pressures refer to factors like climate change that led to the adoption of agriculture to produce sustainable crops, while internal pressures involve social pressures like increasing population sizes. a hunter-gatherer society expends a lot of energy and time for a minimal yield of food, while agriculture provides sustainable food sources over an extended period of time. many have theorized about the adoption or transition of agricultural systems (e.g., bettinger, richerson, & boyd 2009; bruno 2009; cohen 2009smith 2001) and it is easy to see that these systems are a necessary part of social life. in the united states agricultural systems have changed in many ways over the past two hundred years, and many of these transitions have taken place more recently: adoption of monoculture farming, genetically modified farming (organism), seed patenting, and the greater use and dependence of machines (for transportation, harvesting, refining, etc.). farming is just one part of the agriculture system and food-industrial complex, as we explored in the previous section, but farming is significant in many other parts of modern society as well. for example, organized farming allows for the production of goods from the local to the regional to global levels. some have even recognized that the farm and farmers represent a significant ideological role in a society, pointing to the media attention from films, farm aid events, and protests over the preservation of the family farm (lobao & meyer, 2001). at the same time we can see that farming has its consequences as well: pollution, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, animal harm, and most importantly, human harm. these problems emerged with the more recent transformation of agriculture and agribusiness. over the past hundred years agriculture in the united states has changed dramatically. large-scale and nonfamily farms account make up only 12% of total farms in the u.s. yet are responsible for 84% of production and profit. as well, these multi-million dollar farms that are outnumbered by small-scale and non-family owned farms still produce 53% of high-value crops (crops such as hog, beef, poultry, and dairy) (hoppe & banker, 2010). this transformation of farming is one of the most dramatic transitions in american society over the past century. in the early 1900s, more than one out of every three americans lived on farms. but by the end of the century, the farm population was at a staggering two percent of the overall population. further, among those still in farming, nearly ninety percent of household income came from sources other than farming (lobao & meyer, 2001). essentially, the overall number of farms decreased while the amount of farmland has grown exponentially (knight, 2006), so what we have today is the loss of the american family farm, part of the american dream, and the adoption of a mcdonaldized agricultural system. lobao and meyer (2001) critically discuss these transformations and point to a scientia et humanitas 126 spring 2011 need for further research. for example, it is important to look at the transition of agriculture to identify the negative impact that the modern system has on the environment, animals, and humans, but also to contribute to sociological analysis and research on this topic. to better illustrate the negative effects of a mcdonaldized farming and agriculture system, we specifically explore two examples where production on a mass scale have taken over and affected our lives and health: cornification and animal production. cornification is centered on one crop—corn—and its multiple uses as a food, but also as feed and even as a fuel source. according to the work of michael pollan (2002a), many of the problems associated with cornification originate in the system that produces the corn but also in the high intake of corn or corn products. our agriculture and farming system is surrounded by and dependent on corn and corn byproducts. on one hand we ingest high amounts of corn in its many altered states (e.g., high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and crystalline fructose are commonly used natural sweeteners used in many products). the corn refiners of america initiated an entire public relations campaign to combat people’s concerns about the high intake of corn sweeteners and are stubborn in repeating that these products meet the u.s. food and drug administration’s (fda) qualifications as a natural product (corn sweeteners are natural). the problem is much greater than the foods that directly contain corn. another side of the issue is the use of corn as feed for virtually all animals, even grazing animals which should not consume corn in such high quantities (pollan, 2002a). corn was at the forefront of american agricultural systems far before the claiming and colonization of these lands, and it’s fairly cheap and easy to grow. yet, we arguably grow too much corn and with no end in sight. the government subsidizes corn by the bushel and promotes monoculture farming of corn, where the same crop is grown on the same lands year after year. corn is at the point where we’re changing the crop itself, not only into sweeteners, but also into fuels, plastics, and even vitamin c (pollan, 2002a). through genetics and lab testing, we find that corn is a good product that can do many things, but corn is overly used and produced. on one side we as a society are able to make new products that could solve some problems (e.g., corn as fuel or plastic) but at the same time, the reason we have so much corn is because we are growing it exponentially by the bushel. corn is very much involved in the world of agriculture, as a food source (both meat and non-meat products) and as the fuel used by the trucks and agriculture equipment. in short, our food system is cornified. the production of animals on a mass scale is another significant part of the agricultural system and the food-industrial complex. while a complete discussion of animal production is beyond the scope of this paper, it is nonetheless important to look at how the majority of our meat is produced, how it affects the environment and finally, how it affects our health. meat production has doubled over the past fifty years yet is available to only those who can afford it (horrigan, lawrence, & walker, 2002). with more and more meat production, we can conclude that people are consuming it at higher rates as well. to keep up with demand, animal farmers have developed and implemented new methods of raising, fattening, and slaughtering animals to maintain supply. in the united states, ten billion animals per year the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 127 are slaughtered, including chickens, pigs, and cows. as a nation we are fixated on eating meat and have normalized high meat consumption. about eight ounces of meat per day is the average for an american carnivore, which is close to twice the global average (bittman, 2008). so just how do we feed so many people so much meat? in the article, “power steer,” michael pollan (2002b) follows his newly purchased veal cow from the farm at which it was born to the feeding lot and finally to the slaughter house. the entire process is summed up and pollan narrates the journey of the veal cow itself, but also describes the farmers and factories involved. the food industry is able to produce such high quantities of meat within such a short periods of time because of feed and hormones. prior to the implementation of modern production methods, an average cow would be four to five years old before it was slaughtered. with industrial feeding operations, this time is down to fourteen to sixteen months, mostly due to feeding these animals high amounts of corn, proteins (through various supplements), and injecting them with growth hormones (pollan, 2002b). these feeding operations, known as cafos (concentrated animal feeding operations) play a major role in the factory production of meat. the entire process rests on productivity and profit, thus making it difficult to concern itself with environmental or health concerns (see horrigan, lawrence, & walker, 2002). so with cornification and concentrated animal production methods we can see that food production structures are far from the idealized family farm of the american midwest. agriculture and farming have come a long way, but have more recently adopted industry standards and practices that put profit and production well ahead of major environmental and health concerns. there are many problems that are a result of the food system’s adherence to these industry standards. these effects exist at both the population and individual levels. at the population level there are environmental effects like pollution and depletion of nutrients in the soil. at the individual level we can see the impact of these farming and agricultural practices coinciding with rates of diabetes, cancers, and heart disease to name a few. foods are being produced quickly and in abundance yet these products are lacking the proper nutrients and can even be dangerous (only one example is the relatively recent recall on peanut butter or spinach in the united states). in addition, we must consider what foods are being produced and how this production affects our dietary and nutritional practices. diet is extremely important, as will be discussed later, but are the foods being produced in abundance those which are the healthiest for us? the next section will introduce the important concept of mcdonaldization. these ideas help us better focus in on both the intended and unintended results of a mcdonaldized food system in the united states. (for more information on the impact of large-scale food production see horrigan, lawrence, & walker, 2002; osterberg, & wallinga, 2004; tilman, cassman, matson, naylor, & polasky, 2002; walker, rhubart-berg, mckenzie, kelling & lawrence, 2005) mcdonaldization and rationalization ritzer’s (2006) formulation of of mcdonaldization is an amplification and extension of classical sociologist max weber’s work on the rationalization process and more specifically scientia et humanitas 128 spring 2011 formal rationality. the rationalization process involves four key systemic processes that maintain and promote productivity, output, control, etc. in a rationalized system. that is, a rationalized process needs to be efficient, calculable, predictable, and have control over both the people involved and the system itself (ritzer, 2006). weber pointed to formal rationality as the best descriptor of a western, capitalistic society as it involves rules, regulations, and social structures. for weber, the best example of formal rationality is the bureaucracy a highly organized and structured system which ranks individuals in the system to promote or maintain order (weber, [1922] 1978). the bureaucracy relates to formal rationality as the fast-food restaurant relates to mcdonaldization (ritzer, 2006). a formally rationalized system gives people little choice and only offers the best and optimum outcomes as related to the eventual goal, namely profit. weber warned about a system becoming overly rationalized to the point that it could in turn become irrational. at this, weber cautioned about the “iron cage” of rationality whereby everything would become rationalized so that one would be stuck in a system with no means of escape, no alternatives, other than the rationalized ones. (weber, [1922] 1978) mcdonaldization is a modern conceptualization of weber’s theory of formal rationality and the rationalization process. it’s easy for us to understand control and domination in a system when it has a recognizable symbol or face attached to it. in this case, george ritzer is able to use one of the most widely recognized symbols across the world; the golden arches. but, this process of mcdonaldization applies to other institutions as well as the fast food industry. in this paper we apply the mcdonaldization process to food production and the food-industrial complex but it has been applied in other areas as well, from the drug care industry (kemmesies, 2002) to education, (wilkinson, 2006; hartley, 1995) and consumer culture (turner, 2003). the process of mcdonaldization concerns domination over sectors of american and others societies and itself rests on four principles that we have already mentioned: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. (ritzer, 2006) for a system to be highly mcdonaldized it should follow these principles enabling, thus ensuring optimum productivity and of course, profit. efficiency involves getting from one point to the next in the best and most streamlined manner possible. the modern fast-food drive-thru is a good example of an efficient process. in this scenario one can move from station to station (e.g. from menu to window, to window) without leaving the comfort of a car. this applies to the workers inside the restaurant as well; each should have their own specific station or task to perform that should be organized in such a way that it is cost, labor, and time conscious. orders at the drive-thru window are quick, including the ordering, exchange of money and reception of one’s order making the entire process efficient to the point that repetition is enabled. coinciding with an efficient process, calculation must be made to keep up with the amount of goods that are demanded and means to provide the product. for this principle, quantity is desired over quality and achieving the greatest output within a given time period is the ultimate goal (kemmesies, 2002). it is important for a mcdonaldized system to know exactly how long a process will take (and thus can calculate and maintain its efficiency), the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 129 exactly the resources needed, the profit to be collected, and the amount of workforce, tools, supplies, etc. required. in the case of the drive-thru window, without predicting exactly what is needed to fulfill the demands, the process would cease to be efficient, fast, and profitable. standards of predictability also must be in place in a mcdonaldized or rationalized system. this applies more to the consumer or recipient of the process than the actual process of production. in this case the actual services need to be predictable both over location, or space, but also across time. (ritzer, 2006) the same can be applied to those within the system itself, so in the case of the drive-thru window we expect the same service from the workers as we do in the product. this process should be repeatable at different times in the day and at different locations; even the drive-thru in europe, dubai, or china should all meet the same standards. one should expect the same manner of goods and services at any location and at any time (the proceedings of an “iron cage” weber warned against). the principle of control applies to humans but emphasizes non-human technology and control over the industry or sector of society itself. control is necessary to gain or maintain the other core principles (efficiency, calculability, and predictability) in both the consumer and produce side of this process. control applies to the workers of the system requiring them to have rules, regulations, punishments, enforcement, etc. which are enforced with strict penalization. control also relies heavily on non-human technologies to replace human workers and promote the other principles of a mcdonaldized system. non-human technology also applies to the patrons or users of this system and in turn can promote efficiency and calculability. it the example of the fast-food drive-thru, we don’t see people driving backwards, skipping lines, or walking up to the windows (for the most part) and this is due to the control through standards and norms of the drive-thru that are in place. people order their foods through a highly technological system with the computer screen ordering systems. the employees are able to use computers to keep track of orders but also in assistance with making the foods, combining and separating orders, and delivering the final product to the consumer. mcdonaldization effects the mcdonaldization process is a modern standard in a post-fordist, industrial society. many have contributed to the writing on this topic (e.g., see specifically ritzer, 2006) and have applied the process to other dimensions of social life (bryman, 1999; esmer, 2006; hartley, 1995; kemmesies, 2002; o’toole, 2009; turner, 2003; wilkinson, 2006; and others). in this paper we apply the process of mcdonaldization to the food production industry and the food-industrial complex. in this complex we can see that application of mcdonaldization fits well; we have high output and a profit centered system with assembly line-like production techniques, utilization of machinery, and adherence to the four principles of rationalization discussed above (i.e., efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control). as it applies to food production we can begin to uncover both good and bad consequences to this highly rationalized or mcdonaldized system. the use of highly scientia et humanitas 130 spring 2011 rationalized techniques themselves, along with effects on the environment, humans, and animals are all important to note when considering the application and consequences of these processes. for mcdonaldization and a mcdonaldized system these core principles are the intended and desired results. the food industry is one sector of society that this process has been applied perfectly, with profit and production at the top of the list of priorities. as a result, efficiency and calculability can lead to higher rates of production and profit, while predictability for industry and consumers equates to higher profits through sustained and expected consumption and markets. finally, control is maintained so that the system continues to be as productive and profitable as possible. apply these principles to food production and we have a system that is focused on profit and production just like any other highly rationalized market or industry. while the manifest, or intended, effects of mcdonaldization have been discussed above, the latent effects of these processes are perhaps more important to consider. indeed, the unintended consequences directly harm humans, animals, the environment, and the economy. because our foods are produced at such a high rate, because our foods are produced quickly, and because profit is the primary goal of food production, societies around the world suffer. monoculture farming as with corn, results in fertile soil becoming depleted of its nutrients. farming animals the way we do causes toxic chemicals to seep into other crops, the meat itself, and eventually make their way to our dining tables. animals are abused in the way they are raised, fattened and slaughtered. using high volumes of oil for both the production equipment as well as the transportation equipment contributes overwhelmingly to carbon emissions. finally, let us more specifically consider how this industry affects population health as a whole, as well as the health of individuals. . health implications at the broader societal level of analysis, there are many problems resulting from but also affecting the animals in animal feeding operations. as previously mentioned, concentrated animal feeding operations (or cafo’s) are large scale, confining feeding sites for meatproducing animals (e.g., cows, pigs, chickens, and even turkeys). in all stages of animal production (handling, transporting, veterinarian, meat processing, and rendering) there are increased risks of infectious diseases for the animals and workers. (gilchrist et al., 2007) major concerns about cafo’s include eventual resistance to frequently used antibiotics, the spread of infectious viruses, and airborne endotoxin exposure for workers and workers’ families. the resistance to antibiotics within animals is linked to the use and overuse of antibiotics. long-term, low-level antibiotic use can potentially enable bacteria to build up resistance and potentially becoming untreatable, such as methicillin-resistance s. aureus (mrsa) as one prominent example. these resistance genes can pass from animals to workers and eventually co-workers and workers’ families. infectious disease can be passed from animals to workers but can also be transmitted through water and air surrounding the cafo sites. the infectious diseases, such as influenza, h1n1, and salmonella tend to the evolution of industrial food production middle tennessee state university 131 be amplified in animals raised in cafo’s (gilchrist et al., 2007). in addition, we can see great risks for workers and families exposed to dusts from cafo’s such a wide range of respiratory health effects (asthma, wheezing, and allergies) (heedrerik et al., 2007). animal or livestock production has also been linked to greenhouse gas emissions, specifically gases such as methane and nitrous oxide (mcmichael, powles, butler, & uauy, 2007). animal production is not the only sector of the agriculture system that is affecting the environment and entire human populations. industrialized agriculture has been linked to a slew of hazardous effects. horrigan, lawrence, and walker (2002) overview the major impacts of industrialized agriculture on our environment, ecosystem, and health. specifics include the use of fertilizers and the increased acidity of soils that can impede plant growth, increased and consistent pesticide use that can lead to crops becoming vulnerable to pesticides and also to the decline of insect and bird populations. also, airborne pesticides can seep into surface and ground waters and drift into other areas not treated by pesticides (horrigan, lawrence, & walker, 2002). some studies have suggested that exposure to pesticides within urban environments leads to serious neurological, and other serious effects on children. (e.g., see ritter et al., 2006) industrialized agriculture is also responsible for the degradation of lands, especially the soils used for farming, and can in extreme cases result in desertification or the transforming of fertile lands into desert-like ones. biodiversity is therefore at risk, especially with the prevalence of monoculture farming (such as with corn) and seed consolidation (the use of hybrid and patented seed varieties), but also through the use of pesticides and fertilizers (horrigan, lawrence, & walker, 2002). finally, industrialized and intense agriculture creates the highest amount of human-generated green house gases, which not only puts the environment at risk but also affects the future harvesting of foods, those foods’ nutritional quality, and the health of entire populations (mcmichael et al., 2007). in the united states, health and mortality trends follow distinct epidemiological patterns. according to the centers for disease control’s (cdc) national vital statistics reports (2007), the leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer, and strokes (diabetes is fifth, close behind respiratory disease and accidents). it’s no mistake that the rates of these diseases are rising at the same time industrialized agriculture is becoming the norm. the importance of proper (i.e., healthy and safe) food should be apparent, along with its nutritional values, the types of foods, and the amount consumed. in short, food is fundamental to health ( jacobs, linda, & tapsell, 2007). the link between our lifestyle choices, including the foods we eat, and the leading epidemiological killers is a strong one. a diet composed of all fats and calories is not sufficient while at the same time it is important to consider the types of fats being consumed. adams and standridge (2006) write about these leading killers and their links to diet and nutrition. they specifically focus on the connections between heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension (both directly and indirectly) and dietary considerations. they point out that it’s not just the amount of foods and nutrients being consumed, but more specifically the types of foods and nutrients being consumed: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, specific types of fish and scientia et humanitas 132 spring 2011 meats, amounts of salts, types of fats, and so on. what we can gather from their analysis is that it is important to understand our foods as well as the nutrition our foods provide and how this can affects out health. this includes understanding the inner workings of the food industrial complex. using the prevalence of obesity as only one example, we can link the food industry and industrialized food production to our health as individuals. obesity and overweight is an obvious area of concern for the general public. the rates of obesity have been increasing steadily for the past thirty years. in britain the rates have nearly tripled, while in china, the rates of preschool children in urban areas who are obese or overweight has jumped from 1.5% to 12.6% (ogden et al., 2006). the consequent health effects are detrimental to the health care industries and economies. conditions such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and some cancers are all related to the industrial production of food. in the united states, more and more people are consuming more foods that are industrially produced (young & nestle, 2007). as ludwig and nestle (2008) point out, if the industry responsible is “[l]eft unchecked, the economic costs associated with obesity alone will affect the competitiveness of the u.s. economy.” (p. 1810) in conclusion, there are three primary contributions in this paper. first, we define and discuss the food industrial complex as a mcdonaldized structure of production. we then use ritzer’s (2006) ideas on mcdonaldization to better focus upon the intended and unintended effects of these processes. finally, we link the mcdonaldized food-industrial complex to various health and environmental issues affecting individuals and societies at multiple levels of analysis. as we have shown, there are many problems related to the food industry at large. we have argued here that the food system is a complex and mcdonaldized system in which profits and production are put ahead of any negative effects. we have argued here that this system is involved is a complex but also mcdonaldized one, putting production and profit ahead of any negative effects. the negative effects on the environment, animals, and humans are considerable, and should be further examined in future research. as well, effects on humans have been shown, specifically in the example of obesity which is a major problem facing youth and adolescents (powell, han, & chaloupka, 2010). we as individuals but also as a society must seek solutions to these pressing social issues, and one of the first steps toward doing so involves calling serious attention 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(2007). portion sizes and obesity: responses of fast-food companies. journal of public health poli “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 21 “oh, terrible, windy words”: witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster clint bryan abstract renaissance dramatist ben jonson is lauded as a comedy writer extraordinaire. one of his most satirical farces, poetaster, includes a scene involving a character’s vomiting. beyond the obvious humor, jonson uses this scene regarding crispinus to assert sophisticated notions of language use, intellect, and oratory—observations for which the playwright is given too little credit in critical scholarship of the era. this essay fills this gap by examining the scene from a theoretical framework derived loosely from structural linguistics and classical rhetoric. deans’ distinguished essay award graduate recipient 22 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research “we carry some few words of our common language into the inexplorable depths of metaphysics and divinity, in order to acquire some slight idea of those things, which we could never conceive or express; and we use those words as props to support the steps of our feeble understandings in travelling through those unknown regions.” —voltaire, a treatise on toleration (178, with emphasis) written long before french linguist ferdinand de saussure posited the arbitrari-ness of the sign relative to its signifier in his course in general linguistics, ben jonson’s poetaster presented a remarkable scene (act v, scene 3) in which the pompous crispinus vomits up the very words he used in his bombastic verses in the scene only moments earlier. the physic, administered to him by none other than horace himself (i.e., jonson’s doppelgänger) acts as a purgative, inducing the windy poetaster to expurgate the pretentious terms he employs without clear reference to their respective semantic meanings (especially since crispinus often uses them incorrectly). critics have focused primarily on the scene for its satirical commentary on jonson’s feud with fellow playwrights john marston and thomas dekker, jonson’s opponents in the war of the theaters, as well as the extended jonsonian metaphor of learning as digestion, with language acting as food. some scholars have come closer to the thesis i plan to establish herein, with notions of jonson’s embodiment of language in this comical satire (viz., not a comedy, according to summers and pebworth [41]). i wish to build on this foundation and expand it further to include the very materiality of language itself—foregrounding words-as-things. while the comedic effect of the retching crispinus is apparent, the attention jonson pays to the words themselves as lexical artifacts is significant morphologically, phonologically, and syntactically—particularly because linguistics as a discipline was centuries away from its inception. jonson’s deft ear for the english language, as well as his humanist training in the classics, allow him to bring his expansive lexicon to the service of a play that fundamentally berates the fustian rhetors of his day of whom crispinus stands as exemplar. ultimately, finding prose analogues to the purging of crispinus of haughty vocabulary in the critical works of jonson does not prove too difficult. in jonson’s commonplace book, timber, or discoveries, two selections provide insights into the playwright’s/poet’s views of the “artificer,” one who abuses language in the construction of vapid, insipid speechifying: then in his elocution to behold, what word is proper: which hath ornament: which height: what is beautifully translated: where figures are fit: which gentle, which strong to show the composition manly. and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is naught. (407) selection of the bon mot—the perfect word that suits the rhetorical situation most appropriately—defies the conventional notion that lexical choices are rarely substantive. jonson continues in timber to contend that issues of vocabulary and style disclose much about the interior life of the person