The Reluctant Dissident: Yue Minjun and 1989
Yue Minjun’s Execution is examined as a complex response to China’s cultural and political landscape after the Tiananmen Square Incident of 1989. This painting resists a straightforward reading as “dissident art,” and is rather positioned between Cynical Realism and Political Pop, showing how Yue satirizes China’s historical trauma. Through comparisons with Goya and Manet, Execution also plays with historical narratives surrounding violence, spectatorship, and martyrdom. The global art market’s influences on Yue’s work is also discussed, examining how the market’s preferences helped shape Yue’s signature style, allowing him to gain more traction and transforming Execution into an allegory of the socio-political landscape of post-1989 China.
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Brushstrokes of Empire: The Chinese Language and the Foundations of Japanese Kingship
Studies of the late premodern and early classical Japanese periods highlight the expansion of centralized power and the emergence of a growing elite, often borrowed extensively from their Chinese counterparts to the West. However, the discussion of Chinese language is often left out of consideration as a relevant piece of the larger puzzle. This project explores the construction of statehood in the early Asuka (538-710) and Nara (710-794) periods through the influence of the Chinese language itself. This study will analyze several law codes, edicts of both Tang and Nara emperors, and the official histories of both cultures as a process of understanding legitimization in ancient Japanese imperial courts. Through a comparative analysis of Chinese and Japanese legal frameworks, state historical narratives, and Confucian policies, the influence of the Tang Chinese was undeniably crucial to the justification of their Japanese counterparts, especially towards their domestic and foreign audiences.
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The Flight of Picasso’s "Guernica": Spain’s Transition to Democracy, Historical Memory, and Integration into the European Community
Explore the historic journey of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece, Guernica, from its long-term exile at New York’s MoMA to its remarkable return to Madrid in 1981. This article examines the painting’s repatriation as a pivotal moment in the Spanish Transition to Democracy, symbolizing national reconciliation and a departure from Francisco Franco’s isolationist dictatorship. Delve into the complex interplay of historical memory, regional tension in the Basque Country, and Spain’s urgent drive to establish modern cultural capital for European Community integration. From its role as a symbol of peace to its modern significance in global politics, learn how Guernica helped heal a nation’s last wound and remains a powerful emblem of strength against violence and war around the world.
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‘As foul as thou art’: Reading Early Modern Revenge Drama as a Prison Abolitionist
Early modern English plays "The Spanish Tragedy" (1592), by Thomas Kyd, and "The Maid’s Tragedy" (1619), by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, are two examples of how revenge drama reframes justice and provides a radical space for othered and marginalized members of society to find the closure they are otherwise denied.
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Waves of Memory: Water, History, and Resistance in Patricio Guzmán's "The Pearl Button"
This essay examines how Patricio Guzmán’s documentary, The Pearl Button, decolonizes traditional understandings of Chilean history through poetic form.
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Inking Social Skin: Tattoos as Care of the Self and Embodiment of Identity
Tattoos may be understood as a way to navigate one's own social being and the continuity of it over different social contexts and parts of the self. The project Inking Social Skin presents two intertwined aspects, where the first one touches on how identity is embodied in having tattoos and the second aspect touches on identity embodied from getting tattooed. Identity embodied in having tattoos dives into what tattoos say to both their carrier and to their surroundings. In other words, tattoos perform as and constitute physical manifestations of personal experience for our participants. Using Foucault’s theory of care of the self, this project argues for the belief that tattoos can function as a process of embodiment.
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Quaestio mihi factus sum: Death, Friendship, and the Construction of Identity in the Confessions
This article argues that Augustine’s identity in the Confessions is not fixed or purely inward, but is continually reshaped through relationships marked by friendship, love, and death. By examining the deaths of close companions—alongside enduring friendships with figures such as Alypius, Nebridius, and Monica—it shows how grief destabilizes Augustine’s sense of self and ultimately redirects his love toward God as its proper end. The study contends that friendship functions as a crucial mediator between self-knowledge and divine knowledge, revealing identity as relational, mutable, and ordered through rightly directed love.
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Japan's Monstrous-Feminine: Unspoken Ghost Stories
Monsters arise from the desire to disempower what is perceived as a threat. This article examines the figure of the Japanese female ghost through the theoretical framework of the monstrous-feminine, arguing that the spectacle of horror and victimhood of patriarchal narratives also contain expressions of female suffering and resistance. The article explores how, historically, the Japanese female ghost embodied the anxieties of patriarchal Japan concerning female sexuality and how contemporary artists, particularly Yuko Tatsushima, have recontextualized representations of female ghosts as figures of subversion and resistance against patriarchal norms.
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From Religion to Reason: Voltaire, Diderot, d’Holbach and the Public Perception of Christianity in Revolutionary France
This article examines how Voltaire, Diderot, and d’Holbach questioned religious authority along with Christianity during the Enlightenment. It goes over how their multiple critiques of church authority and the clergy weakened the French monarchy along with the Catholic Church. By relating events such as church reforms and the abolition of the monarchy to Enlightenment ideas, this article makes a clear case for how religious skepticism completely helped reshape the political and religious landscape in France.
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A Matter of Public Opinion: How The Jamestown Exposition Built Naval Station Norfolk
This article argues that the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 was pivotal in the creation of Naval Station Norfolk (NAVSTA), now the largest naval installation in the United States. It demonstrates that beyond economic considerations, the exposition’s military displays fundamentally reshaped public opinion in the Hampton Roads area, transforming sailors from an unwelcome presence into a valued civic and strategic asset. By tracing nearly a decade of local advocacy following the exposition, the article contends that this shift in public sentiment was the decisive factor influencing Congress to establish a permanent naval base at Norfolk.
