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The Hilltop Review : A Journal of Western Michigan University Graduate Student Research
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This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 2151-7401
Published by Western Michigan University

[4 journals]

And Your Eyes Open
- Authors: Benjamin Yusen
  Abstract: This piece explores the realties of dreams, and the blurring of dreams and reality.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:58:14 PDT
World Upside Down
- Authors: Kevin Fitton
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:58:09 PDT
Pollination
- Authors: Lauren Coyne
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:58:04 PDT
784 Grams
- Authors: Stephanie A. Kurzenhauser
  Abstract: This poem elucidates my experience of grief and loss in response to breast cancer and a bilateral mastectomy without reconstruction.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:58 PDT
Two Poems
- Authors: Lauren Coyne
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:53 PDT
How To Make Cemetery Tea
- Authors: Lauren Coyne
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:49 PDT
Pink Milkweed
- Authors: Stephanie Leaver
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:45 PDT
Hoverfly on Bull Thistle
- Authors: Stephanie Leaver
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:41 PDT
Bumblebee on Pink Milkweed
- Authors: Stephanie Leaver
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:37 PDT
All For The Glory of God: Reconstructing the Jesuit Perception of Odawa
Female Identity in New France, 1660-1675
- Authors: Eric Morningstar
  Abstract: The relationship between the French and the Odawa was a tumultuous one when compared to other Native-French relationships. This can be largely attributed to the European misperception of Odawa cultures and fierce independence. This was especially true in their dealings with women. When the French Jesuits arrived as missionaries to the Odawa, they found little cooperation with their mission to convert the “savages” to Christianity. Eventually, they came to view the vulnerable women, primarily mothers and widows, as their doorway into influencing the larger Odawa population. They could play on the desperation of these women, then use them as examples of Christian virtue to influence, subjugate, and eventually convert the “sinful, sexual” women and the men who were seeking wives and gain a strong foothold in the Native population.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:35 PDT
Challenging Colonialism through Religion: Connections Between Colonialism,
Power, and Religion in Colonial Uganda
- Authors: Ruth Aardsma Benton
  Abstract: In the late nineteenth century, Christian beliefs and European ideas spread among the people of present-day Uganda through increasing British involvement in this region and the work of Christian missionaries. However, some Ugandan people also used these ideas to challenge and critique European society and the colonial system itself. This paper explores two ways that this happened. In the case of the Malakites and Bayudaya, a stricter interpretation of the Bible and Christian beliefs led them to see European Christians as hypocritical and to question parts of the colonial system such as European medical care. As demonstrated by Ignatius K. Musazi and Reverend Reuben Spartas Mukasa, both of whom had connections to the group Abazzukulu ba Kinta, or the Descendants of Kintu, another way blended elements of Christianity with other ideas and worked within the existing systems to challenge colonialism. Both approached used Christian concepts to question British colonialism.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:32 PDT
The Volition of Faith and Appreciation of Pragmatism and Existential
Contributions
- Authors: STERLING COURTNEY
  Abstract: Propositions of belief depend on some degree of factual basis. Philosophical arguments vary as to whether certainty is necessary to form beliefs which can lead to compelling faith. Furthermore, if faith is a criteria for salvation, the volition of faith would be fundamental in ones’ culpability for having faith. Idealism represents the antithetical position of pragmatism and involves factual accounts in which to base beliefs, however, this paper intends to provide various considerations for pragmatic and existential philosophies by examining concerns of William James, Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, and others. I.e., “Pascal’s Wager” is a philosophical idea used to demonstrate a practical argument that faith is better, and more reasonable, than unbelief. Kierkegaard measures faith’s virtue to the contrary of dependency on fact and reason, expressing that the obligation of Christianity is not to affirm the existence of God, but to love God. A utility of existential thought and pragmatism concerns self-transformation.Although the voluntary nature of belief may remain ambiguous, a willing commitment to faith is certain.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:27 PDT
A Sublime Death: Shock and Awe
- Authors: Olivia L. Moskot
  Abstract: Death has the almost paradoxical capacity to appear larger than life. It chills with its permanence and astonishes as it stands before us—great, terrible, and vast beyond comprehension. The obscurity of death cries out for grief to answer, and it is that very sensation of astonishment that triggers and also lingers over the process of grief that has gone unexamined for too long. I believe there is a familiar name to put to that sensation that will aid future research. That is, we may be justified in calling that sensation awe. In this paper, I thoroughly examine the relationship between death, grief, and the experience of awe and ultimately argue that understanding the power of death to leave the living struck with awe has the potential to change how we respond to our own grief as well as the grief of others. Rather than perceiving grief as a disease or infliction that we fear we will never recover from, or some kind of proof of irrationality leaving us feeling horribly unqualified to revive ourselves, grief becomes a call to expand the mind and turn outward. When one comes to accept and appreciate the role of awe as a natural response to the large, obscure, powerful nature of death, and the subsequent grieving process as a process of accommodation, it becomes evident that healthy, rational grief does not demand that we forsake our loved ones, but rather it invites us to broaden the conception of our loved ones as well as ourselves.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:22 PDT