involved in shaping the discourse: language most shows a man: speak that i may see thee. it springs out of the “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 23 most retired, and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. no glass renders a man’s form, or likeness, so true as his speech. nay, it is likened to a man; and as we consider feature, and composition in a man; so words in language: in the greatness, aptness, sound, structure, and harmony of it. some men are tall, and big, so some language is high and great. then the words are chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy and strong. (411) the second of the two selections comes closer to what crispinus reveals by emptying the contents of his distended stomach into the basin for perusal by the other poets. by overtly observing the words themselves, the physicians are better able to examine the nauseating detritus of crispinus’s vacuous mind. situated together, these passages from timber, or discoveries form a jonsonian framework by which the scene may be more closely read for its larger implications within jonson’s oeuvre and his expert command of the nuances of the english language he champions in all of his works. critical reception of this scene scholars who read this scene generally find two main interpretations of crispinus’s regurgitating words on stage—satire and metaphor—while linking the odd moment to classical and modern precedents. the scene contains several auspicious participants—chiefly caesar, horace, and virgil, a roman triumvirate of political and oratorical expertise. against such an august backdrop, crispinus, the bombastic fool, is portrayed as a foil whose windy words lack substance. at the end of the scene, horace himself administers pills to relieve crispinus of his multisyllabic vocabulary, adopted more for show than for rhetorical purpose. one outlier scholar, critic eugene waith, seems to be a solitary voice arguing that the crispinus scene is less important than other critics claim (18-19). he argues that if anything in the vomitorium (a term with its own curious tie to the theater) is to be noteworthy, it is the public punishment of the poetaster—more than any resemblance to marston that jonson may have intended in writing the sequence (waith 19). however, waith seems to be unsupported in the literature as to this particular reading, as other critics locate other comedies where characters respond similarly. editor tom cain’s notes in the revels plays edition of poetaster convey a more conventional interpretation of the scene, reading it as an echo to similar plot devices in other plays. cain notes similarities between this scene and one in lucian’s lexiphanes. lyly’s lost play, staged when jonson was 16 or 17 years of age, also may have contained a scene of a character vomiting up his speech ( jonson and cain 26). similarly, in thomas lupton’s all for money (1578), “out of a vomit certain evils are born on the stage” (baskerville 307). to jonson, however, authorial intent was key; he was not interested in including plot elements simply because others before him had tried them successfully. a footnote on this scene that cites lexiphanes 21 may serve to sort out a jonsonian motivation, as the physician monitoring the ill individual coaxes out the poorly-digested words: “many things still lurk in hiding and your inwards are full of them [; i]t would be better if some should take the opposite 24 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research course” (qtd. in jonson and cain 250-51). this earlier extant example may have inspired jonson’s rewriting it because it emphasizes the open display of “inward” folly through uttering words, the value of imagining language as food to nourish or to reject, and the role of a wise mentor who guides the disgorging process. the critics who write most extensively on this particular dramatic moment in poetaster speculate on the reasons behind jonson’s choice to place horace as the character who acts as wise mentor and erstwhile physician to the nauseated crispinus. in his provoking an act of “brutal physicality” (koslow 121), horace comes to the aid of the ailing pseudo-poet. horace (as another incarnation of jonson’s frequent self-representation in his work) even redelivers the lines “lost in the vomiting delivery of the boy playing crispinus” ( jonson and cain 251). horace, “a beleaguered intellectual[,]” is a “self-portrait” of jonson (hayes 27). jonson, “this great poet of the belly” (koslow 122), cannot resist lauding himself as the champion of plain style as the poetaster eructates (or should i say “pukes”?) on stage. the denouement of the play involves a vindication of horace that exceeds the mere “humiliation of crispinus[,]” despite this fact being missed by most critics (waith 19). waith criticizes scholars who only choose to see the hyperbolic humor in the poetaster’s heaving, thus missing the valorization of classical pedagogues like horace. any contemporary physician could have prescribed relief for crispinus’s gassy condition, but classical pedagogues such as horace and virgil offer him a more lasting cure. the administered physic, an “emetic” of sorts, clears out the pomposity that has filled the poetaster’s belly (gieskes 94). he has clearly imbibed a stream of cloying vocabulary from some source (viz., marston and dekker, as a later discussion will prove) that must be purged before he can get better. before crispinus can develop an appetite for “opheus, musaeus, pindarus, hesiod, callimachus, …theocrite, [and h]igh homer” (lines 533-35) under the tutelage of none other than virgil himself, he must disavow the contemporary voices filling his ears (and stomach) with junk food. horace’s cure is effected “not with a pill, or a purge, but with [humanist] pedagogy” (koslow 124). this approach toward healing mirrors jonson’s own education and valorizing of classical voices. the proven pedagogues of the past offer substance over flashy stylistics. horace, for example, warns crispinus against seeking words for themselves (moul 43). koslow presses this point in an insightful essay; jonson “turns to linguistic pedagogy as both an instrument of moral order and a means of physical remedy” (124). while words devoid of content and clear communication are damaging, truth conveyed to us from the ancients has a settling, edifying effect on its hearers. who/what is being satirized in poetaster? with acerbic wit, jonson allows his most biting satire of his contemporary playwrights and current situations to be couched in hilarious sequences such as the disemboguing of crispinus. besides examining the obvious ties to the war of the theaters, critics have found analogues in other events current to jonson’ time. cain claims that calumny is the focus in this “encoded commentary on the single most dramatic event in domestic politics around the turn of the [seventeenth] century: the essex rebellion of february 1601” (“satyres” 49). “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 25 cain builds a convincing case through the examination of political and historical documents. of interest to this study is cain’s claim that jonson’s character choices of horace and virgil stem from their actually having rivals during their lifetimes, played in poetaster as crispinus and demetrius, in much the same way as jonson himself had opponents on the london stage (“satyres” 57). that marston and dekker are meant by the caricatures of crispinus and demetrius, respectively, is not a matter of debate. most scholars recognize a “rivalry between public adult acting companies and private children’s companies” operating at the time (summers and pebworth 44). poetaster was written for the children of queen elizabeth’s chapel, premiering at blackfriars theater in early 1601 (summers and pebworth 44). at this point the conflict between these playwrights had lasted almost two full years. jonson seized the occasion of his most successful comedic satire to lampoon marston in the guise of the foolish crispinus, as jonson’s letters to his friend drummond and dekker’s own recollections attest (small 38, 40). the character has, at times, a bizarrely eccentric and “recondite vocabulary,” just as the rival playwright did (moul 43), thereby sealing the audience’s pigeonholing these characters as their real-life counterparts. just in case audience members may miss the correlations, jonson possibly specified other resemblances between the characters and the playwrights they ape. apparently, the actors’ “dress and demeanour” were meant to mimic that of marston and dekker (moul 25). some conjecture exists in the scholarship regarding whether marston actually had red hair as the character crispinus does (small 41). to aid in the process of matching up the theatrical with the actual, the anachronistic costumes do not fit the augustan world of the play. the boys playing crispinus and demetrius “wore clothes which parodied marston and dekker’s: crispinus wears threadbare satin sleeves over a cheap ‘rug’ undershirt” (cain “satyres” 57). even the boy actor’s fake beard “must have been a comic version of marston’s” (cain “satyres” 57). clearly, jonson was interested in ensuring that no one confuses this crispinus with any other in other play. incidentally, juvenal includes a crispinus in his works, as does horace (baskervill 306, moul 27). without question, the crispinus in jonson’s poetaster has only one referent: marston. of greatest satiric interest to jonson, beyond slight resemblances between his actor and his derisive target, is to mimic the inflated diction of marston’s drama. by placing a similarly “pretentious or affected vocabulary” ( jonson and cain 238) in the mouths of “gull characters” like crispinus, jonson spoofs the original author (marckwardt 94). astute scholars read marston’s extant works in order to better understand the parodies jonson constructs through “stilted, affected, and crabbed vocabularies of the day… characteristic[ally] marstonian” in tone (baskervill 307). charles r. baskervill coins the phrase “word-mongery” to describe the business crispinus trades in, almost slavishly (baskervill 307). by foregrounding a buffoon like crispinus who acts as both poetaster and word-monger, jonson creates a play that “represents the culmination of the satire on perverted taste and diction which [he] had been developing for several years” in works like the case is altered, the quarto version of every man in his humour, and cynthia’s revels (baskerville 308). this 26 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research layered assault did not escape the notice of the writers whom it was intended to mock. scholars make much of the so-called “war of the theaters” or poetomachia, a term that attempts to view the plays in a jibing conversation with one another. this “war of words” broke out in 1599. poetaster is “unquestionably a major attack in the conflict” (summers and pebworth 44). as in any war, this battle led to other skirmishes. the other two playwrights, marston and dekker, responded in kind to the unkind raillery they perceived in poetaster. marston has his actor mimic jonson in his histriomastix (small 41), while dekker “ridicules the words and phrases” of poetaster in satiromastix (marckwardt 93). rather than tamping down the incendiary rhetoric, poetaster foments it, ensuring the other playwrights will have plenty of fodder for future campaigns. themes and events referenced given his appetite for food and his “mountain belly,” jonson not surprisingly emphasizes a motif in his writing that compares learning to digestion. this theme surfaces elsewhere in other genres, including the epigrammatic poems as well as the verses in underwoods, in “explorata: or discoveries,” jonson observes that “some men are born only to suck out the poison of books…[who] relish the obscene” (timber in parfitt 405). crispinus may have been tempted by words that looked delicious and appetizing, but he feasted on toxic fruit in the works of authors whose florid language only serves to sicken the poetic talent. once crispinus’s nausea settles, “dr.” virgil prescribes a health regimen that includes a “strict and wholesome diet” (line 524) of cato’s principles and a “piece of terence” while shunning plautus as lacking in nourishment to his soul. one eats to live—to grow and to flourish. a body starved of proper nutrition will languish, much as a mind (e.g., crispinus’s) fed by arcane terms devoid of their underlying meaning will falter into a diseased state. several scholars interpret the spewing scene as an instantiation of a major theme in jonson’s works: embodied language. julian koslow draws connections between the human body and language, demonstrating the “relation between textual and corporeal forms of embodiment and power” (143) that are shown literally within the scene, as “bodies and words react upon and inform each other” (123). our words come from somewhere—they are situated within us as speakers. words do not exist, particularly in the renaissance period, as disembodied viscera. our words emanate from our bodies (viz., our brains, our mouths, our vocal cords, and our lungs) as much as they spring from our thoughts, our wills, and our emotions. in drama, individuals deliver lines as they speak in the guise of a particular character, employing body movements, posture, gestures, and vocal inflections to “embody” the parts for which they are cast. the vomiting scene in poetaster (v.iii) makes literal and kinesthetic a principle jonson viewed as unique to language itself: embodiment. in this same fascinating essay, however, koslow maintains that poetaster stands as a “critique of linguistic materialism” through its “materialist conception of language” (121), a claim i vociferously refute. as i read act v, scene iii, i am struck by jonson’s foregrounding of the individual word as a linguistic artifact—what i have called “words-as-things” or what voltaire may have meant by “words as props” in the epigraph. to better understand this concept as introduced “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 27 in the play, please allow me to provide an illustration. as crispinus upchucks chunks of words (e.g. “glibbery—lubrical—defunct” in line 465) into the catch basin, horace inspects and repeats the words again (e.g. “[looking] “glibbery, lubrical and defunct” [line 468]). the audience recalls the words as having been uttered moments earlier (e.g. tibullus: “what, shall thy lubrical and gliberry muse / live as she were defunct, like punk in stews?” in lines 271-72.) in the first utterance of the words in the play, tibullus reads aloud the “issue of [crispinus’s] brain” (line 261) and the “bastard” child of demetrius. both of these metaphors (i.e., “issue” and “bastard”) underscore the notion of language as a real thing—the product of thought that has its own form and substance. cain scrupulously annotates the initial occurrence of each word, noting where the word first appears in other playwrights’ works. in this selected phrase, “lubrical” is jonson’s own addition to the language; this word marks its first appearance in the oed ( jonson and cain 238). the suffix “al” renders the word an adjective. this morphological construction is a favorite of marston’s, despite the fact that the playwright never uses “lubrical” himself ( jonson and cain 238). the next nonsensical word, “glibbery,” is one of marston’s “favourite adjective[s]”; it stems from one of his coinages: glib ( jonson and cain 238). the third word, “defunct,” actually owes its origins to a shakespearean neologism derived from the latin defunctus ( jonson and cain 238). linguists call the purposeful shortening of a word to create a new syntactic part of speech “back formation.” despite the abstruse vocabulary, the poetic lines of crispinus do express some essential meaning, no matter how unmusical they may sound to the audience’s ears. basically, this couplet means “shall your smooth, slippery muse live as a fired prostitute?” editor cain points out, however, that the idiom “punk in stewes” refers to a “whore in a brothel” (238), so a discharged prostitute would be homeless, rendering “defunct” as being a “misused” term. jonson’s sly characterization, therefore, of crispinus (or by correspondence, marston) does not know how to handle properly the terms he wields. when these words reappear floating in bile, they are disconnected from context. the words themselves are accentuated phonologically, for how they sound and not what they mean. jonson continues to bring up words, much as crispinus brings up the contents of his queasy stomach, throughout the scene in question merely for their phonological, morphological, and syntactic resonance, underscoring their importance as things in themselves. hard-sounding words, with certain loud consonants, apparently have sharp edges that can injure. for example, crispinus ejects the word “magnificate” (line 473). maecenas notes that this word “came up somehat hard” (line 474). because magnificate is endowed with religious and monarchical meaning, it may be easier to get caught in the throat, especially for a deceiver like this pseudo-poet. words also seem to act like how they sound: clumsy does not flow out of the poetaster’s mouth but gets “stuck terribly” on its way up (line 479). moreover, clutched gets stuck in the craw of crispinus due (according to caesar) to the “narrow passage” it had to negotiate (lines 509-10). some of the vomited words act similar to their intended semantic meaning. for example, the word “loquacity” as a synonym for “talkativeness” predates its first official oed appearance by two years in this scene ( jonson and cain 254). marston apparently did not invent this final example, demonstrating that 28 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research jonson deliberately coins words in the vein of others he spoofs or lifts directly from the works of his rival playwrights in order to cast them as the true poetasters of his age. jonson: playwright/critic/linguist reading jonson merely as a vindictive playwright trying to even the score with his opponents dekker and marston is too reductive in light of the many different ways he refashions words in their first (read or spoken) and second (vomited) appearances in poetaster. this purposeful wordplay allows the audience to be at times as confused as the speakers/writers themselves as to the intended meaning. the spectators—especially the classical writers virgil and horace, but even the presumably strong orator caesar—choose to speak in a plain style compared to the ornate language used by crispinus and demetrius. this dialogue foregrounds the age-old rhetorical debate about selecting the most suitable discursive style for a particular occasion. the latinate terms used by crispinus and demetrius in their affected verses contrast sharply with the more plain style (viz., rendered in words originating primarily from germanic languages) uttered by the ancient romans. that the latin greats prefer to speak using more germanic words is yet another jonsonian ironic twist. it should be noted that intelligence does not factor into lexical agility in this scene. obviously, crispinus cannot differentiate between “defunct punk in stewes” and employed prostitutes, thus demonstrating his ignorance. more pointedly, in one particularly phonetic heave, crispinus spews out the word “prorumped” (line 503). tibellus comments on the “noise it made. . .[a]s if his spirit would have prorumped with it” (line 504). prorumped comes from the latin prorumpo, meaning “to burst forth”—in another instance of a word that does not appear in the extant writings of marston but accurately portrays jonson’s coining of new latinate words ( jonson and cain 253). tibellus clearly knows what the word itself means by his pun; he simply chooses not to speak using arcane vocabulary, showing that his linguistic choices reflect not his supposedly augustan setting but his anachronistic appeal to his renaissance-era british audience. at issue in this scene seems to be which rhetors are permitted to introduce new terms into the cultural lexicon. while nimbly peppering his own neologisms and nonsensical terms throughout this hilarious sequence, jonson queries who is most qualified to coin new terms and to introduce them into the cultural vernacular. a neologism “implicitly conceives of such an utterance as a new, and suddenly lexical, created word” (saenger 179). in his essay, saenger concerns himself too overtly with the singularity of the individual word under the umbrella term neologism. what term describes new phrases like crispinus’s “quaking custard” or “snarling gusts”? saenger reaches past extant linguistic terms (e.g., “macaronic, multilingual, heterolingual, bilingual”) to coin his own term for the “cohabitation of languages” into the mixture spoken by english speakers: “interlinguicity” (179). by framing his article in measured, scholarly steps, saenger reifies the notion that introducing new words into the language is the exclusive domain of the intelligentsia. in other words, people who know what they are doing are the only ones qualified to add to a given language. jonson appears to lack no self-confidence in terms of his own intelligence and erudition, particu“oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 29 larly as compared to his rival playwrights (i.e., the poetasters), so he is qualified to make up new words where they are not. a playwright for whom jonson maintained a healthy respect, william shakespeare, is famous for the words he introduced into english (saenger 179). moreover, margaret tudeau-clayton notes that john florio’s plays also introduced new words into english (e.g. efface, facilitate, regret, effort, and emotion) that caught on in linguistic usage. unlike the “mainly latinate” neologisms thrown up by crispinus, these coinages by more respected playwrights represent “opposed ideologies of linguistic practice advocated for the theatre” (tudeau-clayton 8). the very fact that crispinus falls ill at all may be jonson’s nod to the sentiment of seneca: “the gratuitous coining of words is another sign of moral sickness” ( jonson and cain 26). of course, it must be noted that seneca was writing under the rigid strictures of latin, whereas jonson works in the multivariate english language with its many linguistic streams (e.g. saxon, old english, french, german, and latin). one measure of a play’s resonance (and by default the playwright’s influence over time) is the durability of the language he uses. if certain phrases become idiomatic expressions or accepted aphorisms (e.g. “to thine ownself be true” from shakespeare’s hamlet), one may safely assume that the playwright has exerted a significant influence by his lexical choices. another quantitative method involves consulting the definitive resource on the english language, the oxford english dictionary, to mark the first recorded instance of the word’s use. in his beefy annotations, cain takes great pains to mention which words echo marston’s lexicon and which are new—that is to say, which words represent the first oed entry. along with one mentioned above, lubrical, cain points out other first oed instances of terms that come up twice in act v, scene 3 (first in crispinus’s writing and second in his esophagus), including turgidous, ventositous, oblatrant, and fatuate, among others. none of these words have become household terms. plucked from their context—murky as it may be under crispinus’s pen—these words nonetheless are marked as formal, latinate, and unnecessarily fussy. by contrast, another term, inflate (line 487), does make its way as a verb into the english language after the curtain falls at the end of the song or the “apologetical dialogue,” depending on the ending of poetaster in question. inflate is used in a manner “descriptive of marston’s inflated style, and parodic of his method of coining new words” ( jonson and cain 252). by creating his own coinages, jonson riffs on his rival’s penchant for doing the same. tudeau-clayton explains that the noun jonson coins as crispinus is caught stealing a poem belonging to horace—plagiary—is a new word to the english stage (6). ironically, by lifting many words directly from marston’s works without attribution, jonson himself has committed an act of plagiarism. as is frequently the case, jonson makes deliberate rhetorical, dramatic, and poetical choices, so the decision to refer only obliquely to his referents by using their words without naming the sources makes this plagiarism excusable. whether mocking a rival by using his language or by inventing his own terms for their comedic effect as the actor, bent over and heaving aloud into a basin, ben jonson demonstrates a remarkably nimble capacity for using language. his adroitness at fashioning puns 30 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research is nearly unparalleled. when tibellus reacts to five particularly spectacular terms/phrases in the sputum (e.g. “barmy froth, puffy, inflate, turgidous and ventositous” in line 489) by remarking “o terrible windy words!” (line 490), jonson has gallus remark, “a sign of a windy brain” (line 491). in other words, pompous words emanate from people who are full of their own self importance but lack anything substantive to contribute. upon closer examination, jonson’s linguistic skill exceeds merely fashioning a catchy turn-of-phrase, such as the one referenced. he seems to love words themselves—their component parts (morphemes), their sounds (phonemes), their connotations and meanings (semantics), as well as their function to reveal what an interlocutor wishes to communicate and how successfully that communication may be assessed by those who receive it. later linguists, like saussure, will argue that a word has very little value by itself. what the british call a “tree,” for example, is for the french “l ’arbre,” yet both words do not fundamentally mean the living organism covered in bark and a profusion of green leaves. these words are signs that users of a common language come to associate with a particular referent or signifier. those who deal in lexis as tools, however, realize that even signifiers have aural, spatial, and connotative features that help to determine which word fits a given communicative purpose over another choice. jonson would likely label this discussion “barmy froth,” despite his command of various languages. in the vomiting scene of poetaster, jonson seems to revel in words for their wonderful wordiness. vaunted language that may in other contexts (e.g. a performance of one of marston’s or dekker’s works) be lauded is herein lampooned. syllables become plastic. jonson adds suffixes to elongate the words, making them even more humorous as they emerge as products of crispinus’s barfing. words tumble out in a hodge-podge disarray, not in the order in which crispinus places them in his affected poetic verses. disconnected from their original function, these words provide jonson ample opportunities to experiment with language in the myriad ways he does, much to the delight of his blackfriars audience and to linguistics students approaching this play for the first time. in our day, scholars and artists tend to respect their respective discursive categories. the writer works in various genres: the lyric poem, the sonnet, the epic, the short story, the novel, the essay, and so on. similarly, the literary critic offers criticism on the artist’s work, sometimes commenting on how the writing represents the era in which it was produced or how it represents various social movements afoot. in ben jonson’s was writing, however, these discrete boundary lines were much blurrier. jonson is at once a remarkable playwright, poet, and writer, even before the advent of the essay by writers like montaigne. in timber: or discoveries, johnson discusses what makes certain literature artful and significant. here, he confirms what he dramatizes in poetaster: namely, an author must judiciously and expertly select words for a particular poetic purpose. the use and misuse of language, much like the words a fool uses in conversation, belies that individual’s true linguistic capacity. trying to ornament one’s speech or writing with fancy words only makes a fool appear more foolish. as jonson remarks in timber, when a person speaks, his words “show” him to others. a fool’s conversation, despite flowery vocabulary, only displays his ignorance more acutely. conversely, language, handled deftly (even plainly), evidences a speaker’s intelligence and “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 31 capable command of the communicative moment. in poetaster, the character crispinus vomits actual words, re-tasting the fancy, multisyllabic examples that he failed to ingest properly, but that is not the underlying reason jonson includes this outlandish scene in his comical satire. while important, the mockery of marston and dekker fails to provide a sufficient cause for its inclusion. even the continuation of the digestive literary motif or his ongoing interest in the grotesque does not account for the dramatic incident. moreover, classical and contemporary precedents cannot explain why jonson wrote this scene thus. from reading the selection from timber, jonson’s crispinus enacts what his prose teaches: “[language] springs out of the most retired, and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind” (411). while this comparison makes an indelicately mixed metaphor of vomit as one’s child (viz., the product’s springing not from one’s loins but his belly), crispinus’ words do benefit from a comparison to progeny. children are quite literally the product of a creative act—the most primitive, basic act of creation known to our species. similarly, every culture on earth uses spoken language, and most have orthographic (written) forms as well. an act of creation, thinking, allows speakers to compose what it is they have to communicate before it is “birthed” as a speech act. jonson pushes his timber metaphor further in poetaster. as a child grows inside her mother’s body before being “uttered” as a self-sustaining entity that grows outside, language helps the speaker to “conceive” a message that is “delivered” to hearers outside of oneself. jonson suggests that like babies who grow into adulthood, words have “features” that make them become “sinewy and strong” (timber 411). this metaphor relies on a remarkably insightful philosophy of language, that, while debunked by twentieth-century linguists like saussure and noam chomsky, is nonetheless quite sophisticated, particularly for the renaissance. this linguistic philosophy informs his creative work. by bringing the words back up, literally venting them again abortively from his body in a projectile expulsion, crispinus is forced to admit that these words cannot grow into maturity. these examples of inflated language—and by default the weak minds that conceived the words—are immature. conclusion a formally ill person, once his queasy stomach has settled, needs to eat a healthy diet to rebuild his strength. in a case like crispinus, when his ailment stems from the poor nutritional/lexical choices he made in his former foolishness, such a person requires guidance from a mentor who can recommend more wholesome, healthful options. lucky for crispinus, the gull happens to be surrounded after his vomiting ends by some of the brightest, most articulate minds of classical antiquity. virgil’s prescription to the suddenly deflated poetaster involves “instructions in writing, designed to prevent him from lapsing back into artistic failure” (moul 42). what follows the purgative episode, according to critic victoria moul, is evidence of jonson’s straddling the roles of literary critic and playwright simultaneously. moul posits that poetaster is jonson’s ars poetica in miniature: “this concise ars poetica bears no relation to any of virgil’s extant works, but it does resemble quite closely certain sections of horace’s advice to poets in the satires, epistles, and ars poetica” (moul 32 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42). while i concur with her appreciation of jonson’s literary aptitude to accomplish two aims at once, i see her conclusion faulty simply because she stops short of recognizing jonson’s commentary on language use. to borrow her phrasing, poetaster also stands as a concise ars rhetorica. “oh, terrible, windy words:” witty wordplay in jonson’s poetaster middle tennessee state university 33 works cited baskervill, charles read. “poetaster.” english elements in jonson’s early comedy. new york: gordian (1967): 284-316. print. cain, tom. “‘satyres, that girde and fart at the time’: poetaster and the essex rebellion.” refashioning ben jonson: gender, politics, and the jonsonian canon. ed. julie sanders, kate chedgzoy, and susan wiseman. new york: st. martin’s (1998): 48-70. print. gieskes, edward. “honesty and vulgar praise”: the poet’s war and the literary field.” medieval & renaissance drama in england 18 (2005): 75-103. academic search premier. web. 7 apr. 2014. hayes, tom. “jonsonian interventions: catholicism/ horatianism/ dionysianism.” the birth of popular culture: ben jonson, maid marian and robin hood. pittsburgh: duquesne up (1992): 18-49. print. jonson, ben. timber: or discoveries. the complete poems. ed. george parfitt. new york: penguin (1996): 374-458. print. ---. “from timber, or discoveries.” in seventeenth-century british poetry, 1603-1660. ed. john rumrich and gregory chaplin. new york: norton (2005): 401-20. pdf. jonson, ben, and t.g.s. cain. poetaster. manchester: manchester up, 1996. print. koslow, julian. “humanist schooling and ben jonson’s poetaster.” elh 73.1 (2006): 11959. jstor. web. 7 apr. 2014. marckwardt, albert. “a fashionable expression: its status in poetaster and satiromastix.” modern language notes 44.2 (1929): 93-96. jstor. web. 7 apr. 2014. moul, victoria. “ben jonson’s poetaster: classical tradition and the location of cultural authority.” translation and literature 15 (2006): 21-46. academic search premier. web. 7 apr. 2014. pierce, robert. “ben jonson’s horace and horace’s ben jonson.” studies in philology 78.1 (1981): 20-31. jstor. web. 7 apr. 2014. saenger, michael. “interlinguicity and the alchemist.” english text construction 6.1 (2013): 176-200. academic search premier. web. 7 apr. 2014. small, roscoe addison. “ben jonson.” the stage-quarrel between ben jonson and the socalled poetasters. 