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Disaster Response: Preserving Art and History in the Face of Climate Change
As climate change intensifies, natural disasters pose growing threats to the preservation of art and history for museums and cultural institutions. This article explores disaster response, museum preparedness, and equity in determining what cultural heritage is protected and what may be lost.
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Challenging the Stereotype of the Witch: Medea in Fifteenth Century Burgundy
Decades span the changing perceptions on Medea as a mythological figure; from spiteful child killer to potent sorceress, each time period brings with it a new way to reinterpret Medea’s portrayal in literature and media. This paper seeks to understand and explore these changing perspectives and focus its lens on Raoul Lefèvre’s 1460 adaptation L’Histoire de Jason against the backdrop of the Arras Incidents in 15th Century Burgundy.
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Aristotle Visits Bed-Stuy: The Practical Wisdom and Rhetorical Virtue of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing has centered itself as a quintessential piece of cinema regarding the issue of American race relations. At its core, the film asks a rather obvious moral question: What is the right thing to do regarding racial struggle? Throughout the multi-layered picture, Lee consults several viewpoints on the matter—including the ideologies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X—in how to address racial injustice and marginalization, challenging what “the right thing to do” exactly is. To develop authenticity and his overall message, Lee relies heavily on Aristotelian rhetoric, of which rhetorical virtue and practical wisdom stand out.
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“A Jew’s Daughter”: Metaphorical Bilingualism and the Tragedy of Religious Assimilation in The Merchant of Venice
To leave your religion is to destroy your entire upbringing—this is familiar advice from my fifth-generation Jewish American parents. Although the “Jewish bloodline” runs matrilineally[1] and my parents care less than previous generations about the religion of whom I marry, I know that if I were to convert, it could shatter my family. Perhaps this is why I sympathize with Jessica, from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, and understand the gravity of her decision to marry a Christian and convert. In this essay, I will explain Jewish identity, modern feelings towards conversion out of Judaism, and linguistic assimilation models in order to fully dive into the loss of self in Jessica’s conversion.
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Laundry and the Monk's Robe: Buddhism in the Modern Era
Hygiene and cleanliness are undisputed expectations for members of civilized societies across the globe. Such hygiene may be achieved in a myriad of ways, depending on the location and resources available. The use of soaps and water is often the norm when it comes to the cleaning of clothing and fabrics. The introduction of washing machines has made cleanliness convenient, removing the need for households to spend hours scrubbing and drying fabrics. Certain fabrics demand special care, such as precious satins or embroidery, which present cleaning difficulties on a physical level and must be washed manually. There is difficulty in cleaning certain fabrics beyond the physical limitation due to sentiment or symbolic importance. In Southeast Asia, Buddhist monks living in monasteries are held to the same societal expectation of hygiene as any other civilian, but are also presented with religious demands on their outward presentation.
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The Discoverie of Motive: Key Events that Motivated Reginald Scot to Write The Discoverie of Witchcraft
Behind every conscious decision, there is a motive. It is what drives us all to achieve a better life and world around us. Reginald Scot, an early modern English demonologist, was no different. During the later decades of sixteenth-century England, the height of the witch persecution was impending due to societal ignorance, religious tensions, and poverty. While this era did not see as many witch persecutions as the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Scot nevertheless set forth a radical treatise titled, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, that argued against women who confessed to causing maleficia, or demonic harm, because they could not have manifested it.
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From d’Aulnoy and Perrault to Disney: A Comparative Study of Fairy-Tale Adaptations and Fan Fiction
The adaptation of fairy tales is a tradition that has lasted for centuries. Early fairy tale authors, such as d’Aulnoy and Perrault, enjoyed considerable freedom when adapting fairy tales. However, the rise of Disney restricted access to further fairy tale adaptations through the company’s persistent enforcement of copyright laws. Nevertheless, with the arrival of the internet, users found unprecedented avenues to engage in the reimagining and adaptation of fairy tales without fearing copyright laws, echoing an era predating Disney.
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The Social Pressure on Janie in Zora Neale Hurtson's Their Eyes Were Watching God Through an Intersectional Lens
Individuals are heavily influenced by significant figures around them- for better, or for worse. Janie Crawford, the protagonist within Hurston’s literary work Their Eyes Were Watching God, is shaped through social pressures related to her race and gender on her own journey to self-discovery and acceptance.
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Art Nouveau as Avant-Garde: Redefining ‘Nature’ through Metamorphosis and Interrelationship
Art Nouveau was an art reform movement of the late nineteenth century in France that sought to revive nature in response to the industrial standardization of art and design. This project introduces that Art Nouveau involves metamorphosis and interrelationship as key principles that unify the construction with ‘design fitness,’ incorporating utility and beauty, and examines Art Nouveau as an avant-garde turning point that led to the emergence of Modernism, breaking free from traditional representations of nature and architecture.
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From Angst to Ashes: The Complexities of Addiction in the Lives of Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley, 1987-2002
In the rain-soaked streets of 1990s Seattle, a seismic shift was brewing. The pulsating guitars and angst-ridden lyrics of grunge did not just define a genre; they became the battle cry of a generation hungry for authenticity. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden emerged as icons, their raw sound echoing the disillusionment and alienation felt by millions. Yet, amidst this musical revolution lurked a shadowy presence: drug culture.
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