La figura de la mujer en El burlador de Sevilla
- Authors: Maria Isabel Lozano Becerro
  Abstract: AbstractThe battle against machismo in favor of equality is currently the order of the day. Society is more cognizant that men and women must have equal rights and responsibilities, and while we still have a long way to go, we are gradually gaining the equality that the majority want. Four hundred years ago, however, this was not the case. When El burlador de Sevilla was first published in 1630, gender roles were considerably more clearly defined. Both women and men were required to possess particular attributes that, if not met, resulted in the person's marginalization.In this work we will discuss how Tirso de Molina dealt with the subject of women in his work El burlador de Sevilla, as well as how he dealt with various sensitive issues of the time in a clear, even disruptive manner. An we will do all this looking at the perspectives of the various characters on women, as well as place everything in historical context.Spanish AbstractActualmente la lucha contra el machismo, a favor de la igualdad, está a la orden del día. Cada vez la sociedad es más consciente de que hombres y mujeres deben tener los mismos derechos y deberes y, aunque todavía nos queda un gran camino por recorrer, poco a poco vamos consiguiendo esa igualdad tan deseada por la mayoría. Sin embargo esto no era así hace cuatrocientos años, en 1630, cuando El burlador de Sevilla se publicó, los roles de género estaban mucho más marcados. Tanto mujeres como hombres debían tener ciertas características las cuales, si no se cumplían, solían llevar a la marginación de la persona en cuestión.En el presente trabajo hablamos de cómo Tirso de Molina trató el tema de la mujer en su obra El burlador de Sevilla, de cómo trata ciertos temas controversiales para época de una manera clara, incluso disruptiva para aquellos tiempos. Analizaremos la visión de los diferentes personajes con respecto a la mujer y también pondremos todo esto dentro de un contexto histórico.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:18 PDT
Black (Muslim) Lives Matter: African American Muslim Social Activism
- Authors: Jacob C. Riccioni
  Abstract: Over the past eight years, the Black Lives Matter movement has advocated for marginalized communities within the African American population and called for police brutality and anti-black racism to be abolished. With the rise of Black Lives Matter in contemporary society, I am left wondering, do African American Muslims support the Black Lives Matter movement' There is no simple answer for African American Muslim leaders and laypeople because the Black Lives Matter movement supports LGBTQ+ rights, which some Muslims do not condone, and some rallies have broken out into riots. Religious leaders and scholars are split between supporting Black Lives Matter and supporting alternative faith-based activist groups. This article attempts to explore how African American Muslims engage in activism within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and other social activism alternatives. Through the analysis of key terms relating to social activism and African American Muslims, this article explores how the Black Lives Matter movement began, the importance of activism online and in-person, exegetical statements on activism, how the concept of “double consciousness” can be applied to African American Muslims, and how African American Muslims engage in activism via the Black Lives Matter movement or alternatives. This research is a contemporary analysis in understanding how African Americans are called to challenge the status quo, anti-black racism, violence, and injustice through race and religion amidst the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:13 PDT
The Moral Significance of Empathy: A Scottish Sentimentalist Perspective
- Authors: xiaolong wang
  Abstract: Which feature of human nature accounts for moral motivation' From a Scottish Sentimentalist perspective, the answer lies in our fellow feelings: empathy, the capacity for sharing what other people feel; and sympathy, the capacity for feeling concern for other people’s well-being. Recently, disagreement has emerged within Scottish Sentimentalism on which of the two fellow feelings does the real work in motivating moral acts. Paul Bloom famously argues that sympathy is sufficient for moral motivation with the help of theory of mind (or often called mind reading), and thus concludes that empathy is not necessary from a Scottish Sentimentalist perspective. I argue that Bloom’s conclusion is too quick. With the latest views of the complicated nature of empathy, I argue that empathy is necessary for forming sympathy due to its three contributions that theory of mind cannot make: the appreciation of other people’s suffering given their situation, the empathic perspective-taking that breaks the boundary between self and others, and the phenomenal knowledge of how bad other people’s suffering feels. Hence, empathy is indirectly necessary for moral motivation by virtue of being directly necessary for sympathy (because sympathy is a direct necessary condition for moral motivation according to Scottish Sentimentalism). Therefore, I conclude contra Bloom that empathy is necessary, though indirectly, for moral motivation from a Scottish Sentimentalist perspective.
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:09 PDT
Notes from the Editor
- Authors: Listiani Eran
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:06 PDT
The Hilltop Review, Vol 13, No. 1, Spring 2022
- Authors: Listiani Eran
  PubDate: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 08:57:03 PDT