1899. new york: ams (1966): 13-117. print. 34 spring 2015 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research summers, claude, and ted-larry pebworth. “the comedies.” ben jonson revised. new york: twayne publishers (1999): 27-107. print. talbert, ernest william. “the purpose and technique of jonson’s poetaster.” studies in philology 42.2 (1945): 225-52. jstor. web. 7 apr. 2014. tudeau-clayton, margaret. “scenes of translation in jonson and shakespeare: poetaster, hamlet, and a midsummer night’s dream.” translation and literature 11.1 (2002): 1-23. jstor. web. 7 apr. 2014. smollett, tobias, et al., eds. and trans.the works of m. de voltaire: a treatise on toleration, vol. 34. salisbury: newbery (1764): 178. google books. web. 24 apr. 2014. waith, eugene. “the poet’s morals in jonson’s poetaster.” modern language quarterly 12.1 (1951): 13-19. academic search premier. web. 7 apr. 2014. scientia et humanitas 94 spring 2011 we are what we eat: a cultural examination of immigrant health and nutrition in middle tennessee sarah visocky abstract �e purpose of this research is to examine recent hispanic immigrants to middle tennessee from an anthropological perspective to discover possible correlations to answer the research questions: how are latino and hispanic immigrant populations’ nutritional statuses a�ected by acculturation to the united states and to middle tennessee, and what factors come to play in changing their own food practices? results include information gleaned from previous ethnographic research as well as from interviews with local hispanic immigrants relating to food insecurity, the impact of school lunches on immigrant children’s health, and possible remedies to halt the declining health of immigrants to the middle tennessee. �is research suggests that the immigrant experience is not the same for every group or even for each individual, that health outcomes of other immigrants di�er according to their experiences of acculturation. scientia et humanitas 95 spring 2011 introduction demographic information on tennessee has been and is still being computed in terms of the black and white population; however, the actual demographics of the state are much more complex. tennessee has the sixth highest rate of increase of immigration growth in the united states, and it is estimated the immigrant population and immigrant births are adding nearly 210,635 persons to tennessee every year equating to 24.6% of the state’s overall population increase, tennessee must accordingly address its new diversities. middle tennessee, speci�cally murfreesboro, reported in the 2000 census a foreignborn population of 4.9% of the total population of the city. residents of hispanic or latino/a origin accounted for roughly 3.5% of the city’s total population, thus making this group the third largest, behind the city’s white and black populations. �is statistic shows the metamorphosis of diversifying ethnic populations and mirrors the changes apparent across the nation of the evolving demographics. �is transformation requires a critical reexamination of the issues of most signi�cance to the state. while tennessee’s population is becoming more diverse, its population is also becoming alarmingly unhealthy. according to recent statistics tennessee consistently ranks among the worst states in self-reported health status (46th), lack of regular physical activity (49th), percent overweight or obese (47th), and rate of diabetes (50th). �is research project aims to examine the population from the angle of both an increasingly diverse population as well as the disturbing trends in health, and will be applying an anthropological perspective to discover possible correlations. it posits that an anthropological approach that focuses on the details of people’s lived experiences will improve our understanding of how health issues arise, and how people deal with these issues. in-depth studies of food systems highlight the pervasive role of nutrition in human life. by focusing on a speci�c ethnic minority, the researcher begins to understand the factors that relate food consumption patterns with other parts of social life, that when combined present an overall image of the reasons for the changing bodies of hispaniclatino immigrants in the united states. �is research will �rst examine the study of food in anthropology. it will move on to previous research on health and immigrants, and �nally will analyze the speci�c data collected during a recent, in-depth �eld project conducted by anthropologists dr. ida fadzillah and dr. william leggett in 2009-2010 with the hispanic immigrant families in murfreesboro focusing on the health habits of these families. �is research poses the following research questions: how are latino and hispanic immigrant populations’ nutritional statuses a�ected by acculturation to the united states and to middle tennessee, and what factors come to play in changing their own food practices? �e conclusions will focus on three elements: food insecurity, school lunches, and possible remedies to the declining health of immigrants to the us and to tennessee in particular. health and nutrition in the united states �e study of health and nutrition by anthropologists is not a new or unusual focus; for decades many anthropologists along with other social scientists have made the study of food scientia et humanitas 96 spring 2011 culture and health and nutrition a top concern in their research (see, for example anderson 2005; gabaccia 1998; kumanyika 2008; long-solís & vargas 2005). �e ethnographic method, which focuses on in-depth interviews, participant-observation, focus groups, and quantitative surveys over an extended period of time, helps to assess how multicultural communities view health and well-being in relation to the food consumption habits they practice (see galvan 2009; gold 2009; kershen 2002; minoura 1992). �e ethnographic approach is thus useful in providing the complex details of a situation that statistical studies often lack. while anthropologists have long studied health and nutrition among non-western cultures, what is relatively new to the discipline is the involvement of anthropologists in exploring and studying the environments surrounding immigrants and refugees in the united states. speci�cally, these new americans’ sense of community, educational settings, religious ideologies, economic statuses, food practices, et cetera have only recently been examined to determine their a�ect on immigrants’ health since emigrating to the us. �is focus had previously been utilized mainly by clinical nutritionists and epidemiologists (see clark 1993; minoura 1992; montero-sieburth & lacelle-peterson 1991; story, kaphingst, robinson-o’brien, & glanz 2007). interestingly, very little previous research has been conducted on immigrant nutrition in the american south, and even less on the nutrition and health of immigrants in tennessee. however, because the diversity of the middle tennessee population is growing at such a rapid pace, an examination of immigrant nutrition and health is important in order to provide a more positive, culturallysensitive policy on health and nutrition for people moving into the area. in terms of the latino and hispanic immigrant population in the united states, using the ethnographic process can provide key insights into food consumption patterns in the daily lives of these individuals which are not usually captured in a 24hour food recall or food frequency questionnaire. using life histories and other types of open-ended interviews with consultants can provide information about lifetime experience of individuals, which can lead to key information about food and chronic nutrition-related diseases of their culture. even clearer for researchers is proof that combining qualitative and quantitative methods add to well-rounded explanations for food consumption patterns (see himmelgreen 2002). importantly, as immigrants move to the american south, particularly to tennessee, dietary habits seem to be changing, making the immigrant population prone to higher rates of obesity and nutrition-related diseases (see denkler 2009; ferris 2005; long-salís 2007; marte 2007; pérez and abarca 2007; salazar 2007). heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory diseases, accidents, diabetes, alzheimer’s disease, in©uenza and pneumonia, nephritis, and septicemia are the ten leading causes of deaths in the united states, and most of these illnesses can be prevented or delayed with proper nutrition and physical activity. comparing minority groups in the united states, heart disease is less prevalent among the hispanic population compared to african americans and caucasians, though this fact has already begun to change. instead the growing epidemic within the hispanic scientia et humanitas 97 spring 2011 and latino immigrant community is in elevated cases of diabetes and obesity, (edelstein & sharlin 2011) compounded as cases of attention de�cit disorder, asthma, and high blood pressure have begun to surface, signifying an important, life-threatening phenomenon among immigrants. so what factors account for the ill-health associated with immigration to the united states? acculturation and the transition of ethnic peoples to a westernized dietary pattern of highly processed, high-fat foods has been linked to morbidity through in©ammatory processes and oxidative stress, as well as an increase of cellular changes and chronic diseases of aging as they move away from traditional dietary patterns of fresh whole foods (iso, date, noda, yoshimura, & tamakoshi 2005). however, the changing food culture of hispanic and latino immigrants is not the only reason there have been such staggering negative e�ects on the bodies of these individuals. changes in physical activity levels and the e�ects of spending less time together as families in a traditionally close-knit community lead to psychosomatic diseases such as depression, stress, and anxiety, which further exacerbate the obesity problem when these individuals begin eating emotionally as a means of dealing with the unexpected pressures of living in the united states. socioeconomic pressures negatively impact the health statuses of the hispanic-latino community as its members struggle to work at multiple jobs, many as single mothers, combined with raising children and providing for the needs of their families. the anthropology of food because food touches everything, is the foundation of every economy, a central pawn in political strategies of states and households, and marks social di�erences, boundaries, bonds, and contradictions… the development of research interests in food is as old as anthropology. (counihan & van esterik 1997: 1) anthropologists have long studied immigrants to the united states, and the importance of studying the relationship between food and culture is that, “food systems are, like myth or ritual systems, codes wherein the patterns by which a culture ‘sees’ are embedded. �rough analysis of food and eating systems one can gain information about how a culture understands some of the basic categories of its world” (douglas, quoted in meigs 1988: 100). early anthropologists studied food because of its central role in many cultures, and several wrote pointed pieces on foodways (see du bois 1941; firth 1934; fortes 1936; mead 1969, 1943; powdermaker 1959; richards 1932, 1939). �e majority of recent studies have been conducted on immigrant groups living in either east or west coast states, border states, and mostly within large metropolitan areas (see donnelly & mckellin 2006; eddy 1968; goodkind & foster-fishman 2002; mangin 1970; osypuk, roux, hadley, & kandula 2009; silka 2007; southall 1973). only in current years has the focus on studies of food cultures of these new americans shifted away from solely covering topics such as food and memory and identity. new studies examine healthcare concerns immigrants now face after cultural adaptations to the westernized diet, bringing about illness and diseases such as obesity, asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, scientia et humanitas 98 spring 2011 followed by a host of other life altering and threatening conditions prevalent among these minority ethnic groups (see beebout 2006; brettell 2000; kasper, gupta, tran, cook, & meyers 2000; magnusson, hulthén, & kjellgren 2005; marte 2007; salazar 2007). �e main factor pinpointed as the cause of most of the obesity problem is primarily the result of consuming more calories than people expend in a given day (bleich, cutler, murray, & adams 2008). even social scientists in other countries are researching the obesity problem among low-income immigrant and refugee children exploring dietary patterns, physical activity and perceptions of relationships between life-style and health (magnusson, hulthén & kjellgren 2005). �e implication from research suggests a global movement to balance hunger and malnutrition in the developing world with increased physical activity to o�set growing obesity issues in the developed sectors. suggestions to halt this epidemic insist upon both cross-cultural participation as well as coordination within and across national boundaries. a study of immigrant neighborhoods in four us cities provides viable data and conclusions examining the health consequences of living in neighborhoods with higher proportions of immigrants, showing that the bene�ts of living in an immigrant community have di�erent associations with di�erent health behaviors and outcomes (osypuk, diez roux, hadley, & kandula 2009). conclusions from this research o�er the explanation that immigrant neighborhood residents’ health statuses are in©uenced by socioeconomic status, level of acculturation, poverty and food insecurities, and quality of the neighborhood social environment. katarina sussner’s research concerning the in©uence of immigration and acculturation on the development of overweight in latino families reveals that exposure to obesogenic environments in the us may foster development of overweight and obesity in immigrants with greater acculturation. it is clear that immigrants come to the us in better health compared to the community population around them but the longer they live here and become acculturated to mainstream eating habits, hispanic-latino populations’ health statuses su�er. the situation in murfreesboro: pre-immigration life ethnographic interviews with hispanic immigrants living in middle tennessee tell fascinating stories about the daily lives consultants lived in their home countries. �e interviews are divided by these immigrant women’s descriptions of physical activity, nutrition and eating habits, and school lunch o�erings prior to immigration. one of the most important aspects from the interviews discussing physical activity pre-immigration is that all of the women said they did a lot of walking in their home countries. combined with domestic functions, these women describe a life of being very physically active. scientia et humanitas 99 spring 2011 emily said of physical activity: in the evening we would always go out and walk [to the park or to the lake]. usually the people they [went] walking like our family – it’s just walk to go to the store, to the grocery store or something like that. georgia echoed her sentiments: in honduras i didn’t have a car, no one had a car, we would go to the groceries, to the downtown center all walking, and that was a long distance. and we would go two to three times a week. we loved it. vickie reported: we were always walking. we would meet in the center of the town that was called the “plaza.” �e custom was to walk around it, and the young men and young women would meet and see each other as they were walking around. and that was the custom for each weekend on sunday. pre-immigration nutritional habits are consistent with a diet made up of nutrient dense fruits and vegetables combined with complex carbohydrates from grains, such as rice and breads and combined with meat. drinks consumed tended to be aguas frescas (which are made by blending fresh fruit together with water, sometimes sweetening the beverage before serving), along with other fruit juices, water, milk, fruit ©avored soft drinks, and coca-cola. donna described her family’s eating patterns: over there, during breakfasts or lunches we always eat at the table, but the last meal is typically eaten in front of the tv. �e foods were….we are accustomed to eating beans, rice, meat, tortillas… [ we would drink] fresh drinks… lime juice, tang, sometimes coca-cola. sometimes, i would go [grocery shopping] every three days. over there you wouldn’t be able to buy too much food because it would spoil. for dinner it’s always beans, rice, and tortillas. if my husband goes out �shing, then we will eat fried �sh. i wasn’t accustomed to buying any sweets really. emily stated: we all eat together; the tv is never on; and all meals are eaten at the table. we would buy food daily: fresh fruit, fresh meat… over there there isn’t [prepackaged convenience foods]; people live according to their �nancial situation. i introduced fruits and vegetables in my girls’ diet from a very early age. i would boil the fruits or vegetables, and liquefy them and feed them that. all the children [in mexico] were used to eating veggies at a young age. scientia et humanitas 100 spring 2011 mary described her family’s eating habits: in mexico, we always make meat fresh from going to the market and we went to the store to buy the fresh tortillas. [ we go to the market everyday for food]. we don’t do [use] a lot of salt. most of the women said eating fast food was too expensive or that the restaurants were far away. �ey did describe buying food from street vendors as opposed to buying fast food. donna described eating out in mexico: over there ladies in the neighborhood would go out and sell tacos. �at’s what we would eat [instead of fast food]. emily’s description matched donna’s: over there if you didn’t have the money, you just didn’t go [out to eat]. �e people who ate hamburgers, it was only for people with money. it cost a lot. �e women also described their children’s pre-immigration school lunches. for the most part, mothers either made healthy lunches for their children to take with them, or the school o�ered nutritious choices for the children to buy. donna describes the mexican school lunch o�erings: [my children] would eat once they got there [to school]... lunch is the only meal or food time that they get [in school]. it’s 30 minute recess. it’s not like here where the children need snacks. we actually didn’t know what snacks were. mary added: every mother, they go to school to feed their kids. [i take] like fried eggs with salsa, potato with beans, fried tacos, rice… we cook a lot of rice. we cook the rice with tomatoes, sometimes white [rice] with vegetables. over there, outside of the school, the kids can buy fruit. like snack. stories eliciting memories of eating practices both within the home and at school, combined with descriptions of a physically active lifestyle describe lives of health and wellness for murfreesboro’s hispanic immigrants pre-immigration. if hispanic immigrants lived healthy, physically active lifestyles prior to coming to the us, the question now becomes what changes in their daily lives have negatively a�ected their health outcomes post-immigration? poor mothers and food insecurities �e post-immigration situation of these women and their families to the united states is very di�erent. �eir health habits and foods consumed here do not mirror those practiced scientia et humanitas 101 spring 2011 pre-immigration. upon reading the research into immigrants and health, the theme of “food insecurity” kept popping up. and while this is a policy term, it aptly describes the state of being of many poor people, immigrants and non-immigrants alike. to understand the situation in which they �nd themselves, we must �rst explore the concept of food insecurity more thoroughly. food insecurity, de�ned as “limited or uncertain access to enough nutritious and safe food or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways” is prevalent among many low-income families (bickel, nord, price, hamilton, & cook 2000). in 2002, about 11 percent of american households were classi�ed as food insecure (wilde & nord 2005), but the rate was higher in households with children (18%), poor families (37%), and in black (24%) and hispanic (22%) households (nord, andrews & carlson 2003). as measured by the u.s. food security scale (bickel, nord, price, hamilton & cook 2000), food security is considered a marker for the adequacy and stability of the household food supply over the past 12 months for active, healthy living for all household members (bickel 2000). studies show the potential negative impact of food insecurity on children’s health and development, associated with poor child outcomes in the realms of physical health as well as psychological and academic functioning (see alaimo, olson & frongillo 2001; casey 2006; dunifon & kowaleski-jones 2003; slack & yoo 2005; winicki & jemison 2003). adverse impacts of food insecurity on young children’s health and development are important given the linkages between early childhood circumstances and later life outcomes (case, fertig & paxson 2003). in particular, food insecurity may be a concern for the young low income children of immigrants, given their already elevated risk for poor health (huang, yu & ledsky 2006).within anthropological ethnographic studies, janet fitchen’s research and hypothesis provide examples that food and eating patterns of low-income people, despite the economic constraints of poverty, follow many dominant american cultural ideas and food practices that may actually exacerbate malnourishment (fitchen 1986). her research identi�es several factors contributing to uneven distribution of hunger across populations within the united states, namely that population groups [including african americans, hispanics, indians, households headed by women, and children], geographic regions [particularly the south], and age ranges most likely to fall below the poverty line are most at risk for being hungry and malnourished. jerome o�ers an explanation for contemporary eating habits, that even in cases of poverty, “food preferences that lean towards �nger foods, fun foods, snack foods, and fast and convenient foods express basic american cultural values” ( jerome, quoted in fitchen 1986). low-income people express their membership in the society and their adherence to its dominant values through many of the same food choices that characterize the rest of the population such as using food stamps or vouchers to buy heavily advertised, statusinvested foods seen on television as a means of exercising their freedom of choice in buying practices. unfortunately, the e�ect of junk food on the poor is worse because while they can only a�ord to buy highly processed, fatty and sugary foods, more a´uent people can scientia et humanitas 102 spring 2011 a�ord to buy both junk food and nutritious food. more importantly, fitchen explains that the united states department of agriculture (usda) supervises the food stamp program as well as the free and reduced-price school lunches and nutrition education for the poor. she claims that the poor are not the usda’s main constituents due to the fact that the interests and political power of the food industry and the agricultural sector of the economy exert such a strong in©uence on food assistance programs. only the women, infant, and children [wic] program is under a federal department primarily charged with people’s well-being, the department of health and human services (fitchen 1986). other researchers’ �ndings reveal how government assistance programs assess immigrant groups’ deservingness of welfare, the food stamp program, and healthcare depending on their country of origin and the a�ects this has on their incorporation into american society (see bean, van hook & glick 1997; horton 2004). further research establishes a de�nite relation between legal and illegal immigrants living below the poverty line and de�nite food insecurities, leading to malnutrition, particularly for children of immigrants (see chilton 2009; drachman 1995; kasper, gupta, tran, cook & meyers 2000; van hook & balistreri 2004). food insecurity has both qualitative and quantitative e�ects on diet. immigrants, particularly hispanics, experience adverse psychological e�ects of food insecurity (quandt, shoaf, tapia, hernández-pelletier, clark & arcury 2006). not only do they �nd themselves faced with the economic constraints posed by poverty, low-wage employment, job insecurity, language, education, and marginal social position, but this risk is compounded by restrictions on enrollment in government programs designed to prevent food insecurity because many lack valid immigration documents and do not seek government assistance due to fear of being deported. with so many immigrants moving from latin american countries into areas of the united states, particularly to the american south, there is little infrastructure in the hispanic and latino community to receive these new members, leading to feelings of isolation for them. depression and stress interfere with a parent’s ability to work and balance a food budget on a low monthly income. parenting skills and knowledge of what assistance is available for those mothers who may not have legal status, as well as the length of time spent in the united states becoming acculturated also a�ects household level food insecurity (kalil & chen 2008). language barriers of non-english speaking mothers often keep them from becoming involved at their children’s schools and other organizations within the community, as well as in negotiating with the bureaucracies of government assistance programs or private charities. �us, low-income immigrant families, compared to their native counterparts, are at greater risk of food insecurities and have lower overall pro�les on the socioeconomic and demographic factors that correlate with food insecurity. combined, these challenges lead to a less productive and ful�lling life in the united states due to malnutrition --whether from obesity or de�cient diseases—and decreased physical health statuses. �is information is important to understanding how food and health are intertwined in the immigrant scientia et humanitas 103 spring 2011 experience, bringing food insecurity and poverty into consideration as factors contributing to the health crises many immigrants face after becoming acculturated to us food practices. the situation in murfreesboro: post-immigration after the �rst interviews during which consultants were asked to describe their lives back home, in the second interview, they were asked to describe their daily lives and eating habits in the united states. for these hispanic immigrant families, living in middle tennessee does not come without a struggle. many of the parents work multiple jobs in order to support their families, and still most live on the brink of poverty. �us, the lived experiences of hispanic immigrants in murfreesboro fall in line with research on poor mothers and food insecurities. donna said of her family’s nutritional habits post-immigration: we wake up and sometimes we eat cereal, or co�ee with a ham and mayonnaise sandwich. maybe a smoothie with oatmeal, bananas, milk and sugar. when i see that in the kitchen there is not much i resort to eggs… he [her son] doesn’t like vegetableshe has got to start