Posts in Archives
Smoke and Mirrors: Reading the Rhetoric of Ted Cruz

It is well-known that on January 6, 2021, while the electoral votes were being certified, an insurrection was unfolding at the U.S. Capitol. The event was born of a concerted effort to overturn the results of the presidential election. Probably the most important aspect of this event was the barrage of misinformation doubting the security and results of the election. So, to understand this piece of history that is still unfolding, it is important to understand the rhetoric, or the verbal tactics, attached to it. In other words, how can a lie about election fraud be crafted so effectively?

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Bread, Banquets, and Capons: The Cosmopolitan Culinary Condition of Rome

At its peak, Rome was an urban city very much like cosmopolitan cities of today, featuring a rich intermingling of various cultures and religions that thrived on economic strength and growth. Scholars agree that the city contained approximately a million urban residents, with the city having an estimated consumption of more than 150,000 tons of grain per annum. This, however, begs a following question. What was the quality of food for everyday Romans actually like?

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Call of the Distant Mountains

In 1279, the last lingering hope of Southern Song was annihilated as the Mongolian warmongers triumphed in the naval battle of Yamen. Kublai Khan declared the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, and China, for the first time, fell to foreign rulership. It is a subject that still puzzles the scholars today as to how one of the most epochal periods of Chinese culture prospered under the reign of “barbarous” alien nomads. The artistic creativity of the Yuan scholar-artists was not strictly circumscribed by the already well-established pictorial conventions.

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Rooms of Their Own: The Spatialized Consciousness of Clarissa and Septimus in Mrs Dalloway

The feminist critique on the politics of space was central to Virginia Woolf’s conception of the private space in many of her works. Scholars have discussed at length Woolf’s interrogation of the private space as “the site of middle-class female domestic confinement” and its duality as “the site of dynamic female potential” in A Room of One’s Own (1929) and her later works The Years (1937) and Three Guineas (1938). Beyond Woolf’s preoccupation with gendered spaces, what is perhaps less widely addressed is her portrayal of “the imbrication of space and individual consciousness” and the complex relationship between physical space and the identity one manifests within it.

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The Black Janus

I am a man of two faces. A question that we as humans all ask ourselves throughout the course of our lives is “Who am I?” The answer to that query is never concrete, but rather dynamic as it is always developing and changing as we navigate our way through the tempestuous hurricane that is life. For each person the answer will have its metaphysical variations based on the many intricate components that (make up who they are) or delineate their being. As I’ve journeyed through my four-year liberal arts education here at a predominantly white University, very sparingly I have been presented with the academic tools to introspectively examine myself within the framework of that question.

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The Case for Soviet Prison Tattoos as Art

The fields of anthropology and art history have long been intertwined. Symbols are at the core of human communication and in order to decode a set of esoteric images, overlapping practices within the fields of anthropology and art history can be employed. The discovery of the remote practice of human bodily inscription by non-European people ignited a desire to uncover and understand the nature of the inscribed symbols.

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The Philosophy of Pragmatism in the Politics of Democracy: A Method of Overcoming Dualism?

In his seminal lecture, "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy," William James described the history of philosophy as that of a clash of certain human temperaments. This clash is also reflected in the history of the philosophy of democracy. Attempts at outlining the form of democracy have most prominently taken either of the two definitions: procedural or substantive, minimal or maximal, thin or thick.

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Unsex Me Here: How Removing Markers of Eroticism Alters the Status of the Female Nude

Atop a pile of boulders, an unclothed figure sits at the base of a tree. The tree’s upper branch reaches across the top part of the frame—the curve of the bough mimicked in the hunched shoulders of the human shape. The figure, with limbs folded so as to obscure their identity, blends in with the background rocks in both color and size. The stones dominate the composition; there is but a hint of geographical space suggested on the right side of the arrangement through a small, light, triangular shape indicative of a mountain in the distance. Although the figure is nude, the human body is not sexed, an important fact once we learn the shape is a woman.

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The Matter of the Mind in Mrs. Dalloway: How Woolf Reveals Gender Performativity Before Butler Reveals the Term 

Judith Butler, in her work “Gender Trouble,” insists on a need for a radial philosophical movement towards the understanding that gendered experience is internalized due to compulsory gender actions and conventions, which pursue a completely derived and ultimately unachievable ideal. 

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Social Media and the Power to Effect Change: The Impact of the Digital Landscape on Achieving Equity Within Art Museum Leadership and Visitorship

Art museums in the United States are not exempt from the current social and political divisiveness of our times. Recent events within the art world have revealed a call to action for museums to no longer be neutral institutions, but instead take a more active role in promoting social justice narratives, being the redistribution of power, influence, and value,[1]in order to maintain relevance within society and resolve a historic lack of diversity.

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Hypermasculinity and Fetishized Martyrdom in Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"

Rosalyn Stilling

Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” is a touchstone of postmodern fairy tale revisions, deftly marrying the latent content of Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” with her entrancing and opulent prose. She boldly addresses the sexuality, gender relations, and biblical comparisons inherent in Perrault’s tale in her prose, particularly by blending allusions to Judeo-Christian figures with sadomasochistic practices. Carter expands upon these elements present in “Bluebeard,” while keeping her focus on the representation of villainous Bluebeard and his abuses towards the innocent bride.

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A Voice of Black America

By Rachael Malstead

Langston Hughes chronicled the spirit, fervor, and intensity of the Harlem Renaissance as only an artist can. In his short story collection, The Ways of White Folks, Hughes concerns himself with the downtrodden, the poor and lonely, the black and oppressed. The transcendent insight into the human condition that crafts this anthology is unique to an author of genius.

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Substantive and Procedural Justice in the World Trade Organization

By Nick McIndoe

Since the end of World War II, global governance has been characterized by the presence of international institutions, which are charged to pursue global justice. However, there is presently much conjecture regarding the justice of such institutions. In this paper, I introduce two main branches of global justice, namely ‘substantive justice’ and ‘procedural justice.’ Then, I apply these concepts to the World Trade Organization in order to analyse its policies, practices, and structural foundations. For an international institution that allegedly promotes economic and international trade equality, my findings are troubling.

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The Strangers, The Crowd, and The Lynching: Using Mimetic Theory to Explore Episodes of Human Violence

By Jenna Geick

In October of 2015, Mexican and United States news sources reported on circumstances that resulted in the lynching of José and David Copado in Ajalpan, Mexico. Hours after the brothers arrived in town, word spread of the arrival of the strangers, and a crowd approached the brothers, violently accusing them of playing a role in the disappearance of local children. The police found no reason to suspect the two brothers to be child abductors, but very few residents accepted the police verdict. The brothers were seized by the crowd and brought to the center of it, as a man doused the brothers with gasoline before setting them on fire. How are we to understand why such a horrific act of violence occurred, so that it does not occur again?

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The Crises of Human Identity in the 1960s

By David deHaas

The 1960s were a time of many social and political movements representing the diverse voices and concerns amongst the fragmented American populous. The particular causes of these movements consisted of clashes between standard cultural norms that characterized American society, and communities that resisted this standard. I would posit that a substantial causal factor of these clashes was a widespread crises of human identity.

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