to like vegetables. emily reported: we go one day of week [to the grocery store], so we have [food] for all week. in the morning i get up and eat a yogurt or banana. or drink milk sometimes. sometimes in the morning they [her daughters] eat like a yogurt, juice, but most of the times they eat at the school. �ey eat the lunches at school and ask for hamburgers or pizza at home. it is di�cult for them to eat that which is similar to the food at home [in school]. and the girls eat cereal at night. and sometimes i just eat an apple or eat a fruit or something, cookies or something. i buy the corn�akes or cheerios and i watch them. i tell my little girl, “don’t put sugar on it,” and but sometimes i put a banana in the cereal. she likes. i just trying to – that they eat something nutritious and healthy. georgia commented: it’s more di�cult to be thinner now. all i eat is dry �brous cereal and co�ee [for breakfast]. i like my co�ee black. so what i do is i eat the cereal [dry] and i chew it up, then i drink some co�ee with it, i like this. every once in a while, i cook the children eggs. sometimes we do refried beans; we do eggs with chorizo, tortillas with cheese. we eat dinner at 6 pm, but they go to sleep late, all three [children]. it will be around 10 or 10:30 pm and they’re wondering what to eat or drink...if something is left over like rice or meat, he goes and eats the rice and meat. always. and if i don’t make anything, perhaps i made food at 4 pm, and i think that the meal would be good for the rest of the day because i don’t feel like eating anymore that day. at 3 or 4 pm we eat. maybe we eat at 5, and i think to myself, “ok, no more cooking today.” but when i cook at 5 pm, i think it is enough for scientia et humanitas 104 spring 2011 the rest of the day. but, the three keep eating. corn�akes, rice, meat, whatever they like that’s left over, they eat. except salads, they don’t eat salads. nutritional habits that have changed a lot are the consumption of fast foods. in their home countries, immigrant women spoke of rarely consuming fast foods because of the distance and cost involved in being able to consume the foods. hispanic women describe an increase in consuming fast foods post-immigration. emily describes her family’s fast food consumption post-immigration: [ we eat fast food] probably one time [per week]. sometimes the chinese bu�et. i like to order the grilled chicken [at fast food restaurants] but the girls like meat. �ey order hamburgers. i always get sweet tea or sprite. �e children drink dr. pepper or coke. �e youngest drinks sprite. �ey [her children] always get fries. georgia echoes: sometimes when i can’t [cook], we go [eat fast food]… mcdonald ’s, burger king, mrs. winner’s, and sometimes we eat chinese; i like chinese. i like them all. nora’s family too has fast food several times a week: maybe one day during the week and once on weekends [we eat out], but one weekend yes, one weekend no [they alternate weekends for eating fast food]. for me, i like the chicken sandwich. it tastes better in my mouth. �ey [ her children] have the whopper and fries. with coke or sprite or juices to drink. �e level of physical activity among hispanic immigrants in middle tennessee su�ered a drastic loss after immigration. environmental factors, such as living in unsafe neighborhoods as well as the outside temperature during much of the year in tennessee, a�ect desires to engage in physical activities; and the women interviewed portray a life largely lacking physical activity compared to their stories of exercise pre-immigration. donna said of physical activity post-immigration: it is normal that they wake up, go watch television and then go outside to play. �en the heat gets to them and they come in. �ey’re up and they’re around before breakfast. playing with toys, then outside, then they come in and want breakfast. we walk sometimes or maybe run, play with the ball. �ey always want me to go out there with them, but i say no most of the time. emily reported: i get up at 6:30. i take the girls to school and then i go to the park [greenway] to walk for forty-�ve minutes to an hour. i clean just a little. i mop and do the dishes. i sweep. all of the days, each cleans, the girls too. in the evenings, i try to take them [her children] to scientia et humanitas 105 spring 2011 the park; i don’t let them go out here because it’s a bad area. my husband prohibits them from going outside without someone. mary said: �ey only watch tv; they don’t want to help me! every afternoon my cousin takes them outside and they play with the ball over there. but everyday they play, or i take them everyday to the ....park, for a walk, or to see things. we have to drive everywhere. �ere is hardly any chance for exercise here. vickie said of physical activity: when it’s not too hot they [her children] can leave the house. in the mornings, they can walk around the neighborhood or ride their bikes, and when the sun lowers later on they can [go outside]. more important than the changing nutrition habits and physical activity levels are the worries these hispanic immigrant mothers have about the health and well-being of themselves and their children. many of the women voice their concerns about their children becoming obese and outgrowing their clothes, as well as the concerns about the lack of physical �tness they have seen both in themselves and in their children. emily voiced her concerns about health post-immigration: i don’t know… why they are overweight. i am always worried about that. i try to get them as physically active as possible. i take them to go swimming, to the park. �e three of them are overweight. in mexico we didn’t have to worry like here, but here it’s one more thing that the food – the majority of children, it’s di�cult to cook them good food that they’ll really eat. you have to cook something that they’ll eat. donna too had worries about her children’s health: lately when i go out and buy clothes for him [one of her sons], i have got to look in the larger boy sizes because all he eats is meat. we have trouble �nding the right size and he gets frustrated, so i tell him that we will, because i’ve been a bit careless with my cholesterol too, we will start eating more vegetables and healthier. i have the [diet] plan over there, our diet will change. we don’t eat until we’re full. i worry about the younger one [the heaviest son] because his weight went up a lot and now he is snoring a lot as well. i think to myself, “it’s going to cost me more to have him in a hospital than to help him with his diet.” we don’t eat the food [follow the diet recommendations] exactly, but sometimes very similar. scientia et humanitas 106 spring 2011 vickie’s concerns are similar: i wanted him [her son] to eat carrots, but he doesn’t like them to come with his food or lettuce, no carrots, nor anything like this. so the customs, his customs with food are not good… my husband he has become a little fat in this culture. �e information these interviews provide is invaluable for understanding the experiences of local hispanic immigrants. by reading their individual stories and post-immigration outcomes, the researcher has a mental picture of the nutritional habits, amount of physical activity, and the concerns and worries these immigrant mothers have about their own lives and for the lives of their children. �e home environment plays a huge part in the outcomes of health statuses for immigrants, as does the school environment, a place where immigrant children are quickly becoming more acculturated to us food habits than their parents. while these interviews provide information and life stories from only seven people, they serve as proof that the fast-growing health crisis within the immigrant community is real, especially in middle tennessee. as immigrants become acculturated to life and to the food habits of america, so too do their bodies begin to mirror the shapes and illnesses of other americans. research in school cafeterias food and the eating environments in which they are consumed likely contribute to the increasing epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases over and above individual factors such as nutritional knowledge and motivation for eating healthy. in contrast to research conducted by clinical nutritionists, dieticians, and epidemiologists, anthropological research contributes a more in-depth examination of the culture of school cafeterias and of the immigrant youth within these environments. anthropologist mary story’s research focuses on an ecological framework for conceptualizing the many food environments and conditions that may in©uence food choices, pinpointing knowledge regarding the home and school settings for low-income and immigrant groups as nutrition environments a�ecting health, a �nding signi�cant to this research. her research rei�es the scienti�cally-proven fact that diet plays an important role in the prevention of obesity and chronic diseases and that by modifying intake behaviors, americans have the potential to �ght and topple the current obesity epidemic plaguing much of the country’s population (story, kaphingst, robinson-o’brien & glanz 2007). focusing on the environment of educational settings, story explains that within the home, availability and accessibility to healthy foods, the frequency of family meals, parental intake and parenting practices dealing with their children’s nutrition all potentially a�ect the eating habits of children as they age. yet we know that for many low-income immigrant families, parents work at all hours, therefore putting immigrant children at risk, lacking stable adult in©uences for developing healthy eating practices. for this reason, some of the responsibility for teaching these at-risk children the importance of making healthy food scientia et humanitas 107 spring 2011 choices as well as including adequate physical exercise in their lifestyle falls on immigrant children’s schools. meals served in school cafeterias are required to meet federally-de�ned nutrition standards and the dietary guidelines for americans. however, federal requirements for cafeterias do little to control standards of competitive foods sold in vending machines by outside companies or to set school-wide nutrition standards; the school environment can be a place of concern when addressing the obesity epidemic in school-aged immigrant children. only recently has the implementation of nutrition standards in educational facilities appeared, recommending outside competitive lenders bringing snack foods into schools for student purchase only be allowed to o�er fruits, vegetables, whole grain, and nonfat/lowfat dairy products. among educational institutions with higher proportions of low-income and immigrant/ minority student populations, the federal and state governments need to step in with assistance programs to increase daily intake of fresh fruit and vegetables amongst these students. other e�orts to improve the quality of foods in schools could include farm-toschool programs, which link local farmers providing fresh locally-grown produce to school food service cafeterias and school gardening programs. �ere is also a need for classroom nutrition education to complement changes in the school environment to increase students’ skills for adopting healthy lifestyles (258). in her conclusion, story states that, improving dietary and lifestyle patterns and reducing obesity will require a sustained public health e�ort, which addresses not only individual behaviors but also the environmental context and conditions in which people live and make choices. individual behavior change is di¸cult to achieve without addressing the context in which people make decisions. (266) conducting research within the american south, anthropologist deborah crooks’ research in a kentucky elementary school on the cafeteria and snack foods provided for purchase focuses on the two ways schools shape nutritional habits of children: �rst, children spend many hours at school per day, where they may consume up to one-third of their calories, and second, schools are the primary place where children learn about nutrition and appropriate diet through classroom teaching (crooks 2003). �e original aims of her research were to: (1) document the growth and nutritional status of elementary school children in the community; (2) document the dietary intake and activity patterns contributing to nutritional status; and (3) gain an understanding of environmental factors that shape dietary intake. (183-184). results from her research after assessing these children’s anthropometric and dietary intake data showed that the students at this school were overweight or borderline overweight, with many of their body mass indexes (bmis) over those of the reference group provided through the national health and nutrition examination survey (nhanes) nationally representative samples (mmwr 1997). when analyzing dietary intake, evidence supported that children consumed high-fat, high-sugar foods and rarely consumed fruits and vegetables. children at this school in kentucky also consumed greater amounts of total fat, saturated fat, and carbohydrates in ratio to other nutrients suggested as healthy amounts by federal dietary guidelines. scientia et humanitas 108 spring 2011 economic status, ethnicity, and region all add to the educational environment for predicting nutritional risk for children. cara ebbeling identi�es a number of environmental in©uences on diet, physical activity, and family practices in the united states that promote overweight and poor nutritional status among children and that make longterm improvement in nutritional status di¸cult to attain. in addition, it is proposed that underfunding of schools may lead to reductions in or elimination of physical education classes, the contracting out of food services to companies that often sell low quality fast foods, and/or the placement of vending machines in schools for the sale of soft drinks, and, as others point out (wechsler 2001), low quality, high calorie snack foods (ebbeling 2002). studying the immigrant youth population, melissa salazar explores the childhood memories of mexicano (mexican-origin) adults as illustrations of the importance of the school cafeteria as a complex public eating space for ethnic minority students (salazar 2007). her study �nds that for minority hispanic students, the lunchroom becomes not just a place to eat, but an environment where assimilative food pressures and peer relationships collide, forcing these immigrant children either to become fully acculturated to western food practices, or to negotiate a boundary between home/ school foods. salazar discusses that in institutional lunch programs, hispanic and other minority youth confront both institutional and peer pressures to adopt the dominant food norms of american school lunch. she explains that it is unlikely that mexicano students encounter culturally familiar foods from home within the menu o�erings of american school lunch menus. as a result, “immigrant and ethnic minority children spend a good portion of their lunchtime trying to ‘�t in’ both with their food habits and with whom they sit” (154). her �ndings suggest that immigrant children acculturate to western food habits faster than their parents or other adults. �is data on school cafeterias provides a context for understanding the stories of hispanic immigrant school children’s experiences in middle tennessee and the changes they have faced in local school cafeterias. from the interviews between immigrant mothers and drs. fadzillah and leggett, nora and donna explained that their children found eating american foods di¸cult when they �rst started consuming them because of the cultural unfamiliarity between the foods eaten at home and those served to them at school. sometimes their children still take their lunches from home and often refuse to eat the breakfast foods served in their school cafeteria. however, after years of growing accustomed to eating such foods as hamburgers, fries, and pizza at school, the children have started asking for these items at home as well, which concerns their mothers who do the shopping and prefer to make healthier buying choices for their children. instead of snacks of fresh fruits or vegetables, the children prefer sweet items for snacks, such as cookies or candy as well as soft drinks or arti�cially ©avored fruit juices. �is provides clues to the changing food habits of hispanic immigrants coming in large part from their children becoming acculturated to american foods faster than their parents. what is important to note for the overall research is that public school cafeterias play a huge part in the changing health statuses of immigrant children, who then take the scientia et humanitas 109 spring 2011 newly acquired eating habits home to in©uence eating habits of the rest of their families. �is provides an interesting question about the changing health statuses of immigrant children and natives alike: would we see a halt and possible turn-around in the obesity epidemic impacting not only immigrant populations but all of america’s youth by changing nutritional policy in school cafeterias? conclusions and suggestions for further research new immigrants from such regions of the world as central, latin and south americas, southeast and east asia, africa and the middle east come every year to build better lives for their families due to our thriving job market within middle tennessee. how much of their income people can assign to food—and indeed, how much time they can give to preparing and even eating it—is a vital factor in the persistence of tradition and the shaping of change. when such change has the e�ect of revolutionizing both food production and the circumstances of its preparation and consumption that means its lived impact falls squarely upon existing patterns of eating (mintz 2007). �is research provides a detailed study of food in anthropology, important to providing an in-depth look at the omnipresent role food plays in culture. by examining previous literature combined with an examination of raw data provided through recent research conducted by drs. ida fadzillah and william leggett in 2009, the researcher was able to answer her research questions: how are latino and hispanic immigrant populations’ nutritional statuses a�ected by acculturation to the united states and to middle tennessee, and what factors come in to play in changing their own cultural food practices? changes in food availability and preferences, food insecurities, school lunch o�erings, time spent engaged in physical activity, the lack of strong immigrant community solidarity, hectic daily schedules, lack of information about aid programs o�ered to low-income families, and becoming accustomed to life in the us have profound e�ects on hispanic immigrant lives and bodies. a compelling study of korean immigrants found that the longer this group stays in the us, the more diet related diseases such as cancer, hypertension and coronary heart disease, digestive diseases, arthritis, and diabetes occur among individuals in this population (yang, chung, kim, bianchi & song 2007). another study set up bilingual nutrition classes with interpreters to increase the health statuses of immigrant vietnamese women who quali�ed and received wic bene�ts (ikeda, pham, nguyen & mitchell 2002). �ese studies on korean and vietnamese immigrant groups’ health outcomes suggest that studying the e�ects of acculturation on hispanic-latino immigrant lives is not a novel idea; anthropological research on food and culture provides the complex details of this health crisis that statistical studies often lack. further research examining other ethnic immigrant groups on the subject of nutrition and health would bring valuable crosscultural understanding to the experiences of other ethnic groups moving into the us, as well as to middle tennessee, perhaps providing answers to the changes seen within minority groups. �e immigrant experience is not the same for every group or even for each scientia et humanitas 110 spring 2011 individual; indeed, this researcher hypothesizes that health outcomes of other immigrants di�er according to their experiences of acculturation. �e popularity of studying health and nutrition has not abated, but has become an even more popular topic on the forefront of research within all disciplines, especially in the social sciences. particularly within the university academic setting, research grants funded through the tennessee board of regents [tbr] related to nutrition and health in three of the �ve research projects funded in 2009 alone. �is fact shows that scholars from all disciplines are taking notice of the growing health crisis and do not just want to exploit immigrant groups for their research, but want to provide advocacy and change to bene�t these people for being willing to step forward with their stories of health and wellness alteration. research in this area will only continue to grow as the obesity epidemic does, until researchers along with other concerned citizens become committed enough to intervene on behalf of not only the immigrant community, but for native middle tennesseans as well, challenging the local, state, and federal governments to make the necessary amendments in nutrition policy to arrest the current health crisis apparent not just in the south but across the entire us. scientia et humanitas 111 spring 2011 references alaimo k., olson c. and frongillo e. 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(2004). ineligible parents, eligible children: food stamps receipt, allotments, and food insecurity among children of immigrants. social science research, 35, 228–251. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 1918 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research yeats, w.b. “edmund spenser.” essays and introductions. new york: macmillan, 1961. print. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite load in equines from middle tennessee ellen goertzen abstract in this study fecal egg counts were performed on horses in six barns in middle tennessee to assess parasite load and the effectiveness of deworming programs. samples were collected and tested before and after deworming and results found through the mcmaster technique were compared with currently practiced deworming programs. results showed the presence of parasites in all barns, though parasite load varied with a number of factors such as consistency of treatment, deworming frequency, and products used. all deworming products were found to be effective. this research provides insight to a more informed alternative deworming protocol, based on actual parasite load, than is typically used throughout the horse industry today. future studies are suggested to compare the effectiveness of rotating products vs. use of a single product, and evaluating parasite load of stallions vs. mares or geldings. deans’ distinguished essay award recipient impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2120 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 1. common anthelmintics, brand names, and parasites treated. drug common product targeted parasites ivermectin zimecterin, ivercare, bimectin, equalvan, rotectin 1, equimectrin, duramectin large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms, bots moxidectin quest large and small strongyles (in encysted state), ascarids, pinworms, bots praziquantel (in addition to) quest plus (moxidectin); equimax and imecterin gold (ivermectin) large and small strongyles (in encysted state), bots, tapeworms pyrantel pamoate strongid, strongid-t, rotectin p, strongylecare, exodus large and small strongyles, ascarids, some pinworms pyrantel tartrate strongid c2x, continuex, pellet-care p large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms fenbendazole panacur, safe-guard large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms oxibendazole anthelcide eq large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms, threadworms *all table information taken from smartpakequine.com (“horse dewormer supplements,” 2012). praziquantel is the only drug found to be highly effective (smartpakequine.com). pyrantel tartrate is the only feed-through dewormer, in which a small dose is mixed into the horse’s feed every day. this type of dewormer was not investigated in this study. deworming dosage is calculated based on the horse’s weight. horse dewormers come in a disposable oral syringe, the shaft of which is notched and has a small rotating piece that can be used to adjust the dose. a calibrated scale is the only accurate way to determine a horse’s weight, but is not available to most horse owners; alternative ways to estimate weight include weight tapes, measurement calculations, or eyeball estimations. another product some horse owners use to deworm is diatomaceous earth mixed with their daily feed. theoretically, the “scrubbing action” of the diatoms sufficiently injures the parasites. proponents claim that it causes a significant reduction in parasites, healthy weight gain, and does not cause parasite resistance to dewormers. while diatomaceous earth is marketed as a completely natural product that contains no chemicals, there have been few if any scientific studies to confirm its effectiveness or recommended dosage for deworming. deworming programs usually involve treatment every 6-10 weeks, typically rotating the drug used. due to an increase in parasite resistance to deworming drugs, some veterinarians currently advise deworming less often. according to the american association of equine practitioners, over-use of dewormers increases the rate at which parasites develop resistance (2013). a common mentality among horse owners is to completely eradicate all parasites in the barn, deworming all horses often enough to be sure that there is no risk. the negative i. introduction internal parasites are a recurring health issue in all horses. these parasites live in organs, body cavities, and tissues, using the host animal as their source of nutrition. though low levels of parasites cause no significant harm, a small percentage of horses may develop a high level of parasitemia. symptoms of a parasite infestation include poor growth, poor hair coat quality, weight loss, decreased feed efficiency, colic, diarrhea, pneumonia, and even death (peregrine et al. 2014). the most common types of parasites are large and small strongyles, ascarids, tapeworms, pinworms, and bots. while all of these types can present health concerns for horses, small strongyles are potentially the most difficult to eradicate and pose the most serious problems, and make up 95-100% of the eggs seen in fecal tests. small strongyle larvae burrow into the intestinal lining and can remain encysted and dormant for months. while in this stage, the larvae are not affected by most treatments, and can cause significant damage to the intestinal lining as they emerge from their encysted state (peregrine et. al 2014). rather than becoming encysted, large strongyle larvae migrate through blood vessels to the arteries in the intestinal tract, where they block blood supply and can cause blood clots to form. the eggs are passed in feces, where they hatch into larvae and continue the life cycle. ascarids, commonly known as roundworms, are a health issue in horses less than 2 years of age, but older horses develop a natural immunity. tapeworms and bots can also cause major health concerns, while pinworms are considered a more minor health threat (traversa et. al 2007). routine treatment is available for all of these parasites in the form of oral deworming pastes containing various drugs to target specific parasites. pastes are administered using syringes that can be bought in most farm supply stores. horse owners typically follow a specific program, which may vary significantly between different barns. most horse owners design their program based on assumption of parasite load, and the treatment being prophylactic rather than to eradicate a known problem. typical deworming programs involve treating all animals on the property every 6-10 weeks. however, treatment this frequent may contribute to an increase in parasite resistance to dewormers. according to peregrine et al., resistance to all types of dewormers has increased in the past ten years (2014). this suggests a need for a new approach involving deworming less frequently, in accordance with actual parasite load as determined by fecal egg count tests. several broad-spectrum drugs are used to treat for parasites, including ivermectin, moxidectin, praziquantel, pyrantel pamoate, pyrantel tartrate, fenbendazole, and oxibendazole. they function by interrupting the life cycle of the parasites (aaep 2013). table 1 lists common drugs and some of their most common brand names. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2120 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 1. common anthelmintics, brand names, and parasites treated. drug common product targeted parasites ivermectin zimecterin, ivercare, bimectin, equalvan, rotectin 1, equimectrin, duramectin large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms, bots moxidectin quest large and small strongyles (in encysted state), ascarids, pinworms, bots praziquantel (in addition to) quest plus (moxidectin); equimax and imecterin gold (ivermectin) large and small strongyles (in encysted state), bots, tapeworms pyrantel pamoate strongid, strongid-t, rotectin p, strongylecare, exodus large and small strongyles, ascarids, some pinworms pyrantel tartrate strongid c2x, continuex, pellet-care p large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms fenbendazole panacur, safe-guard large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms oxibendazole anthelcide eq large and small strongyles, ascarids, pinworms, threadworms *all table information taken from smartpakequine.com (“horse dewormer supplements,” 2012). praziquantel is the only drug found to be highly effective (smartpakequine.com). pyrantel tartrate is the only feed-through dewormer, in which a small dose is mixed into the horse’s feed every day. this type of dewormer was not investigated in this study. deworming dosage is calculated based on the horse’s weight. horse dewormers come in a disposable oral syringe, the shaft of which is notched and has a small rotating piece that can be used to adjust the dose. a calibrated scale is the only accurate way to determine a horse’s weight, but is not available to most horse owners; alternative ways to estimate weight include weight tapes, measurement calculations, or eyeball estimations. another product some horse owners use to deworm is diatomaceous earth mixed with their daily feed. theoretically, the “scrubbing action” of the diatoms sufficiently injures the parasites. proponents claim that it causes a significant reduction in parasites, healthy weight gain, and does not cause parasite resistance to dewormers. while diatomaceous earth is marketed as a completely natural product that contains no chemicals, there have been few if any scientific studies to confirm its effectiveness or recommended dosage for deworming. deworming programs usually involve treatment every 6-10 weeks, typically rotating the drug used. due to an increase in parasite resistance to deworming drugs, some veterinarians currently advise deworming less often. according to the american association of equine practitioners, over-use of dewormers increases the rate at which parasites develop resistance (2013). a common mentality among horse owners is to completely eradicate all parasites in the barn, deworming all horses often enough to be sure that there is no risk. the negative i. introduction internal parasites are a recurring health issue in all horses. these parasites live in organs, body cavities, and tissues, using the host animal as their source of nutrition. though low levels of parasites cause no significant harm, a small percentage of horses may develop a high level of parasitemia. symptoms of a parasite infestation include poor growth, poor hair coat quality, weight loss, decreased feed efficiency, colic, diarrhea, pneumonia, and even death (peregrine et al. 2014). the most common types of parasites are large and small strongyles, ascarids, tapeworms, pinworms, and bots. while all of these types can present health concerns for horses, small strongyles are potentially the most difficult to eradicate and pose the most serious problems, and make up 95-100% of the eggs seen in fecal tests. small strongyle larvae burrow into the intestinal lining and can remain encysted and dormant for months. while in this stage, the larvae are not affected by most treatments, and can cause significant damage to the intestinal lining as they emerge from their encysted state (peregrine et. al 2014). rather than becoming encysted, large strongyle larvae migrate through blood vessels to the arteries in the intestinal tract, where they block blood supply and can cause blood clots to form. the eggs are passed in feces, where they hatch into larvae and continue the life cycle. ascarids, commonly known as roundworms, are a health issue in horses less than 2 years of age, but older horses develop a natural immunity. tapeworms and bots can also cause major health concerns, while pinworms are considered a more minor health threat (traversa et. al 2007). routine treatment is available for all of these parasites in the form of oral deworming pastes containing various drugs to target specific parasites. pastes are administered using syringes that can be bought in most farm supply stores. horse owners typically follow a specific program, which may vary significantly between different barns. most horse owners design their program based on assumption of parasite load, and the treatment being prophylactic rather than to eradicate a known problem. typical deworming programs involve treating all animals on the property every 6-10 weeks. however, treatment this frequent may contribute to an increase in parasite resistance to dewormers. according to peregrine et al., resistance to all types of dewormers has increased in the past ten years (2014). this suggests a need for a new approach involving deworming less frequently, in accordance with actual parasite load as determined by fecal egg count tests. several broad-spectrum drugs are used to treat for parasites, including ivermectin, moxidectin, praziquantel, pyrantel pamoate, pyrantel tartrate, fenbendazole, and oxibendazole. they function by interrupting the life cycle of the parasites (aaep 2013). table 1 lists common drugs and some of their most common brand names. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2322 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research data was collected from six barns in the middle tennessee area. for barns that followed a deworming program, details were noted about the program such as what products were used, dates of treatment, and dosage. the lack of a deworming program was also noted. for barns with more than 20 horses, a representative sample was tested. for barns with less than 20 horses, all horses were tested, though the number of horses with two samples varies due to horses being moved on or off the property during the period of this study. table 2 lists some general information about the barns. table 2. deworming programs in each barn. barn # of horses frequency of deworming rotate dewormers? initial (before deworming) collection date final (after deworming) collection date a 24 8 weeks yes 2/28 3/16 b 70 8 weeks no 2/15 2/29 c 5 n/a* n/a* 2/15, 3/28 4/13 d 8 twice yearly no 2/10 n/a* e 20 twice yearly yes 4/15 4/28 f 5 twice yearly yes 4/21 5/4 *n/a: not available each barn was surveyed either by phone or in person for general information. the questions asked were: • how many horses are housed at your facility, and how many are on the same deworming program? • do the horses generally have a similar level of exercise and turnout? • what is the turnout situation? are the horses usually stalled, in pasture, or both? • about how many horses are turned out in each pasture, and what is the estimated size of those pastures? • do horses on turnout have access to pasture, or are they on a dry lot? is hay provided? • how often are the horses dewormed? • have you ever done a fecal egg count on any of the horses? • do you ever remove manure from pastures? if so, how often? • do you practice any rotational stocking in pastures? • how do you determine the amount of dewormer each horse gets? do you estimate weight, use weight tapes, use a scale, or give 1 tube per horse? data for each horse was noted including name, age if known, sex, body condition score, location, and deworming history. fecal material for each horse was collected in a ziploc bag and labeled with a sharpie. notes and other information were recorded in a notebook. material was collected 1-2 days before deworming, and again 10-14 days after deworming, a length of time recommended by the american association of equine practitioners to evaluate effectiveness of deworming effects of this approach include unnecessary expense for the owners, increased parasite resistance, and often administering drugs to horses that have no need for them. it has been noted that horses have a some ability to develop immunity, and low parasite population may in fact help horses maintain that immunity (baudena 2003). therefore, the goal of horse owners should not be to eradicate parasites entirely by overuse of drugs, but to minimize parasite load to an acceptable level. owners can take measures other than dewormers to minimize parasite load. horses should be turned out on pasture with a ratio of 1 horse per 2 acres, allowing them to graze and deposit manure in separate regions. on pasture space that is too small, horses are forced to eat and defecate in the same area, increasing the amount of parasite eggs or larvae ingested. if this is the only possible turnout situation, manure can be removed from pasture at least weekly. according to the american association of equine practitioners, parasites do not typically survive cold winters or hot, dry summers, so it is unnecessary to deworm horses during these times of year (2013). not all horses are equally susceptible to parasites; whether this is immuneor behaviorrelated is unknown (baudena 2003). therefore, the best way to determine the parasite load of individual horses is to conduct routine fecal tests on each animal. this would allow owners to classify horses as high, intermediate, or low egg shedders, depending on their count of eggs-per-gram (epg) of fecal matter. high loads may appear either because the horse was not dewormed in a long period of time, because it is naturally susceptible to parasites, or parasites display resistance to treatment. typically, adult small strongyle eggs compose nearly 100% of eggs seen in fecal tests (kaplan & nielsen 2010). horses on a regular deworming schedule should be tested before and after deworming to determine effectiveness. horses that are not regularly dewormed should be tested before and after deworming for two or three successive dewormings. owners can use the results of fecal tests to design a deworming program for their barn in which they deworm horses according to their need. it is important to base a program on the individual horse because 20% of horses in a herd carry 80% of the parasite load (haffner, 2012). for purposes of this study, recommendations were made that high contaminators be treated 4 times yearly, intermediate contaminators 3 times yearly, and low contaminators twice yearly. the purpose of this study is to survey and determine parasite load in horses in barns in and around murfreesboro, tn, in which the deworming programs differ. results and the effectiveness of current deworming practices will be analyzed, and a program based on the data will be designed for each barn. it was my hypothesis that barns that deworm relatively frequently will be expected to show minimal parasite load, while barns with infrequent, inconsistent, or no deworming program will show a relatively high parasite load. results for individual horses may vary due to behavioral or intrinsic qualities, but the overall trend of each barn is expected to be consistent with that hypothesis. ii. materials and methods collection of data impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2322 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research data was collected from six barns in the middle tennessee area. for barns that followed a deworming program, details were noted about the program such as what products were used, dates of treatment, and dosage. the lack of a deworming program was also noted. for barns with more than 20 horses, a representative sample was tested. for barns with less than 20 horses, all horses were tested, though the number of horses with two samples varies due to horses being moved on or off the property during the period of this study. table 2 lists some general information about the barns. table 2. deworming programs in each barn. barn # of horses frequency of deworming rotate dewormers? initial (before deworming) collection date final (after deworming) collection date a 24 8 weeks yes 2/28 3/16 b 70 8 weeks no 2/15 2/29 c 5 n/a* n/a* 2/15, 3/28 4/13 d 8 twice yearly no 2/10 n/a* e 20 twice yearly yes 4/15 4/28 f 5 twice yearly yes 4/21 5/4 *n/a: not available each barn was surveyed either by phone or in person for general information. the questions asked were: • how many horses are housed at your facility, and how many are on the same deworming program? • do the horses generally have a similar level of exercise and turnout? • what is the turnout situation? are the horses usually stalled, in pasture, or both? • about how many horses are turned out in each pasture, and what is the estimated size of those pastures? • do horses on turnout have access to pasture, or are they on a dry lot? is hay provided? • how often are the horses dewormed? • have you ever done a fecal egg count on any of the horses? • do you ever remove manure from pastures? if so, how often? • do you practice any rotational stocking in pastures? • how do you determine the amount of dewormer each horse gets? do you estimate weight, use weight tapes, use a scale, or give 1 tube per horse? data for each horse was noted including name, age if known, sex, body condition score, location, and deworming history. fecal material for each horse was collected in a ziploc bag and labeled with a sharpie. notes and other information were recorded in a notebook. material was collected 1-2 days before deworming, and again 10-14 days after deworming, a length of time recommended by the american association of equine practitioners to evaluate effectiveness of deworming effects of this approach include unnecessary expense for the owners, increased parasite resistance, and often administering drugs to horses that have no need for them. it has been noted that horses have a some ability to develop immunity, and low parasite population may in fact help horses maintain that immunity (baudena 2003). therefore, the goal of horse owners should not be to eradicate parasites entirely by overuse of drugs, but to minimize parasite load to an acceptable level. owners can take measures other than dewormers to minimize parasite load. horses should be turned out on pasture with a ratio of 1 horse per 2 acres, allowing them to graze and deposit manure in separate regions. on pasture space that is too small, horses are forced to eat and defecate in the same area, increasing the amount of parasite eggs or larvae ingested. if this is the only possible turnout situation, manure can be removed from pasture at least weekly. according to the american association of equine practitioners, parasites do not typically survive cold winters or hot, dry summers, so it is unnecessary to deworm horses during these times of year (2013). not all horses are equally susceptible to parasites; whether this is immuneor behaviorrelated is unknown (baudena 2003). therefore, the best way to determine the parasite load of individual horses is to conduct routine fecal tests on each animal. this would allow owners to classify horses as high, intermediate, or low egg shedders, depending on their count of eggs-per-gram (epg) of fecal matter. high loads may appear either because the horse was not dewormed in a long period of time, because it is naturally susceptible to parasites, or parasites display resistance to treatment. typically, adult small strongyle eggs compose nearly 100% of eggs seen in fecal tests (kaplan & nielsen 2010). horses on a regular deworming schedule should be tested before and after deworming to determine effectiveness. horses that are not regularly dewormed should be tested before and after deworming for two or three successive dewormings. owners can use the results of fecal tests to design a deworming program for their barn in which they deworm horses according to their need. it is important to base a program on the individual horse because 20% of horses in a herd carry 80% of the parasite load (haffner, 2012). for purposes of this study, recommendations were made that high contaminators be treated 4 times yearly, intermediate contaminators 3 times yearly, and low contaminators twice yearly. the purpose of this study is to survey and determine parasite load in horses in barns in and around murfreesboro, tn, in which the deworming programs differ. results and the effectiveness of current deworming practices will be analyzed, and a program based on the data will be designed for each barn. it was my hypothesis that barns that deworm relatively frequently will be expected to show minimal parasite load, while barns with infrequent, inconsistent, or no deworming program will show a relatively high parasite load. results for individual horses may vary due to behavioral or intrinsic qualities, but the overall trend of each barn is expected to be consistent with that hypothesis. ii. materials and methods collection of data impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2524 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in the summer. high contaminators should be treated as such plus another additional treatment in the summer, and dewormers should be rotated. iii. results and statistical analysis raw data and results results showed that parasite eggs were recovered from 55% of the total horses tested. in this study, fecal material from a total of sixty horses residing at six different barns was examined for the presence of parasite eggs. of all horses examined, 33 (55%) were positive for the presence of parasite eggs. the overall parasite burden was divided into three categories (low, medium, high). information about the horses and egg recovery for each of the 6 barns tested in this study are provided in tables 4-9 (appendix a). horses that tested positive for parasites were present in each barn studied. bar graphs comparing the relative egg burden of each horse before and after deworming treatment are listed in figures 5-10. in barn a (table 4), 2 of the 12 horses tested positive for parasites (16.7%), an average of 23 eggs per horse before treatment and 4 eggs per horse after treatment, an 82.6 percent reduction in total parasite load. both the positive horses were classified as low contaminators. a bar graph with horse names and egg counts before and after deworming treatment is listed in figure 5. in barn b (table 5), 9 of the 20 horses tested positive for parasites (45%), an average of 454 eggs per horse before treatment and 0.8 eggs per horse after treatment, a 99.8% reduction in total parasite load. here, 6 were classified as high contaminators, 1 was medium, and 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 6. in barn c (table 6), all of the 5 horses tested positive for parasites (100%), with an average of 820 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in total parasite load. four were classified on high contaminators and 1 was medium. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 7. in barn d (table 7), 6 of the 8 horses tested positive for parasites (75%), with an average of 397 eggs per horse before treatment. in this case, 3 horses were high contaminators, 2 were medium, and 1 was low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 8. in barn e (table 8), 6 of the 10 horses tested positive for parasites (60%), with an average of 263 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in total parasite load. two horses were high contaminators, 2 were medium, and 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 9. in barn f (table 9), all 5 horses tested positive for parasites (100%), with an average of 1295 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in parasite load. here, 3 horses were high contaminators, and the remaining 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 10. (aaep 2013). samples were kept on ice at time of collection and stored in a freezer for later testing. they were thawed under hot water prior to testing. barn c, which practiced no deworming, was tested a total of 3 times: first to assess the parasite load, then again just before deworming, and finally 10-14 days after deworming. barn d was able to complete only the “before deworming” testing before withdrawing from the study. parasite identification fecal eggs-per-gram (epg) tests, or fecal counts, were performed for each sample using a mcmaster slide kit (chalex corp., wallowa, or). this test determines approximate parasite load based on counting parasite eggs and multiplying by a factor of 25. frozen samples in sealed plastic bags were thawed under hot water. first, 26 ml of fecatect (a liquid that promotes egg flotation and concentration) was added to the vial, up to the first line. then, 4 g of fecal material were added and mixed thoroughly, bringing the mixture up to the second line of the vial at 30 ml. the mixture was poured through a sieve into a paper cup to sift out large fibers and other material. the mixture was drawn up into a syringe and injected into the two chambers of the mcmaster slide, so that each chamber was full and there were no air bubbles. the slide was examined under 10x power, magnifying the eggs 100 times. each chamber was examined separately and the egg counts totaled. at this magnification, the width of each column of the grid could be easily seen, and eggs were counted by column. total eggs counted in each sample were recorded. each chamber holds 0.15 ml of the mixture, for a total volume of 0.3 ml per slide. because the mixture started with 4 g fecal material, the egg count is multiplied by 25 to determine the approximate number of eggs per gram of fecal material (“paracount-epg fecal analysis kit, 2012). parasite eggs were identified based on appearance, based on a publication by utah state university cooperative education (evans, 2009). large and small strongyle eggs are identical in appearance, but that is not significant considering all dewormers treat both types of strongyles. strongyle eggs were the only type seen in fecal egg count tests performed in this study. each horse was classified as a low, medium, or high contaminator based on their fecal count results, on a scale utilized by kaplan and nielsen (2010). the contamination levels are: 0-199 epg: low contaminator 200-499 epg: medium contaminator 500+: high contaminator. after identification of parasites for each barn, recommendations were made suited to each barn based on results of their individual horses. it was recommended that barns deworm low contaminators in early spring and late fall with a dewormer that treats tapeworms, because they may not appear on a fecal test of a horse infected with tapeworms. medium contaminators should be treated these two times plus an additional treatment impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2524 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research in the summer. high contaminators should be treated as such plus another additional treatment in the summer, and dewormers should be rotated. iii. results and statistical analysis raw data and results results showed that parasite eggs were recovered from 55% of the total horses tested. in this study, fecal material from a total of sixty horses residing at six different barns was examined for the presence of parasite eggs. of all horses examined, 33 (55%) were positive for the presence of parasite eggs. the overall parasite burden was divided into three categories (low, medium, high). information about the horses and egg recovery for each of the 6 barns tested in this study are provided in tables 4-9 (appendix a). horses that tested positive for parasites were present in each barn studied. bar graphs comparing the relative egg burden of each horse before and after deworming treatment are listed in figures 5-10. in barn a (table 4), 2 of the 12 horses tested positive for parasites (16.7%), an average of 23 eggs per horse before treatment and 4 eggs per horse after treatment, an 82.6 percent reduction in total parasite load. both the positive horses were classified as low contaminators. a bar graph with horse names and egg counts before and after deworming treatment is listed in figure 5. in barn b (table 5), 9 of the 20 horses tested positive for parasites (45%), an average of 454 eggs per horse before treatment and 0.8 eggs per horse after treatment, a 99.8% reduction in total parasite load. here, 6 were classified as high contaminators, 1 was medium, and 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 6. in barn c (table 6), all of the 5 horses tested positive for parasites (100%), with an average of 820 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in total parasite load. four were classified on high contaminators and 1 was medium. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 7. in barn d (table 7), 6 of the 8 horses tested positive for parasites (75%), with an average of 397 eggs per horse before treatment. in this case, 3 horses were high contaminators, 2 were medium, and 1 was low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 8. in barn e (table 8), 6 of the 10 horses tested positive for parasites (60%), with an average of 263 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in total parasite load. two horses were high contaminators, 2 were medium, and 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 9. in barn f (table 9), all 5 horses tested positive for parasites (100%), with an average of 1295 eggs per horse before treatment and 0 eggs per horse after treatment, a 100% reduction in parasite load. here, 3 horses were high contaminators, and the remaining 2 were low. a corresponding bar graph of parasite positive horses is provided in figure 10. (aaep 2013). samples were kept on ice at time of collection and stored in a freezer for later testing. they were thawed under hot water prior to testing. barn c, which practiced no deworming, was tested a total of 3 times: first to assess the parasite load, then again just before deworming, and finally 10-14 days after deworming. barn d was able to complete only the “before deworming” testing before withdrawing from the study. parasite identification fecal eggs-per-gram (epg) tests, or fecal counts, were performed for each sample using a mcmaster slide kit (chalex corp., wallowa, or). this test determines approximate parasite load based on counting parasite eggs and multiplying by a factor of 25. frozen samples in sealed plastic bags were thawed under hot water. first, 26 ml of fecatect (a liquid that promotes egg flotation and concentration) was added to the vial, up to the first line. then, 4 g of fecal material were added and mixed thoroughly, bringing the mixture up to the second line of the vial at 30 ml. the mixture was poured through a sieve into a paper cup to sift out large fibers and other material. the mixture was drawn up into a syringe and injected into the two chambers of the mcmaster slide, so that each chamber was full and there were no air bubbles. the slide was examined under 10x power, magnifying the eggs 100 times. each chamber was examined separately and the egg counts totaled. at this magnification, the width of each column of the grid could be easily seen, and eggs were counted by column. total eggs counted in each sample were recorded. each chamber holds 0.15 ml of the mixture, for a total volume of 0.3 ml per slide. because the mixture started with 4 g fecal material, the egg count is multiplied by 25 to determine the approximate number of eggs per gram of fecal material (“paracount-epg fecal analysis kit, 2012). parasite eggs were identified based on appearance, based on a publication by utah state university cooperative education (evans, 2009). large and small strongyle eggs are identical in appearance, but that is not significant considering all dewormers treat both types of strongyles. strongyle eggs were the only type seen in fecal egg count tests performed in this study. each horse was classified as a low, medium, or high contaminator based on their fecal count results, on a scale utilized by kaplan and nielsen (2010). the contamination levels are: 0-199 epg: low contaminator 200-499 epg: medium contaminator 500+: high contaminator. after identification of parasites for each barn, recommendations were made suited to each barn based on results of their individual horses. it was recommended that barns deworm low contaminators in early spring and late fall with a dewormer that treats tapeworms, because they may not appear on a fecal test of a horse infected with tapeworms. medium contaminators should be treated these two times plus an additional treatment impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2726 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 2: comparison of all barns figure 3: least squares means and p-value matrix for barns a-f information about horse care procedures (turnout, stocking rate, manure removal in pastures) and previous parasite deworming procedures are provided in table 10. in barns a and b, the majority of the horses were negative for parasites. these barns had the highest population of horses on the property at 24 and 70, respectively. other than these two data points, there appeared to be no correlation between number of horses and percentage of horses positive for parasites. barn a showed the lowest percentage of parasite positive horses (12.5%) and b showed the second lowest percentage (45%). the deworming programs at these two barns were similar, treating all horses every 8 weeks. barn a rotated deworming products, while barn b used the same products for each treatment. a corresponding bar graph is provided in figure 11. factors that did not seem to correlate with parasite load include number of hours per day of turnout, stocking rate, and manure removal. a bar graph corresponding with the number of hours turned outside per day is provided in figure 12. stocking rate also did not seem to correlate with parasite burden; barn f, with the lowest stocking rate of 0.09, showed 100% parasite infection. barn a, which had the highest stocking rate of 3.8, had the lowest parasite burden of just 12.5%. other than these two data points, there appeared to be no correlation between stocking rate and parasite load. a corresponding bar graph is provided in figure 13. barns d and e practiced removal of manure from pastures, but the majority of horses in each of these barns were positive for parasites, which was also the case in barns c and f, which did not practice manure removal. barns a and b had less than 50% parasite load, but also did not practice manure removal. statistical analysis total means and standard deviations the average eggs per horse before treatment for all barns combined was 428.75 (± 683.44). the average eggs per horse after treatment for all barns combined was 1.44 (± 5.89). this data is shown in figure 1. figure 1: means and standard deviations for all barns combined pairwise comparisons of all barns proc anova in sas shows that at least one of the barns is significantly different in parasite load before treatment (p = 0.0078). further analysis by tukey’s adjustment for multiple comparison shows that before treatment parasite loads are significantly different between barns a and f (p = 0.0040), and barns e and f (p = 0.0403). this data is shown in figures 2 and 3. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2726 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 2: comparison of all barns figure 3: least squares means and p-value matrix for barns a-f information about horse care procedures (turnout, stocking rate, manure removal in pastures) and previous parasite deworming procedures are provided in table 10. in barns a and b, the majority of the horses were negative for parasites. these barns had the highest population of horses on the property at 24 and 70, respectively. other than these two data points, there appeared to be no correlation between number of horses and percentage of horses positive for parasites. barn a showed the lowest percentage of parasite positive horses (12.5%) and b showed the second lowest percentage (45%). the deworming programs at these two barns were similar, treating all horses every 8 weeks. barn a rotated deworming products, while barn b used the same products for each treatment. a corresponding bar graph is provided in figure 11. factors that did not seem to correlate with parasite load include number of hours per day of turnout, stocking rate, and manure removal. a bar graph corresponding with the number of hours turned outside per day is provided in figure 12. stocking rate also did not seem to correlate with parasite burden; barn f, with the lowest stocking rate of 0.09, showed 100% parasite infection. barn a, which had the highest stocking rate of 3.8, had the lowest parasite burden of just 12.5%. other than these two data points, there appeared to be no correlation between stocking rate and parasite load. a corresponding bar graph is provided in figure 13. barns d and e practiced removal of manure from pastures, but the majority of horses in each of these barns were positive for parasites, which was also the case in barns c and f, which did not practice manure removal. barns a and b had less than 50% parasite load, but also did not practice manure removal. statistical analysis total means and standard deviations the average eggs per horse before treatment for all barns combined was 428.75 (± 683.44). the average eggs per horse after treatment for all barns combined was 1.44 (± 5.89). this data is shown in figure 1. figure 1: means and standard deviations for all barns combined pairwise comparisons of all barns proc anova in sas shows that at least one of the barns is significantly different in parasite load before treatment (p = 0.0078). further analysis by tukey’s adjustment for multiple comparison shows that before treatment parasite loads are significantly different between barns a and f (p = 0.0040), and barns e and f (p = 0.0403). this data is shown in figures 2 and 3. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2928 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research comparison of barn a and barn b a comparison of barns a and b was of interest due to their similarities in deworming protocol. there does appear to be a trend in the raw data that barn a had a lower parasite load before treatment than barn b. however, proc glm in sas showed that this difference was not significant (p = 0.0559). this data is shown in figure 4. figure 4: parasite load before treatment in barns a and b parasite load before treatment averaged over sex proc glm in sas showed that parasite load differences between mares and geldings were not significant (p = 0.2462). the stallion at barn b had the only significant difference between sexes, showing a higher parasite load than the mares and geldings at barn b (p = 0.0065). table 3: parasite load before treatment averaged over sex barn m (mares) g (geldings) s (stallions) a 21 ± 51 (n = 6) 25 ± 61 (n = 6) n/a b 650 ± 764 (n = 4) 257 ± 487 (n = 15) 2625 ± 0 (n = 1) c 525 ± 35 (n = 2) 1017 ± 713 (n = 3) n/a d 279 ± 269 (n = 7) 0 ± 0 (n = 1) 1225 ± 0 (n=1) e 412 ± 487 (n = 4) 163 ± 199 (n = 6) n/a f 1608 ± 1565 (n = 3) 825 ± 955 (n = 2) n/a iv. discussion parasite infection was prevalent in each barn in this study. in all 6 barns, parasites were found in varying amounts. the average eggs per horse before treatment for all barns combined was 428.75 (± 683.44) (figure 1). this mean falls in the “intermediate contaminator” category of egg-shedders, supporting the conclusion that horses in the midsouth region typically have a moderate parasite load. parasites are in fact a significant issue that must be treated aggressively to produce parasite-free horses. the average eggs per horse after treatment for all barns combined was 1.44 (± 5.89), which can be considered equal to 0 due to the large standard deviation. basic trends from the raw data appear to show that barns that dewormed relatively frequently had minimal parasite loads, and barns with infrequent or no deworming program had relatively high parasite loads. however, further statistical analysis shows minimal differences between barns. one might expect barns c and d, which had no regular deworming program, to show higher parasite load before treatment than the other barns. surprisingly, the only significant differences between barns were barns a and f, and barns e and f (figure 2 and 3). these results may indicate some natural immunity of horses that were not routinely dewormed, or even some parasite resistance in horses that are regularly dewormed. barns a and b were of interest because both had a very similar deworming program. because both programs included recurring treatments every 8 weeks, the “before treatment” samples can be assumed equal to “8 weeks after treatment” values and therefore of interest when comparing effectiveness of these two barns. the only differences between these barns are products used rotation of products vs. single product and location of the barn. barn a rotated products, treating with a different drug each deworming, while barn b used the same drug (moxidectin) every time, with the addition of praziquantel every third deworming. the author recognizes that location may in fact be an important factor, but due to the observational nature of this study, one must assume location is nonsignificant in order to evaluate differences between products used. there does appear to be a trend that barn a had a lower parasite load before treatment than barn b (figure 4). however, proc glm in sas showed that this difference was not significant (p = 0.0559). further studies are needed to evaluate the benefits of deworming programs that rotate products vs. use a single product. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 2928 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research comparison of barn a and barn b a comparison of barns a and b was of interest due to their similarities in deworming protocol. there does appear to be a trend in the raw data that barn a had a lower parasite load before treatment than barn b. however, proc glm in sas showed that this difference was not significant (p = 0.0559). this data is shown in figure 4. figure 4: parasite load before treatment in barns a and b parasite load before treatment averaged over sex proc glm in sas showed that parasite load differences between mares and geldings were not significant (p = 0.2462). the stallion at barn b had the only significant difference between sexes, showing a higher parasite load than the mares and geldings at barn b (p = 0.0065). table 3: parasite load before treatment averaged over sex barn m (mares) g (geldings) s (stallions) a 21 ± 51 (n = 6) 25 ± 61 (n = 6) n/a b 650 ± 764 (n = 4) 257 ± 487 (n = 15) 2625 ± 0 (n = 1) c 525 ± 35 (n = 2) 1017 ± 713 (n = 3) n/a d 279 ± 269 (n = 7) 0 ± 0 (n = 1) 1225 ± 0 (n=1) e 412 ± 487 (n = 4) 163 ± 199 (n = 6) n/a f 1608 ± 1565 (n = 3) 825 ± 955 (n = 2) n/a iv. discussion parasite infection was prevalent in each barn in this study. in all 6 barns, parasites were found in varying amounts. the average eggs per horse before treatment for all barns combined was 428.75 (± 683.44) (figure 1). this mean falls in the “intermediate contaminator” category of egg-shedders, supporting the conclusion that horses in the midsouth region typically have a moderate parasite load. parasites are in fact a significant issue that must be treated aggressively to produce parasite-free horses. the average eggs per horse after treatment for all barns combined was 1.44 (± 5.89), which can be considered equal to 0 due to the large standard deviation. basic trends from the raw data appear to show that barns that dewormed relatively frequently had minimal parasite loads, and barns with infrequent or no deworming program had relatively high parasite loads. however, further statistical analysis shows minimal differences between barns. one might expect barns c and d, which had no regular deworming program, to show higher parasite load before treatment than the other barns. surprisingly, the only significant differences between barns were barns a and f, and barns e and f (figure 2 and 3). these results may indicate some natural immunity of horses that were not routinely dewormed, or even some parasite resistance in horses that are regularly dewormed. barns a and b were of interest because both had a very similar deworming program. because both programs included recurring treatments every 8 weeks, the “before treatment” samples can be assumed equal to “8 weeks after treatment” values and therefore of interest when comparing effectiveness of these two barns. the only differences between these barns are products used rotation of products vs. single product and location of the barn. barn a rotated products, treating with a different drug each deworming, while barn b used the same drug (moxidectin) every time, with the addition of praziquantel every third deworming. the author recognizes that location may in fact be an important factor, but due to the observational nature of this study, one must assume location is nonsignificant in order to evaluate differences between products used. there does appear to be a trend that barn a had a lower parasite load before treatment than barn b (figure 4). however, proc glm in sas showed that this difference was not significant (p = 0.0559). further studies are needed to evaluate the benefits of deworming programs that rotate products vs. use a single product. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3130 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research sex of the horses was considered a potential factor in determining parasite load before treatment. proc glm showed that mares and geldings did not differ significantly in parasite load before treatment (p = 0.2462). the stallion at barn b did show a significantly higher load than the mares or geldings at barn b (p = 0.0065), but this effect can not be validated considering there was only one stallion at barn b. the stallion at barn d did not show a significantly higher parasite load than the mares or geldings at barn d (table 3). based on these statistics, this study concludes that sex is not an important factor in determining parasite load. however, raw data suggests that both stallions in this study had higher parasite loads than mares or geldings, so further studies may be of interest to evaluate this conclusion. in some cases, parasite infection did appear to affect the health of the horses. a few of the horses in barn c had long, rough hair coats and pot-bellied appearance. one of the horses, a recent rescue, was very thin at a body condition score of 3, and appeared to be in poor health condition. it also carried one of the heaviest parasite burdens in the study at 1750 eggs-per-gram before deworming; however, this difference is not supported by statistical analysis. horses in barn d were dewormed twice yearly with diatomaceous earth, a remedy that is considered by many veterinarians to be ineffective (haffner, 2012). however, these horses had a better physical appearance and their health seemed unaffected by the parasite burden. it is well known that well-fed, otherwise healthy animals tolerate parasite burden better than poorly fed or otherwise unhealthy animals. the affect of parasites on the horses’ health may depend on many other factors such as age, duration of infection, nutrition, and environment. treating all horses without knowledge of their contaminator level in an unnecessary expense. also, deworming programs depend on horse owners’ preferences of whether they want to completely eradicate parasites, or maintain low levels. low levels may be the most ideal goal, as overuse of dewormers may lead to parasite resistance and more costly treatments. results from this study suggested that in the mid-south region, an aggressive deworming program can prove effective. this is despite potential parasite resistance and a temperate climate which favors egg viability in the environment. however, a deworming program can be made more efficient by performing fecal tests on all horses to assess their need of treatment. references aaep parasite control subcommittee of the aaep infectious disease committee (2013). “aaep parasite control guidelines.” american association of equine practitioners. baudena, marie (2003). equine immunity to cyathostome infections (doctoral dissertation). louisiana state university and agricultural mechanical college. evans, patricia, and kerry rood (2009). “fecal egg count tests improve deworming programs.” utah state university cooperative extension. haffner, john. personal interview. 10 feb. 2012. “horse dewormer supplements.” smartpakequine.com. web. 2 feb. 2012. <www.smartpakequine.com/horse-dewormer-supplements.aspx> kaplan, r. m., and m. k. nielsen (2010). “an evidence-based approach to equine parasite control; it ain’t the 60s anymore.” equine vet. educ., 22(6), pp. 306-316. “paracount-epg fecal analysis kit with mcmaster counting slides.” chalexcorporation. web. 10 feb. 2012. <http://www.vetslides.com/epgfecalkit.html> peregrine, andrew s., marcelo beltrão molento, ray m. kaplan, and martin k. nielsen (2014). “anthelmintic resistance in important parasites of horses: does it really matter?” veterinary parasitology, 201, pp. 1-8. traversa, donato, raffaella iorio, thomas r. klei, vitaliy a. kharchenko, jakub gawor, domenico otranto, and olivier a. e. sparagano (2007). “new method for simultaneous species-specific identification of equine strongyles (nematoda, strongylida) by reverse line blot hybridization.” journal of clinical microbiology, 45 (9), pp. 2937-2942. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3130 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research sex of the horses was considered a potential factor in determining parasite load before treatment. proc glm showed that mares and geldings did not differ significantly in parasite load before treatment (p = 0.2462). the stallion at barn b did show a significantly higher load than the mares or geldings at barn b (p = 0.0065), but this effect can not be validated considering there was only one stallion at barn b. the stallion at barn d did not show a significantly higher parasite load than the mares or geldings at barn d (table 3). based on these statistics, this study concludes that sex is not an important factor in determining parasite load. however, raw data suggests that both stallions in this study had higher parasite loads than mares or geldings, so further studies may be of interest to evaluate this conclusion. in some cases, parasite infection did appear to affect the health of the horses. a few of the horses in barn c had long, rough hair coats and pot-bellied appearance. one of the horses, a recent rescue, was very thin at a body condition score of 3, and appeared to be in poor health condition. it also carried one of the heaviest parasite burdens in the study at 1750 eggs-per-gram before deworming; however, this difference is not supported by statistical analysis. horses in barn d were dewormed twice yearly with diatomaceous earth, a remedy that is considered by many veterinarians to be ineffective (haffner, 2012). however, these horses had a better physical appearance and their health seemed unaffected by the parasite burden. it is well known that well-fed, otherwise healthy animals tolerate parasite burden better than poorly fed or otherwise unhealthy animals. the affect of parasites on the horses’ health may depend on many other factors such as age, duration of infection, nutrition, and environment. treating all horses without knowledge of their contaminator level in an unnecessary expense. also, deworming programs depend on horse owners’ preferences of whether they want to completely eradicate parasites, or maintain low levels. low levels may be the most ideal goal, as overuse of dewormers may lead to parasite resistance and more costly treatments. results from this study suggested that in the mid-south region, an aggressive deworming program can prove effective. this is despite potential parasite resistance and a temperate climate which favors egg viability in the environment. however, a deworming program can be made more efficient by performing fecal tests on all horses to assess their need of treatment. references aaep parasite control subcommittee of the aaep infectious disease committee (2013). “aaep parasite control guidelines.” american association of equine practitioners. baudena, marie (2003). equine immunity to cyathostome infections (doctoral dissertation). louisiana state university and agricultural mechanical college. evans, patricia, and kerry rood (2009). “fecal egg count tests improve deworming programs.” utah state university cooperative extension. haffner, john. personal interview. 10 feb. 2012. “horse dewormer supplements.” smartpakequine.com. web. 2 feb. 2012. <www.smartpakequine.com/horse-dewormer-supplements.aspx> kaplan, r. m., and m. k. nielsen (2010). “an evidence-based approach to equine parasite control; it ain’t the 60s anymore.” equine vet. educ., 22(6), pp. 306-316. “paracount-epg fecal analysis kit with mcmaster counting slides.” chalexcorporation. web. 10 feb. 2012. <http://www.vetslides.com/epgfecalkit.html> peregrine, andrew s., marcelo beltrão molento, ray m. kaplan, and martin k. nielsen (2014). “anthelmintic resistance in important parasites of horses: does it really matter?” veterinary parasitology, 201, pp. 1-8. traversa, donato, raffaella iorio, thomas r. klei, vitaliy a. kharchenko, jakub gawor, domenico otranto, and olivier a. e. sparagano (2007). “new method for simultaneous species-specific identification of equine strongyles (nematoda, strongylida) by reverse line blot hybridization.” journal of clinical microbiology, 45 (9), pp. 2937-2942. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3332 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research appendix a. results tables and figures table 4. fecal egg counts for 12 horses at barn a. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification annie 7 m 5.5 0 0 low cheyenne 13 m 6 0 0 low duke 12 g 6 0 0 low flower 13 m 6 0 0 low jackson 6 g 6 0 0 low knight 9 g 4 0 0 low lady 13 m 5 0 25 low nick 22 g 4 0 0 low penny 13 m 5 0 0 low roany 17 g 6 0 0 low shebe 16 m 5 125 0 low spike 17 g 5 150 25 low figure 5. fecal egg counts for 12 horses at barn a. table 5. fecal egg counts for 20 horses at barn b. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification ava 5 m 6 1475 0 high butler 19 g 4 0 0 low calaway 18 g 6 0 25 low chandler 20 g 6 0 0 low doc 17 g 5 0 0 low embrace 4 s 5 2625 0 high gabe 12 g 5 0 0 low joggi 21 g 5 0 0 low lance 24 g 5 50 0 low lily 15 m 5 1125 0 high lincoln 27 g 5 0 0 low luigi 6 g 6 1200 0 high poppa 14 g 4 0 0 low raymond 9 g 6 0 0 low rusty 25 g 5 1500 0 high sally 12 m 6 0 0 low smokey 13 g 6 400 0 medium snickers 14 g 6 675 0 high tallulah 8 m 5 0 0 low tom 19 g 5 25 0 low figure 6. fecal egg counts for 20 horses at barn b. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3332 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research appendix a. results tables and figures table 4. fecal egg counts for 12 horses at barn a. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification annie 7 m 5.5 0 0 low cheyenne 13 m 6 0 0 low duke 12 g 6 0 0 low flower 13 m 6 0 0 low jackson 6 g 6 0 0 low knight 9 g 4 0 0 low lady 13 m 5 0 25 low nick 22 g 4 0 0 low penny 13 m 5 0 0 low roany 17 g 6 0 0 low shebe 16 m 5 125 0 low spike 17 g 5 150 25 low figure 5. fecal egg counts for 12 horses at barn a. table 5. fecal egg counts for 20 horses at barn b. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification ava 5 m 6 1475 0 high butler 19 g 4 0 0 low calaway 18 g 6 0 25 low chandler 20 g 6 0 0 low doc 17 g 5 0 0 low embrace 4 s 5 2625 0 high gabe 12 g 5 0 0 low joggi 21 g 5 0 0 low lance 24 g 5 50 0 low lily 15 m 5 1125 0 high lincoln 27 g 5 0 0 low luigi 6 g 6 1200 0 high poppa 14 g 4 0 0 low raymond 9 g 6 0 0 low rusty 25 g 5 1500 0 high sally 12 m 6 0 0 low smokey 13 g 6 400 0 medium snickers 14 g 6 675 0 high tallulah 8 m 5 0 0 low tom 19 g 5 25 0 low figure 6. fecal egg counts for 20 horses at barn b. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3534 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 6. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn c. horse id age sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification legs 10 m 7 500 0 high big eddie 9 g 3 1750 0 high bonnie 6 m 6 550 0 high doo-dah 6 g 4 975 0 high little eddie 9 mo g 5 325 0 medium figure 7. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn c. table 7. fecal egg count results for 8 horses at barn d. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before classification amadeus 4 s 8 1225 high alacrity 20 m 4 425 medium canyon 12 g 7 0 low kolita 17 m 6 25 low licorice 5 m 8 0 low penny 20+ m 4 500 high rootbeer 4 m 5 750 high ruffian 7 m 5 250 medium figure 8. fecal egg count results for 8 horses at barn d. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3534 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 6. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn c. horse id age sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification legs 10 m 7 500 0 high big eddie 9 g 3 1750 0 high bonnie 6 m 6 550 0 high doo-dah 6 g 4 975 0 high little eddie 9 mo g 5 325 0 medium figure 7. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn c. table 7. fecal egg count results for 8 horses at barn d. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before classification amadeus 4 s 8 1225 high alacrity 20 m 4 425 medium canyon 12 g 7 0 low kolita 17 m 6 25 low licorice 5 m 8 0 low penny 20+ m 4 500 high rootbeer 4 m 5 750 high ruffian 7 m 5 250 medium figure 8. fecal egg count results for 8 horses at barn d. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3736 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 8. fecal egg count results for 10 horses at barn e. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification alias 16 m 4 0 0 low ariel 10 m 8 700 0 high bailey 14 g 8 0 0 low griffin 12 g 4 450 0 medium noa 12 g 4 0 0 low raene 8 m 6 950 0 high skip 13 g 6 100 0 low sugar 14 m 8 0 0 low toby 30 g 6 50 0 low tucker 9 g 6 375 0 medium figure 9. fecal egg count results for 10 horses at barn e. table 9. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn f. horse id age sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification dixie 11 m 8 1500 0 high dolly 15 m 6 100 0 low doobie 5 g 6 1500 0 high lacey 5 m 8 3225 0 high scout 9 g 8 150 0 low figure 10. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn f. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3736 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 8. fecal egg count results for 10 horses at barn e. horse id age ( y ) sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification alias 16 m 4 0 0 low ariel 10 m 8 700 0 high bailey 14 g 8 0 0 low griffin 12 g 4 450 0 medium noa 12 g 4 0 0 low raene 8 m 6 950 0 high skip 13 g 6 100 0 low sugar 14 m 8 0 0 low toby 30 g 6 50 0 low tucker 9 g 6 375 0 medium figure 9. fecal egg count results for 10 horses at barn e. table 9. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn f. horse id age sex bcs count x 25 before count x 25 after classification dixie 11 m 8 1500 0 high dolly 15 m 6 100 0 low doobie 5 g 6 1500 0 high lacey 5 m 8 3225 0 high scout 9 g 8 150 0 low figure 10. fecal egg count results for 5 horses at barn f. impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3938 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 11. the number of horses for all barns vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 12. the average hours of turnout for horses in each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 13. the average stocking rate in pastures for each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 14. the frequency of deworming in each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites impact of deworming treatments on intestinal parasite loadi in equines from middle tennessee middle tennessee state university 3938 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research figure 11. the number of horses for all barns vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 12. the average hours of turnout for horses in each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 13. the average stocking rate in pastures for each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites figure 14. the frequency of deworming in each barn vs. the percentage of these horses that tested positive for parasites escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 4140 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 10. information about horse care procedures provided by barns a-f barn no. of horses turnout (hrs/ day) stocking rate (ave. horses/ acre) ever done fec? manure removal (pastures) frequency of deworming products used dosage a 24 12 3.8 yes no 8 week rotate ivermectin and pyrantel pamoate 1 tube per horse b 70 2-6 1.5 no no 8 weeks moxidectin, adding praziquantel every 3rd deworming 1 tube per horse c 5 16 1.0 no no never n/a n/a d 8 24 1.0 no yes twice yearly diatomaceous earth (mixed into feed) e 20 14 0.5 no yes twice yearly rotate ivermectin and ivermectin plus pyrantel pamoate and praziquantel 1 tube per horse f 5 12 0.09 no no twice yearly rotate ivermectin and moxidectin plus praziquantel 1 tube per horse escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism sarah gray-panesi abstract alison milbank begins her article, “milton, melancholy, and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu” by establishing that the “emotional centre” of the female gothic “is melancholy, and its primary source milton’s ‘il penseroso’” (143). however, neither milbank, nor any other scholars examine the relationship between milton’s “il penseroso” and the gothic. this paper explores one of the more pressing questions arising from milbank’s article: in precisely what ways does the influence of milton’s “il penseroso” manifest itself in ann radcliffe’s novels? milbank opens the door for such an examination with close readings of several of radcliffe’s poems interspersed throughout her first four novels; however, this essay picks up where milbank leaves off by providing an examination of the scenes surrounding these poems to elucidate the extent to which radcliffe’s conception of melancholy depends upon milton’s. this project illustrates that while many of radcliffe’s scenes read as re-writings of milton’s paradise lost and a mask presented at ludlow castle, they have their foundations firmly laid in the companion poems and especially in “il penseroso.”. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 4140 spring 2014 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research table 10. information about horse care procedures provided by barns a-f barn no. of horses turnout (hrs/ day) stocking rate (ave. horses/ acre) ever done fec? manure removal (pastures) frequency of deworming products used dosage a 24 12 3.8 yes no 8 week rotate ivermectin and pyrantel pamoate 1 tube per horse b 70 2-6 1.5 no no 8 weeks moxidectin, adding praziquantel every 3rd deworming 1 tube per horse c 5 16 1.0 no no never n/a n/a d 8 24 1.0 no yes twice yearly diatomaceous earth (mixed into feed) e 20 14 0.5 no yes twice yearly rotate ivermectin and ivermectin plus pyrantel pamoate and praziquantel 1 tube per horse f 5 12 0.09 no no twice yearly rotate ivermectin and moxidectin plus praziquantel 1 tube per horse escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism sarah gray-panesi abstract alison milbank begins her article, “milton, melancholy, and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu” by establishing that the “emotional centre” of the female gothic “is melancholy, and its primary source milton’s ‘il penseroso’” (143). however, neither milbank, nor any other scholars examine the relationship between milton’s “il penseroso” and the gothic. this paper explores one of the more pressing questions arising from milbank’s article: in precisely what ways does the influence of milton’s “il penseroso” manifest itself in ann radcliffe’s novels? milbank opens the door for such an examination with close readings of several of radcliffe’s poems interspersed throughout her first four novels; however, this essay picks up where milbank leaves off by providing an examination of the scenes surrounding these poems to elucidate the extent to which radcliffe’s conception of melancholy depends upon milton’s. this project illustrates that while many of radcliffe’s scenes read as re-writings of milton’s paradise lost and a mask presented at ludlow castle, they have their foundations firmly laid in the companion poems and especially in “il penseroso.”. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 43 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2014 the moment sandra gilbert and susan gubar’s pivotal feminist gothic study the madwoman in the attic appeared in 1979, milton studies experienced a sea change that continues to influence scholarship today. gilbert’s brazen attack on milton’s eve in her chapter “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers” inspired a number of articles and book length studies aimed at repairing the damage done to milton by gilbert’s claim that he deliberately aligns eve not only with sin but also with satan. 1 gilbert’s new “unholy trinity,” appearing when feminist discourse itself came under fire, inspired decades of study, which still attempts to answer questions raised in gilbert and gubar’s attic, not the least of which is whether milton was a misogynist, a philogynist, or simply a product of his times. 2 to say nothing of the doors opened for feminist milton studies, though, gilbert’s chapter at the very least forced scholars to reconsider milton’s influence on later authors, both male and female. their explorations—surely much to gilbert’s chagrin—discover a poet and polemicist whose several works were not only respected but also imitated, adapted, and alluded to in countless eighteenth-century and romantic poems, plays, novels, and political texts. recognizing that scholars will likely never answer the question of milton’s misogyny, a significant body of criticism instead attempts to rehabilitate eve—and milton with her— via readings and analyses in response to the madwoman in the attic, while another body of criticism addresses milton’s “bogey” itself as gilbert defines it: “a word of power, and the word is milton’s.” 3 my study joins the latter group. by exploring the extent to which milton was less a bogey than a benefactor, especially for authors such as ann radcliffe, who effectively built their aesthetic principles using milton’s poetry as a blueprint. gilbert would have us believe milton’s very manuscripts acted as creative roadblocks not only for the nineteenth-century authors with whom her study is concerned, but also for eighteenthcentury writers, and especially for women poets and novelists of both centuries. gilbert claims that the “sensitive female reader” would have recognized the “shadowy” gestures toward “connections, parallels, and doublings among satan, eve, and sin” in paradise lost and felt the “historical dispossession and degradation of the female principle,” as well as the subsequent creative oppression elicited by milton’s epic.4 however, even a cursory examination of radcliffe’s novels reveals she did not labor under the pall of milton’s 1 sandra gilbert and susan gubar, “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers.” in the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. 2nd edition (new haven: yale university press, 2000), 199. though their book as a whole is a collaborative effort, gilbert alone drafted the section, “milton’s daughters,” in which this chapter appears. 2 the feminist sex wars occurring in the late 70s and early 80s resulted in polarized feminist views characteristic of third wave feminism. gilbert remarks in her chapter that milton was a “known misogynist.” 3 gilbert and gubar, “milton’s bogey,” 192. joseph wittreich’s feminist milton is a prime example of a response to gilbert and gubar’s text. gilbert notes early in her chapter that virginia woolf ’s journal contained an undefined reference to “milton’s bogey.” this chapter is gilbert’s attempt at defining the bogey and how it influenced 18th-and 19th-century women writers. 4 gilbert and gubar, “milton’s bogey,” 199. so-called bogey. on the contrary, milton’s presence in radcliffe’s fiction is salutary and inspirational, not only for her heroines, but also for her readers. a few scholars already have begun examining milton’s influence on radcliffe: maggie kilgour establishes radcliffe’s female gothic plot in the mysteries of udolpho as a retelling of milton’s a masque presented at ludlow castle (comus), anne williams outlines the same plot as a retelling of paradise lost’s “fortunate fall,” and alison milbank gives milton and paradise lost almost sole credit for inspiring radcliffe’s model for the female gothic heroine in all her novels. 5 however, when we consider that for the past two decades only a few book chapters investigate in any detail the relationship between milton and radcliffe, it becomes clear that this subject requires deeper scrutiny. the problem is not one of association; the problem is a lack of variety in association. the above studies are promising in that they point toward the importance of milton’s lyric poetry for radcliffe’s aesthetic, but they are also limiting in that they quickly retract such postulations in order to return focus to milton’s epic. it is only when we expand the scope of study to include milton’s shorter poetry, especially “l’allegro” and “il penseroso,” with their emphases on mood and landscape, that we can recognize the extent to which milton inspires radcliffe’s fiction. admittedly, radcliffe is more often aligned with shakespeare than with milton, which was often the case with eighteenth-century women writers, since shakespeare, like most women at the time, was not formally educated. also, in addition to receiving the moniker “the shakespeare of romance writers” based on her tendency toward poetic landscape description, radcliffe unapologetically mines shakespeare’s work for the bulk of her epigraphs. 6 while scholarly connections between radcliffe and shakespeare are thus easily explained, her connection with milton requires significantly more study. both connections, however, suffer from narrow readings privileging only a few works as possible influences for radcliffe’s fiction. in milton’s case, that influence is paradise lost. annette wheeler cafarelli, though, is one of the first—and unfortunately one of the last—to recognize and explore what “is often noticed but never explained” about radcliffe’s relationship with milton: “almost all of radcliffe’s many miltonic mottos and quotations are taken from the shorter works. . . . but milton’s poem on the transgression of eve is conspicuously absent from radcliffe’s program of references.” 7 why, then, this preoccupation with establishing paradise lost as primogenitor of the gothic? cafarelli suggests wordsworth’s “mistaken assertion” that l’allegro and il penseroso were little known in the eighteenth century provides one possible explanation, but another more likely reason for this alignment arises from radcliffe’s reliance upon edmund burke’s theories of sublimity and beauty in his 5 see maggie kilgour’s the rise of the gothic novel (1995), anne williams’s art of darkness (1995), and alison milbank’s “milton, melancholy and the sublime” (1994) as well as her introduction to radcliffe’s the castle’s of athlin and dunbayne (1986 and 1995). readers may note that these studies are somewhat dated; however, they do represent the most “recent” work on the topic at hand. 6 nathan drake provided this nickname in literary hours (1800). 7 annette wheeler cafarelli, “how theories of romanticism exclude women: radcliffe, milton, and the legitimation of the gothic novel,” in milton, the metaphysicals, and romanticism, ed. lisa low and anthony john harding (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 94. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 43 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 42 spring 2014 the moment sandra gilbert and susan gubar’s pivotal feminist gothic study the madwoman in the attic appeared in 1979, milton studies experienced a sea change that continues to influence scholarship today. gilbert’s brazen attack on milton’s eve in her chapter “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers” inspired a number of articles and book length studies aimed at repairing the damage done to milton by gilbert’s claim that he deliberately aligns eve not only with sin but also with satan. 1 gilbert’s new “unholy trinity,” appearing when feminist discourse itself came under fire, inspired decades of study, which still attempts to answer questions raised in gilbert and gubar’s attic, not the least of which is whether milton was a misogynist, a philogynist, or simply a product of his times. 2 to say nothing of the doors opened for feminist milton studies, though, gilbert’s chapter at the very least forced scholars to reconsider milton’s influence on later authors, both male and female. their explorations—surely much to gilbert’s chagrin—discover a poet and polemicist whose several works were not only respected but also imitated, adapted, and alluded to in countless eighteenth-century and romantic poems, plays, novels, and political texts. recognizing that scholars will likely never answer the question of milton’s misogyny, a significant body of criticism instead attempts to rehabilitate eve—and milton with her— via readings and analyses in response to the madwoman in the attic, while another body of criticism addresses milton’s “bogey” itself as gilbert defines it: “a word of power, and the word is milton’s.” 3 my study joins the latter group. by exploring the extent to which milton was less a bogey than a benefactor, especially for authors such as ann radcliffe, who effectively built their aesthetic principles using milton’s poetry as a blueprint. gilbert would have us believe milton’s very manuscripts acted as creative roadblocks not only for the nineteenth-century authors with whom her study is concerned, but also for eighteenthcentury writers, and especially for women poets and novelists of both centuries. gilbert claims that the “sensitive female reader” would have recognized the “shadowy” gestures toward “connections, parallels, and doublings among satan, eve, and sin” in paradise lost and felt the “historical dispossession and degradation of the female principle,” as well as the subsequent creative oppression elicited by milton’s epic.4 however, even a cursory examination of radcliffe’s novels reveals she did not labor under the pall of milton’s 1 sandra gilbert and susan gubar, “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers.” in the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. 2nd edition (new haven: yale university press, 2000), 199. though their book as a whole is a collaborative effort, gilbert alone drafted the section, “milton’s daughters,” in which this chapter appears. 2 the feminist sex wars occurring in the late 70s and early 80s resulted in polarized feminist views characteristic of third wave feminism. gilbert remarks in her chapter that milton was a “known misogynist.” 3 gilbert and gubar, “milton’s bogey,” 192. joseph wittreich’s feminist milton is a prime example of a response to gilbert and gubar’s text. gilbert notes early in her chapter that virginia woolf ’s journal contained an undefined reference to “milton’s bogey.” this chapter is gilbert’s attempt at defining the bogey and how it influenced 18th-and 19th-century women writers. 4 gilbert and gubar, “milton’s bogey,” 199. so-called bogey. on the contrary, milton’s presence in radcliffe’s fiction is salutary and inspirational, not only for her heroines, but also for her readers. a few scholars already have begun examining milton’s influence on radcliffe: maggie kilgour establishes radcliffe’s female gothic plot in the mysteries of udolpho as a retelling of milton’s a masque presented at ludlow castle (comus), anne williams outlines the same plot as a retelling of paradise lost’s “fortunate fall,” and alison milbank gives milton and paradise lost almost sole credit for inspiring radcliffe’s model for the female gothic heroine in all her novels. 5 however, when we consider that for the past two decades only a few book chapters investigate in any detail the relationship between milton and radcliffe, it becomes clear that this subject requires deeper scrutiny. the problem is not one of association; the problem is a lack of variety in association. the above studies are promising in that they point toward the importance of milton’s lyric poetry for radcliffe’s aesthetic, but they are also limiting in that they quickly retract such postulations in order to return focus to milton’s epic. it is only when we expand the scope of study to include milton’s shorter poetry, especially “l’allegro” and “il penseroso,” with their emphases on mood and landscape, that we can recognize the extent to which milton inspires radcliffe’s fiction. admittedly, radcliffe is more often aligned with shakespeare than with milton, which was often the case with eighteenth-century women writers, since shakespeare, like most women at the time, was not formally educated. also, in addition to receiving the moniker “the shakespeare of romance writers” based on her tendency toward poetic landscape description, radcliffe unapologetically mines shakespeare’s work for the bulk of her epigraphs. 6 while scholarly connections between radcliffe and shakespeare are thus easily explained, her connection with milton requires significantly more study. both connections, however, suffer from narrow readings privileging only a few works as possible influences for radcliffe’s fiction. in milton’s case, that influence is paradise lost. annette wheeler cafarelli, though, is one of the first—and unfortunately one of the last—to recognize and explore what “is often noticed but never explained” about radcliffe’s relationship with milton: “almost all of radcliffe’s many miltonic mottos and quotations are taken from the shorter works. . . . but milton’s poem on the transgression of eve is conspicuously absent from radcliffe’s program of references.” 7 why, then, this preoccupation with establishing paradise lost as primogenitor of the gothic? cafarelli suggests wordsworth’s “mistaken assertion” that l’allegro and il penseroso were little known in the eighteenth century provides one possible explanation, but another more likely reason for this alignment arises from radcliffe’s reliance upon edmund burke’s theories of sublimity and beauty in his 5 see maggie kilgour’s the rise of the gothic novel (1995), anne williams’s art of darkness (1995), and alison milbank’s “milton, melancholy and the sublime” (1994) as well as her introduction to radcliffe’s the castle’s of athlin and dunbayne (1986 and 1995). readers may note that these studies are somewhat dated; however, they do represent the most “recent” work on the topic at hand. 6 nathan drake provided this nickname in literary hours (1800). 7 annette wheeler cafarelli, “how theories of romanticism exclude women: radcliffe, milton, and the legitimation of the gothic novel,” in milton, the metaphysicals, and romanticism, ed. lisa low and anthony john harding (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 94. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 45 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2014 philosophical enquiry (1757). radcliffe discusses burke’s theories in the prologue to her posthumously published gaston de blondeville (1826). this prologue, which first appeared separately in the new monthly magazine under the title “on the supernatural in poetry,” contains radcliffe’s only commentary on aesthetic theory: terror and horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them. i apprehend, that neither shakspeare [sic] nor milton by their fictions, nor mr. burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in the uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreaded evil?8 here, radcliffe places her three most prominent influences—shakespeare, milton, and burke—in conversation with one another in order to comment on the importance of distinguishing between objects of terror and horror in poetry. to exemplify the differences between the two sensations, radcliffe employs milton’s satan, depicted in book iv of paradise lost with “horror” on his brow, to explain that even though milton chooses the term “horror,” “his image imparts more of terror than of horror; for it is not distinctly pictured forth, but is seen in glimpses through obscuring shades.”9 this distinction not only establishes the importance of obscurity for radcliffe’s terror aesthetic but also gestures toward burke’s comments on obscurity in his philosophical enquiry. in fact, radcliffe’s aesthetic can be read as a response to burke’s theory of the sublime. burke establishes obscurity as the only means by which an object may become truly terrific and thereby achieve absolute sublimity. as long as a given object can be known to its fullest extent, can be seen clearly, it cannot be sublime. burke illustrates his point using the darkness of night as his prime example of how otherwise mundane objects might inspire fear/terror when obscured from sight. most importantly, burke identifies milton as the only writer who “understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things . . . in their strongest light by the force of a judicious obscurity.” 10however, burke employs the portrait of death in book ii of paradise lost to ground his aesthetic theory: the other shape, of shape it might be call’d that shape had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d for each seem’d either; black it stood as night, 8 ann radcliffe, “on the supernatural in poetry,” in gothic documents: a sourcebook 1700-1820, eds. e.j. clery and robert miles (manchester university press, 2000), 168. 9 radcliffe “on the supernatural,” 169. radcliffe’s allusion refers to milton’s image of satan in battle in paradise lost, book: 4, lines 988-999, “his stature reacht the sky, and on his crest [brow] / sat horror plum’d.” all references to milton’s work in this study are cited from john milton: complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003) 10 edmund burke, a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, ed. adam phillips (oxford: oxford university press, 1990), 55. fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, and shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on.11 for burke, milton’s image of death is the ur-sublime. rather than disagreeing with burke, though, radcliffe uses her discussion of milton’s satan to prove that even when milton employs the term “horror,” he does so while leaving all other characteristics to the reader’s imagination. but, unlike burke, radcliffe is not crafting new aesthetic theories; rather, she uses her prologue to expand upon an aspect of sublimity which burke—ironically—allows to remain obscured: the contrasting roles that terror and horror play in eliciting or precluding sublimity. radcliffe chooses milton’s depiction of satan hemmed round by the angelic squadron because it places the reader outside the circle of angels, straining for a clear view of the “spear and shield” that satan “seem’d” to hold.12 radcliffe’s example safely separates the reader from satan by an angelic squadron. this throws into contrast burke’s example, which provides no such barrier between the reader and death. in short, radcliffe subtly deploys burke’s own theories against him. in the most quoted section his philosophical enquiry, “of the sublime,” burke states, “when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight.” 13on the one hand, radcliffe’s tactical scene selection allows her to ensure she provides the distance necessary to achieve sublimity and, on the other hand, illustrates that she may understand burke’s aesthetic theory better than he. unfortunately, employing examples from paradise lost in “on the supernatural in poetry,” tactical though they may be, establishes the epic as radcliffe’s prime source of miltonic inspiration for many academics. discussions of the above aesthetic theories are now central to any examination of radcliffe’s conception of sublimity, and scholars have continually allowed the examples radcliffe uses to outline her theory—hamlet, macbeth, and paradise lost—to problematize connections with any other texts or authors. however, though radcliffe establishes sublimity and its presence in these three works as a pivotal concern in her work, scholars must not fall prey to the assumption that these few directly referenced works are the only ones useful for further analysis. furthermore, we must not allow such assumptions to preclude our attempts to engage with and analyze other aesthetic concerns within her work. instead, the paucity of radcliffe scholarship in general should have researchers battling for every opportunity to shed new light on her life and work. the pitfalls for gothic scholars of narrowly focusing on paradise lost become evident in such works as alison milbank’s “milton, melancholy and the sublime” and her introduction to radcliffe’s very little read and often forgotten first novel, the castles of athlin and dunbayne (1798).14 in both of these studies, milbank establishes that the 11 milton, paradise lost, book: 2, lines 666-673. 12 milton, paradise lost, book: 4, lines 977-990.. 13 burke, a philosophical enquiry, 36. 14 milbank is the only scholar to deal repeatedly and in any depth with milton’s influence on radcliffe. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 45 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 44 spring 2014 philosophical enquiry (1757). radcliffe discusses burke’s theories in the prologue to her posthumously published gaston de blondeville (1826). this prologue, which first appeared separately in the new monthly magazine under the title “on the supernatural in poetry,” contains radcliffe’s only commentary on aesthetic theory: terror and horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them. i apprehend, that neither shakspeare [sic] nor milton by their fictions, nor mr. burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in the uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreaded evil?8 here, radcliffe places her three most prominent influences—shakespeare, milton, and burke—in conversation with one another in order to comment on the importance of distinguishing between objects of terror and horror in poetry. to exemplify the differences between the two sensations, radcliffe employs milton’s satan, depicted in book iv of paradise lost with “horror” on his brow, to explain that even though milton chooses the term “horror,” “his image imparts more of terror than of horror; for it is not distinctly pictured forth, but is seen in glimpses through obscuring shades.”9 this distinction not only establishes the importance of obscurity for radcliffe’s terror aesthetic but also gestures toward burke’s comments on obscurity in his philosophical enquiry. in fact, radcliffe’s aesthetic can be read as a response to burke’s theory of the sublime. burke establishes obscurity as the only means by which an object may become truly terrific and thereby achieve absolute sublimity. as long as a given object can be known to its fullest extent, can be seen clearly, it cannot be sublime. burke illustrates his point using the darkness of night as his prime example of how otherwise mundane objects might inspire fear/terror when obscured from sight. most importantly, burke identifies milton as the only writer who “understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things . . . in their strongest light by the force of a judicious obscurity.” 10however, burke employs the portrait of death in book ii of paradise lost to ground his aesthetic theory: the other shape, of shape it might be call’d that shape had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d for each seem’d either; black it stood as night, 8 ann radcliffe, “on the supernatural in poetry,” in gothic documents: a sourcebook 1700-1820, eds. e.j. clery and robert miles (manchester university press, 2000), 168. 9 radcliffe “on the supernatural,” 169. radcliffe’s allusion refers to milton’s image of satan in battle in paradise lost, book: 4, lines 988-999, “his stature reacht the sky, and on his crest [brow] / sat horror plum’d.” all references to milton’s work in this study are cited from john milton: complete poems and major prose, ed. merritt y. hughes (cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003) 10 edmund burke, a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, ed. adam phillips (oxford: oxford university press, 1990), 55. fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, and shook a dreadful dart; what seem’d his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on.11 for burke, milton’s image of death is the ur-sublime. rather than disagreeing with burke, though, radcliffe uses her discussion of milton’s satan to prove that even when milton employs the term “horror,” he does so while leaving all other characteristics to the reader’s imagination. but, unlike burke, radcliffe is not crafting new aesthetic theories; rather, she uses her prologue to expand upon an aspect of sublimity which burke—ironically—allows to remain obscured: the contrasting roles that terror and horror play in eliciting or precluding sublimity. radcliffe chooses milton’s depiction of satan hemmed round by the angelic squadron because it places the reader outside the circle of angels, straining for a clear view of the “spear and shield” that satan “seem’d” to hold.12 radcliffe’s example safely separates the reader from satan by an angelic squadron. this throws into contrast burke’s example, which provides no such barrier between the reader and death. in short, radcliffe subtly deploys burke’s own theories against him. in the most quoted section his philosophical enquiry, “of the sublime,” burke states, “when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight.” 13on the one hand, radcliffe’s tactical scene selection allows her to ensure she provides the distance necessary to achieve sublimity and, on the other hand, illustrates that she may understand burke’s aesthetic theory better than he. unfortunately, employing examples from paradise lost in “on the supernatural in poetry,” tactical though they may be, establishes the epic as radcliffe’s prime source of miltonic inspiration for many academics. discussions of the above aesthetic theories are now central to any examination of radcliffe’s conception of sublimity, and scholars have continually allowed the examples radcliffe uses to outline her theory—hamlet, macbeth, and paradise lost—to problematize connections with any other texts or authors. however, though radcliffe establishes sublimity and its presence in these three works as a pivotal concern in her work, scholars must not fall prey to the assumption that these few directly referenced works are the only ones useful for further analysis. furthermore, we must not allow such assumptions to preclude our attempts to engage with and analyze other aesthetic concerns within her work. instead, the paucity of radcliffe scholarship in general should have researchers battling for every opportunity to shed new light on her life and work. the pitfalls for gothic scholars of narrowly focusing on paradise lost become evident in such works as alison milbank’s “milton, melancholy and the sublime” and her introduction to radcliffe’s very little read and often forgotten first novel, the castles of athlin and dunbayne (1798).14 in both of these studies, milbank establishes that the 11 milton, paradise lost, book: 2, lines 666-673. 12 milton, paradise lost, book: 4, lines 977-990.. 13 burke, a philosophical enquiry, 36. 14 milbank is the only scholar to deal repeatedly and in any depth with milton’s influence on radcliffe. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 47 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2014 “emotional centre” of the female gothic “is melancholy, and its primary source milton’s ‘il penseroso’”: the goddess leads the poet first to contemplation in a garden, to a wilder landscape, to tales of tragedy and ancient chivalry, and lastly to ‘the studious cloisters pale’ of an ancient abbey, and a hermit’s cell. this perambulation sets off the chain of associations between landscape, the medieval past and its religious architecture that will engender the gothic novel, but it also defines a mood that will dominate eighteenth-century nature poetry of sad and solitary meditation. 15 at this point in “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” milbank notes that “il penseroso’s” melancholy functions as a foundation for many of the most well-known gothic writers, including radcliffe.16 however, she does not examine the relationship between “il penseroso” and the gothic any further. instead, she insists that even though “the word ‘melancholy’ only occurs a couple of times in paradise lost, the condition is one of the consequences of the fall, so that the reader’s attitude to the depiction of the delights of eden is melancholic, since what is described has been lost.”17 thus, having established this “connection” between the gothic and milton’s epic, milbank uses her theory of loss to add to the ever-growing library of psychoanalytic readings associated with gothic fiction. she treats “il penseroso” as a model for the gothic “mood” in a similar fashion in her introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne. here, milbank opens with a freudian/kristevan psychoanalysis of the gothic which, for her, proves eden’s presence as loss in radcliffe’s text and the gothic in general. however, mid-study, she pauses to remind readers that milton’s “il penseroso” is the “common buried source” in the graveyard poets’ twilight poems and therefore in the gothic.18 but milbank quickly notes that even though “il penseroso” was vastly popular in the early eighteenth century, “so also was paradise lost, which also has some powerful evening scenes,” and returns again to the garden of eden.19 in these two studies—which unfortunately comprise the bulk of direct comparative studies between milton and radcliffe—we witness the back-pedaling required to maintain paradise lost as the primary source of gothic melancholy. while milbank’s and other scholars’ seeming refusal to recognize milton’s “il penseroso” as a significant influence on radcliffe is interesting, their work nonetheless establishes a foundation upon which to raise just such a project. cafarelli, milbank, kilgour, and williams provide a starting point. kilgour, cafarelli, and milbank all recognize that the unnamed lady of comus almost certainly provides radcliffe with her model for the 15 alison milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu.” women’s writing 1, no. 2 (1994), 143. 16 milbank also points out the “graveyard” poets—usually listed as young, thomson, beattie, gray, and collins—as key influences for radcliffe and the gothic. a list which, when shakespeare and milton are added, covers the majority of poets radcliffe quotes in her epigraphs. 17 milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” 144. 18 alison milbank, introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne, by ann radcliffe (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), xviii. 19 milbank, introduction, xviii-xix. female gothic heroine.20 moreover, they each mention “il penseroso’s” central role in establishing the gothic’s melancholic atmosphere.21 chloe chard investigates this atmosphere and its debt to the graveyard poets and milton in her introduction to radcliffe’s the romance of the forest (1791), noting that radcliffe’s allusions to such poems as collin’s “ode to evening” and thomson’s “seasons” themselves gesture back even farther to their own legacy in milton’s “il penseroso.” 22 contrasting chard’s introduction with milbank’s arguments in “milton, melancholy and the sublime illustrates in greater detail the problems that arise from restricting radcliffe’s possible sphere of influence only to paradise lost. unlike chard, who examines several scenes and postulates several possible influences, milbank explores one poem, “stanzas,” composed by adeline, the novel’s heroine, as she watches the sun set over a lake.23 milbank determines that the masculine sun descending into the feminine lake represents radcliffe’s retelling of adam and eve’s sexual union as described in book iv of paradise lost. however, while one may hear soft echoes of eden when the lines are excised from the scene in which adeline composes them, by replacing them in their proper context, the lines reclaim their associations with milton’s “l’allegro” and “il penseroso” as radcliffe almost certainly intended. the scene in question focuses on adeline as she explores the home of her new protector, la luc. as gothic heroines are wont to do, she rambles “alone through scenes, whose solitary grandeur assisted and soothed the melancholy of her heart.”24 owing to la luc’s well-stocked library, adeline frequently takes “a volume of shakespear [sic] or milton, and, having gained some wild eminence,” sits beneath the trees and allows the breeze and “the visions of the poet to lull her to forgetfulness of grief.”25 during one of these solitary strolls, adeline comes to a lake at sunset behind which sets a ruined castle in the mountains. a group of travelers sail in a pleasure boat on the water while one in their party plays a french horn. listening to the music and watching the scene, adeline finds herself inspired to compose the “stanzas” to which milbank refers: now down the western steep slow sinks the sun, and paints with yellow gleam the tufted woods; while here the mountain-shadows, broad and dun, sweep o’er the chrystal mirror of the floods. **************************************** 20 maggie kilgour, the rise of the gothic novel (london: routledge, 1995), 138. cafarelli, “theories of romanticism,” 96. milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” 150. 21 indeed, it is not uncommon for studies involving milton and radcliffe to mention the relationship between “il penseroso” and gothic melancholy in passing. however, none explores this relationship in close detail. 22 chloe chard, introduction to the romance of the forest by ann radcliffe, ed. chloe chard (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), xxii-xxiii. 23 interspersing poetry in her novels was standard practice for radcliffe, especially in the romance of the forest and the mysteries of udolpho. 24 ann radcliffe, the romance of the forest, ed. chloe chard (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), 260. 25 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 261. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 47 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 46 spring 2014 “emotional centre” of the female gothic “is melancholy, and its primary source milton’s ‘il penseroso’”: the goddess leads the poet first to contemplation in a garden, to a wilder landscape, to tales of tragedy and ancient chivalry, and lastly to ‘the studious cloisters pale’ of an ancient abbey, and a hermit’s cell. this perambulation sets off the chain of associations between landscape, the medieval past and its religious architecture that will engender the gothic novel, but it also defines a mood that will dominate eighteenth-century nature poetry of sad and solitary meditation. 15 at this point in “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” milbank notes that “il penseroso’s” melancholy functions as a foundation for many of the most well-known gothic writers, including radcliffe.16 however, she does not examine the relationship between “il penseroso” and the gothic any further. instead, she insists that even though “the word ‘melancholy’ only occurs a couple of times in paradise lost, the condition is one of the consequences of the fall, so that the reader’s attitude to the depiction of the delights of eden is melancholic, since what is described has been lost.”17 thus, having established this “connection” between the gothic and milton’s epic, milbank uses her theory of loss to add to the ever-growing library of psychoanalytic readings associated with gothic fiction. she treats “il penseroso” as a model for the gothic “mood” in a similar fashion in her introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne. here, milbank opens with a freudian/kristevan psychoanalysis of the gothic which, for her, proves eden’s presence as loss in radcliffe’s text and the gothic in general. however, mid-study, she pauses to remind readers that milton’s “il penseroso” is the “common buried source” in the graveyard poets’ twilight poems and therefore in the gothic.18 but milbank quickly notes that even though “il penseroso” was vastly popular in the early eighteenth century, “so also was paradise lost, which also has some powerful evening scenes,” and returns again to the garden of eden.19 in these two studies—which unfortunately comprise the bulk of direct comparative studies between milton and radcliffe—we witness the back-pedaling required to maintain paradise lost as the primary source of gothic melancholy. while milbank’s and other scholars’ seeming refusal to recognize milton’s “il penseroso” as a significant influence on radcliffe is interesting, their work nonetheless establishes a foundation upon which to raise just such a project. cafarelli, milbank, kilgour, and williams provide a starting point. kilgour, cafarelli, and milbank all recognize that the unnamed lady of comus almost certainly provides radcliffe with her model for the 15 alison milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu.” women’s writing 1, no. 2 (1994), 143. 16 milbank also points out the “graveyard” poets—usually listed as young, thomson, beattie, gray, and collins—as key influences for radcliffe and the gothic. a list which, when shakespeare and milton are added, covers the majority of poets radcliffe quotes in her epigraphs. 17 milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” 144. 18 alison milbank, introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne, by ann radcliffe (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), xviii. 19 milbank, introduction, xviii-xix. female gothic heroine.20 moreover, they each mention “il penseroso’s” central role in establishing the gothic’s melancholic atmosphere.21 chloe chard investigates this atmosphere and its debt to the graveyard poets and milton in her introduction to radcliffe’s the romance of the forest (1791), noting that radcliffe’s allusions to such poems as collin’s “ode to evening” and thomson’s “seasons” themselves gesture back even farther to their own legacy in milton’s “il penseroso.” 22 contrasting chard’s introduction with milbank’s arguments in “milton, melancholy and the sublime illustrates in greater detail the problems that arise from restricting radcliffe’s possible sphere of influence only to paradise lost. unlike chard, who examines several scenes and postulates several possible influences, milbank explores one poem, “stanzas,” composed by adeline, the novel’s heroine, as she watches the sun set over a lake.23 milbank determines that the masculine sun descending into the feminine lake represents radcliffe’s retelling of adam and eve’s sexual union as described in book iv of paradise lost. however, while one may hear soft echoes of eden when the lines are excised from the scene in which adeline composes them, by replacing them in their proper context, the lines reclaim their associations with milton’s “l’allegro” and “il penseroso” as radcliffe almost certainly intended. the scene in question focuses on adeline as she explores the home of her new protector, la luc. as gothic heroines are wont to do, she rambles “alone through scenes, whose solitary grandeur assisted and soothed the melancholy of her heart.”24 owing to la luc’s well-stocked library, adeline frequently takes “a volume of shakespear [sic] or milton, and, having gained some wild eminence,” sits beneath the trees and allows the breeze and “the visions of the poet to lull her to forgetfulness of grief.”25 during one of these solitary strolls, adeline comes to a lake at sunset behind which sets a ruined castle in the mountains. a group of travelers sail in a pleasure boat on the water while one in their party plays a french horn. listening to the music and watching the scene, adeline finds herself inspired to compose the “stanzas” to which milbank refers: now down the western steep slow sinks the sun, and paints with yellow gleam the tufted woods; while here the mountain-shadows, broad and dun, sweep o’er the chrystal mirror of the floods. **************************************** 20 maggie kilgour, the rise of the gothic novel (london: routledge, 1995), 138. cafarelli, “theories of romanticism,” 96. milbank, “milton, melancholy and the sublime,” 150. 21 indeed, it is not uncommon for studies involving milton and radcliffe to mention the relationship between “il penseroso” and gothic melancholy in passing. however, none explores this relationship in close detail. 22 chloe chard, introduction to the romance of the forest by ann radcliffe, ed. chloe chard (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), xxii-xxiii. 23 interspersing poetry in her novels was standard practice for radcliffe, especially in the romance of the forest and the mysteries of udolpho. 24 ann radcliffe, the romance of the forest, ed. chloe chard (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), 260. 25 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 261. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 49 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2014 in the soft blush of light’s reflected power, the ridgy rock, the woods that crown its steep, th’ illumin’d battlement, and darker tower, on the smooth wave in trembling beauty sleep. ************************************* how sweat that strain of melancholy horn! that floats along the slowly-ebbing wave, and up the far-receding mountains borne, returns a dying close from echo’s cave! hail! shadowy forms of still, expressive eve! your pensive graces stealing on my heart, bid all the fine-attun’d emotions live, and fancy all her loveliest dreams impart.26 returned to their proper context, radcliffe’s lines point directly to milton’s “il penseroso” in mood, and “l’allegro” in subject. granted, milbank notes the similarities between milton’s “towers and battlements it sees / bosom’d high in tufted trees” and radcliffe’s battlement and darker tower; however, she focuses her attention on milton’s inclusion in “l’allegro” of the word “bosom’d” in order to point toward a sexual reading of both radcliffe’s and milton’s poems.27 to be sure, one notes a certain bawdiness in milton’s association of the “[b]osom’d” towers and battlements with a “beauty” who may lie within “[t]he cynosure of neighboring eyes.”28 however, milbank’s attempt to establish the same sexual undertones in radcliffe’s “stanzas” serves only to illustrate the problems that arise when scholars refuse to consider alternative influences for a given text. it makes more sense that in a poem describing a landscape, the writer would turn to poetry of similar content for inspiration. the time of day and landscape, rather than recalling adam and eve’s sexual union, recall the “twilight groves” of milton’s “il penseroso”: thee chantress oft the woods among, i woo to hear they even-song; and missing thee, i walk unseen on the dry smooth-shaven green, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * like one that had been led astray through the heav’n’s wide pathless way; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * oft on a plat of rising ground, i hear the far-off curfew sound, 26 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 262-263. 27 milton, “l’allegro,” lines 77-78. 28 ibid., lines 79-80. over some wide-water’d shor, swinging slow with sullen roar; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * there in close covert by some brook, where no profaner eye may look, hide me from day’s garish eye, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * and the waters murmuring with such consort as they keep, entice the dewy-feather’d sleep29 these selected lines from milton’s melancholy poem share too many similarities with radcliffe’s later “stanzas” to be ignored. both poems haunt the same liminal space between day and night in which the soft light plays upon water; both feature a far-off musical sound—radcliffe’s french horn and milton’s curfew bell—and both close with the image of waves lapping against the evening shore and lulling the pensive wanderer to restful sleep. indeed, adeline is even engaging in the same “wandering” as milton’s speaker in “il penseroso” when she finds the location that inspires her poem. while examining the effects of deand re-contextualization on radcliffe’s “stanzas” is enlightening, exploring the remaining poems in radcliffe’s work proves equally interesting. indeed, if we are searching for ready indices of milton’s melancholy in radcliffe’s fiction—and milbank would have us believe she is—why would we not turn our attention to radcliffe’s poem “to melancholy” ostensibly composed by her heroine emily st. aubert in her most well-known novel, the mysteries of udolpho? one need not read far into this composition to discover its miltonic roots: spirit of love and sorrow—hail! thy solemn voice from far i hear, mingling with ev’nings dying gale: hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear! 30 radcliffe’s invocation of the melancholy spirit echoes milton’s, even to the repeated “hail.”31 the scene that inspires emily to compose these lines also recalls milton’s “il penseroso.” as the novel nears conclusion, emily wanders to the foot of a ruined watchtower where her lover, valancourt, would listen to her play her lute. on this particular evening, emily ascends to the chamber at the top of the tower where she watches the sun set over the pyrenees. while melancholy already saturates this scene—emily believes her love has forsaken her for the more transitive pleasure of paris and has come here to lament her loss—radcliffe inserts a detail that undeniably connects this scene to milton’s “il penseroso.” as emily looks out of the tower, she sees not only the mountains in the 29 milton, “il penseroso,” lines 64-76. 30 ann radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, ed. bonamy dobree (oxford: oxford university press, 2008), 663. 31 milton, “il penseroso,” lines 11-12. invoking melancholy, milton writes, “but hail thou goddess, sage and holy, / hail divinest melancholy.” escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 49 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 48 spring 2014 in the soft blush of light’s reflected power, the ridgy rock, the woods that crown its steep, th’ illumin’d battlement, and darker tower, on the smooth wave in trembling beauty sleep. ************************************* how sweat that strain of melancholy horn! that floats along the slowly-ebbing wave, and up the far-receding mountains borne, returns a dying close from echo’s cave! hail! shadowy forms of still, expressive eve! your pensive graces stealing on my heart, bid all the fine-attun’d emotions live, and fancy all her loveliest dreams impart.26 returned to their proper context, radcliffe’s lines point directly to milton’s “il penseroso” in mood, and “l’allegro” in subject. granted, milbank notes the similarities between milton’s “towers and battlements it sees / bosom’d high in tufted trees” and radcliffe’s battlement and darker tower; however, she focuses her attention on milton’s inclusion in “l’allegro” of the word “bosom’d” in order to point toward a sexual reading of both radcliffe’s and milton’s poems.27 to be sure, one notes a certain bawdiness in milton’s association of the “[b]osom’d” towers and battlements with a “beauty” who may lie within “[t]he cynosure of neighboring eyes.”28 however, milbank’s attempt to establish the same sexual undertones in radcliffe’s “stanzas” serves only to illustrate the problems that arise when scholars refuse to consider alternative influences for a given text. it makes more sense that in a poem describing a landscape, the writer would turn to poetry of similar content for inspiration. the time of day and landscape, rather than recalling adam and eve’s sexual union, recall the “twilight groves” of milton’s “il penseroso”: thee chantress oft the woods among, i woo to hear they even-song; and missing thee, i walk unseen on the dry smooth-shaven green, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * like one that had been led astray through the heav’n’s wide pathless way; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * oft on a plat of rising ground, i hear the far-off curfew sound, 26 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 262-263. 27 milton, “l’allegro,” lines 77-78. 28 ibid., lines 79-80. over some wide-water’d shor, swinging slow with sullen roar; * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * there in close covert by some brook, where no profaner eye may look, hide me from day’s garish eye, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * and the waters murmuring with such consort as they keep, entice the dewy-feather’d sleep29 these selected lines from milton’s melancholy poem share too many similarities with radcliffe’s later “stanzas” to be ignored. both poems haunt the same liminal space between day and night in which the soft light plays upon water; both feature a far-off musical sound—radcliffe’s french horn and milton’s curfew bell—and both close with the image of waves lapping against the evening shore and lulling the pensive wanderer to restful sleep. indeed, adeline is even engaging in the same “wandering” as milton’s speaker in “il penseroso” when she finds the location that inspires her poem. while examining the effects of deand re-contextualization on radcliffe’s “stanzas” is enlightening, exploring the remaining poems in radcliffe’s work proves equally interesting. indeed, if we are searching for ready indices of milton’s melancholy in radcliffe’s fiction—and milbank would have us believe she is—why would we not turn our attention to radcliffe’s poem “to melancholy” ostensibly composed by her heroine emily st. aubert in her most well-known novel, the mysteries of udolpho? one need not read far into this composition to discover its miltonic roots: spirit of love and sorrow—hail! thy solemn voice from far i hear, mingling with ev’nings dying gale: hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear! 30 radcliffe’s invocation of the melancholy spirit echoes milton’s, even to the repeated “hail.”31 the scene that inspires emily to compose these lines also recalls milton’s “il penseroso.” as the novel nears conclusion, emily wanders to the foot of a ruined watchtower where her lover, valancourt, would listen to her play her lute. on this particular evening, emily ascends to the chamber at the top of the tower where she watches the sun set over the pyrenees. while melancholy already saturates this scene—emily believes her love has forsaken her for the more transitive pleasure of paris and has come here to lament her loss—radcliffe inserts a detail that undeniably connects this scene to milton’s “il penseroso.” as emily looks out of the tower, she sees not only the mountains in the 29 milton, “il penseroso,” lines 64-76. 30 ann radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, ed. bonamy dobree (oxford: oxford university press, 2008), 663. 31 milton, “il penseroso,” lines 11-12. invoking melancholy, milton writes, “but hail thou goddess, sage and holy, / hail divinest melancholy.” escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 51 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2014 had actually had the opportunity to see the scenery she had written about for so long, is conspicuously an “indoor” tale. ellena spends the majority of the novel at the mercy of radcliffe’s most satanic villain, schedoni. perhaps the most intriguing aspect of radcliffe’s the italian, though, aside from directly confronting the “evils” of the catholic church and the inquisition, is its repeated allusions to paradise lost. perhaps coincidentally, the italian, though it sold well, was also one of her least popular novels. but the mysteries of this novel are for another study. though this study questions scholars’—and especially milbank’s—tendency to imbue milton’s paradise lost with undue influence over radcliffe’s fiction, one must concede they do so for a laudable purpose: to help draw eighteenth-century women writers out from under the shadow of milton’s so-called bogey. furthermore, rather than attempting to suggest that radcliffe was not influenced by milton’s epic, this study hopefully illustrates the extent to which, as milbank herself states, “milton was important to literary women of the eighteenth century because of his status as a sublime poet, the very quality that the madwoman in the attic regards as a blockage to female creativity.”38 what scholars must remember, though, is that this sublimity manifested itself both in milton’s epic poetry and in his lyric poetry, and we will only begin fully to understand the extent of his influence on the gothic when we expand the critical scope to include not only his epic, but also his shorter works. for radcliffe, to whom landscape description became a poetry of its own, “l’allegro” and “il penseroso” provided a much richer tapestry than paradise lost on which to paint her gothic garden of eden. 38 milbank, “milton, melancholy, and the sublime,” 144. distance, but also “the wood-tops beneath” her window. situated in a “high lonely tow’r” from which she calls upon the “lonely spirit” of melancholy to “awake thy lute” and “let thy song / lead me through all they sacred haunt,” emily now embodies milton’s penseroso.32 admittedly, radcliffe’s “to melancholy” rather blatantly imitates milton’s “il penseroso,” but it also illustrates the level to which milton influences radcliffe’s conception of melancholy. once aligned with the speaker in milton’s poem, emily calls upon the melancholy muse to guide her through “pathless” woods where “the cold moon, with trembling eye, / darts her long beams the leaves between.”33 further still, radcliffe gestures toward milton’s “even-song” and “far-off curfew,” which his speaker hears during his wanderings as emily hears the “dirges faintly swell . . . from the pillar’d cloister’s cell” as well as the “sad chimes of vesper sound.”34 a heavy-handed imitation to be sure, but it would be difficult to construe radcliffe’s “to melancholy” as anything other than an imitation of milton’s “il penseroso.” while radcliffe’s “to melancholy” offers the most obvious allusion to milton’s “il penseroso,” it is certainly not the only one in radcliffe’s oeuvre, nor does she restrict her allusions to the melancholy aspect of milton’s companion poems. as early as the castles of athlin and dunbayne, readers hear echoes of milton’s “l’allegro” in the poem “morning,” in which radcliffe summons aurora after the rising sun dispels twilight “and melts thy shadows swift away!”35 and though milbank chooses “stanzas” from the romance of the forest to illustrate melancholy in radcliffe’s gothic, adeline’s poem from the same novel, “night,” written as “the dusk came silently on, and the scene assumed a solemn grandeur” invokes the “queen of the solemn thought—mysterious night!” and determines, after the style of milton’s prolusion “whether day or night is the more excellent,” that night is better than day.36 further still, even as radcliffe asserts the value of night over day in the romance of the forest, emily declares in the mysteries of udolpho’s “to autumn” that “more than mirth i prize” the melancholy tear shed remembering happier times, again echoing milton’s “il penseroso.”37 interestingly, while radcliffe continues her practice of inserting epigraphs for each chapter in her final novel, the italian, her heroine, ellena, does not compose a single poem. radcliffe does not cease her program of miltonic allusions in this novel, choosing epigraphs from lycidas, comus, and “on the morning of christ’s nativity.” however, she does seem to move away from associating anything but the mood of the piece with milton’s “il penseroso.” strangely, the italian, radcliffe’s only novel written after she 32 ibid, line 86. and radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 665-666. 33 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 666. 34 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 666. 35 ann radcliffe, the castles of athlin and dunbayne, ed. alison milbank (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), 93. 36 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 83-84. 37 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 592. escaping eden: milton, melancholy, and radcliffe’s gothicism middle tennessee state university 51 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 50 spring 2014 had actually had the opportunity to see the scenery she had written about for so long, is conspicuously an “indoor” tale. ellena spends the majority of the novel at the mercy of radcliffe’s most satanic villain, schedoni. perhaps the most intriguing aspect of radcliffe’s the italian, though, aside from directly confronting the “evils” of the catholic church and the inquisition, is its repeated allusions to paradise lost. perhaps coincidentally, the italian, though it sold well, was also one of her least popular novels. but the mysteries of this novel are for another study. though this study questions scholars’—and especially milbank’s—tendency to imbue milton’s paradise lost with undue influence over radcliffe’s fiction, one must concede they do so for a laudable purpose: to help draw eighteenth-century women writers out from under the shadow of milton’s so-called bogey. furthermore, rather than attempting to suggest that radcliffe was not influenced by milton’s epic, this study hopefully illustrates the extent to which, as milbank herself states, “milton was important to literary women of the eighteenth century because of his status as a sublime poet, the very quality that the madwoman in the attic regards as a blockage to female creativity.”38 what scholars must remember, though, is that this sublimity manifested itself both in milton’s epic poetry and in his lyric poetry, and we will only begin fully to understand the extent of his influence on the gothic when we expand the critical scope to include not only his epic, but also his shorter works. for radcliffe, to whom landscape description became a poetry of its own, “l’allegro” and “il penseroso” provided a much richer tapestry than paradise lost on which to paint her gothic garden of eden. 38 milbank, “milton, melancholy, and the sublime,” 144. distance, but also “the wood-tops beneath” her window. situated in a “high lonely tow’r” from which she calls upon the “lonely spirit” of melancholy to “awake thy lute” and “let thy song / lead me through all they sacred haunt,” emily now embodies milton’s penseroso.32 admittedly, radcliffe’s “to melancholy” rather blatantly imitates milton’s “il penseroso,” but it also illustrates the level to which milton influences radcliffe’s conception of melancholy. once aligned with the speaker in milton’s poem, emily calls upon the melancholy muse to guide her through “pathless” woods where “the cold moon, with trembling eye, / darts her long beams the leaves between.”33 further still, radcliffe gestures toward milton’s “even-song” and “far-off curfew,” which his speaker hears during his wanderings as emily hears the “dirges faintly swell . . . from the pillar’d cloister’s cell” as well as the “sad chimes of vesper sound.”34 a heavy-handed imitation to be sure, but it would be difficult to construe radcliffe’s “to melancholy” as anything other than an imitation of milton’s “il penseroso.” while radcliffe’s “to melancholy” offers the most obvious allusion to milton’s “il penseroso,” it is certainly not the only one in radcliffe’s oeuvre, nor does she restrict her allusions to the melancholy aspect of milton’s companion poems. as early as the castles of athlin and dunbayne, readers hear echoes of milton’s “l’allegro” in the poem “morning,” in which radcliffe summons aurora after the rising sun dispels twilight “and melts thy shadows swift away!”35 and though milbank chooses “stanzas” from the romance of the forest to illustrate melancholy in radcliffe’s gothic, adeline’s poem from the same novel, “night,” written as “the dusk came silently on, and the scene assumed a solemn grandeur” invokes the “queen of the solemn thought—mysterious night!” and determines, after the style of milton’s prolusion “whether day or night is the more excellent,” that night is better than day.36 further still, even as radcliffe asserts the value of night over day in the romance of the forest, emily declares in the mysteries of udolpho’s “to autumn” that “more than mirth i prize” the melancholy tear shed remembering happier times, again echoing milton’s “il penseroso.”37 interestingly, while radcliffe continues her practice of inserting epigraphs for each chapter in her final novel, the italian, her heroine, ellena, does not compose a single poem. radcliffe does not cease her program of miltonic allusions in this novel, choosing epigraphs from lycidas, comus, and “on the morning of christ’s nativity.” however, she does seem to move away from associating anything but the mood of the piece with milton’s “il penseroso.” strangely, the italian, radcliffe’s only novel written after she 32 ibid, line 86. and radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 665-666. 33 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 666. 34 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 666. 35 ann radcliffe, the castles of athlin and dunbayne, ed. alison milbank (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), 93. 36 radcliffe, the romance of the forest, 83-84. 37 radcliffe, the mysteries of udolpho, 592. defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women middle tennessee state university 53 scientia et humanitas: a journal of student research 52 spring 2014 defining nineteenth-century womanhood: the cult of marmee and little women sarah rivas abstract this paper explores the character of marmee in louisa may alcott’s little women in order to illustrate marmee’s influence on her daughters and the message concerning womanhood and femininity evoked by the novel as a whole. the cult of marmee —an eclectic mixture of barbara welter’s the “cult of true womanhood,” feminism, spirituality, transcendentalism, and social reform—drives the plot of little women by becoming the standard from which the four march sisters construct their individual identities. this paper establishes marmee as the primary influence on the march sisters, and therefore as the primary influence on the novel ’s plot, while exploring the five elements of the cult of marmee as they relate to the novel ’s characters and to real nineteenth-century women. ultimately, any rigid conclusion regarding the novel as feminist or antifeminist must be grounded in an understanding of the novel ’s historical context. alcott offers an imperfect picture of liberated womanhood; in spite of this, however, little women’s message of hope for female independence and strength should not be ignored. bibliography burke, edmund. a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. edited by adam phillips. oxford: oxford university press, 1990. cafarelli, annette wheeler. “how theories of romanticism exclude women: radcliffe, milton, and the legitimation of the gothic novel.” in milton, the metaphysicals, and romanticism. edited by lisa low and anthony john harding. 84-113. cambridge: cambridge u.p., 1994. 84-113. print. chard, chloe. introduction to the romance of the forest, by ann radcliffe. oxford: oxford university press, 2009. gilbert, sandra and susan gubar. “milton’s bogey: patriarchal poetry and women readers.” in the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. 2nd ed., 187-212. new haven: yale university press, 2000. kilgour, maggie. the rise of the gothic novel. london: routledge, 1995. milbank, alison. introduction to the castles of athlin and dunbayne, by ann radcliffe. oxford: oxford university press, 1995. ---. “milton, melancholy and the sublime in the ‘female’ gothic from radcliffe to le fanu.” women’s writing 1, no. 2 (1994): 143-60. milton, john. “il penseroso.” in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 72-76. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. ---. “l’allegro.” in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 67-72. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. ---. paradise lost. in john milton: complete poems and major prose. edited by merritt y. hughes, 207-469. cambridge: hackett publishing company, inc., 2003. radcliffe, ann. “on the supernatural in poetry.” in gothic documents: a sourcebook 1700-1820. edited by e.j. clery and robert miles, 163-172. manchester: manchester university press, 2000. ---. the castles of athlin and dunbayne. edited by alison milbank. oxford: oxford university press, 1995. ---. the mysteries of udolpho. edited by bonamy dobree. oxford: oxford university press, 2008. ---. the romance of the forest. edited by chloe chard. oxford: oxford university press, 2009.