Abstract: This article investigates the contemporary implications of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale,” focusing specifically on the parallels between the character of the Pardoner and modern-day charlatans within the Christian community. By exploring the concept of the medieval pardoner in English society, and Chaucer’s decision to include such a character in his Canterbury Tales, a larger narrative emerges that calls into question those who make blind appeals to faith during times of crisis, such as a global pandemic. Examining the descriptions of Chaucer’s Pardoner reveals a character steeped in sarcasm, fraudulence, and deceit who seems to cut against the grain of an anthology of tales that follows a group of Christians on a pilgrimage to a religious site. The entire work of The Canterbury Tales in many ways represents a “memento mori,” or a reminder that we all must die, and suggests through a collection of stories from a diverse group of pilgrims that death is the great equalizer of human beings. The Pardoner’s inherent threat to this equalizing property of death reveals a dark side of the Christian faith, and a space that Christianity holds for charlatans to enter, charlatans who peddle in false promises, and sell God as a means to cheat death. This space, of course, still exists today, though the charlatans who occupy it have taken new names. Where once stood Chaucer’s Pardoner, televangelists and mega-churches have taken his place, while relics and pardons becoming tithes and “The Prosperity Gospel.” Published on 2022-06-20 00:00:00
Abstract: Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Disgraced, grapples with Islamophobia, post-9/11 racialization of South Asians, and the possibilities of Muslim identity. The play recounts the tragic descent of Amir, a New York Lawyer and South Asian Muslim, from his precarious belonging in upper-class New York society to the devastating fulfillment of violent racial stereotypes about Muslim men. This paper considers Amir’s relationship with his wife Emily, a white artist, as a location of multifaceted and mutually inflicted violence that invites audiences to interrogate stereotypes about Muslim men and confront the harm of white domination over Muslim representation. Emily’s well-intentioned yet problematic control over her husband’s identity and appropriation of Islamic art traditions reflect Western domination over Muslim representation. By highlighting these tensions within Amir and Emily’s marriage, Akhtar deftly locates the impact of Islamophobia and post-9/11 racialization of South Asians in the realm of the personal, confronting audiences with their devastating consequences. Published on 2022-06-02 00:00:00
Abstract: Composed by an anonymous Christian poet between the seventh and the ninth century, Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem that records the life of the Geat hero, Beowulf and his slaying of three terrible monsters, Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and a dragon. Despite the story’s original pagan origin, this essay analyzes the extent to which the Christian faith of its poet influences the outcome of these slayings and the overall themes of the poem. An analysis of the characters of Grendel’s Mother and the dragon in particular presents strong parallels between the culture of the Anglo-Saxons and their monsters. Viewed in context of the poet’s Christian faith, these parallels call into question key pillars of the Anglo-Saxon way of life, including their own heroic code. Ultimately, Beowulf extolls the triumph of Christian morality over paganism and encourages reflection on how its morals might be applied to the present day. Published on 2022-06-02 00:00:00
Abstract: Nella Larsen’s Passing, published in 1929, recounts the tumultuous reunion of childhood friends, Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield—two light-skinned Black women who have taken dramatically different paths in adulthood. While Irene has married Brian Redfield, a Black doctor and taken on an active role in Black upper-society, Clare has constructed a white identity by marrying, at the age of eighteen, a racist, white man. This article analyzes Larsen’s novel as an exploration into the ways individuals pursue and relate to the concept of security in an unjust society. It argues that the text’s central characters are each passing as a manufactured identity that holds more social capital than their underlying identity and examines the differences in what each character is willing to sacrifice for the security this social capital provides. The article investigates why Irene views Clare as a threat by considering Irene’s marriage to Brian, her queer desire for Clare, and her deep need to access security by conforming to heterosexist expectations. Ultimately, Irene perceives Clare to be threatening because she fears her husband Brian’s attraction to what Clare represents—a rejection of the social norms and expectations of the Black bourgeoisie. Published on 2022-06-02 00:00:00
Abstract: The articles in this special issue represent five prizewinners from the Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature (NUCL), held on March 22, 2022 at the University of Portland. These research essays represent the wide range of periods and theoretical approaches that the conference addressed, as well as highlighting students’ impressive, new contributions to ongoing conversations in literary analysis. Published on 2022-06-02 00:00:00
Abstract: This essay examines the structural choices Virginia Woolf makes in Orlando to mirror her prose with the relative models of time the protagonist experiences throughout the story. Comparing the leading theories in particle physics at the time Woolf wrote to her work shows that she was aware of these developments and incorporated this knowledge into her writing. Specifically, the relativity of time is used to mirror the relative nature of Orlando’s identity, as they change from man to woman throughout the course of the novel. Published on 2022-06-02 00:00:00
Abstract: Mysticism in sport is a unique experience in which someone is engulfed by a feeling of existence both in real time and stopped time as well as entering a realm of unparalleled reality surrounded by mind and spirit (Higgs & Braswell, 2004). Despite the inexplicability of mystic experiences, poetry provides one means of deciphering them. The purpose of this article is to model how sport participants could be engaged in a process of self-reflective inquiry, then self-author scholarship that synthesizes and interprets the results of their self-reflection. During their 2021 Winter Quarter course on perspectives in physical activity, four undergraduate students were invited to create an original work of poetry on a sporting experience or set of experiences. Each author supplemented their poem with a reflection paragraph, which identified how their poems overcame limitations of “exact speech” to convey mystical qualities embedded in their sporting experience. Three styles of poems were produced: (a) acrostic, (b) haiku, and (c) free verse. Through the creative writing process, the four authors furthered their knowledge of winning and losing through sport, love and connection to sport, transcendent levels of play including the ‘flow state’, as well as furthering their understanding of mysticism and its unique relationship to personal experience. Analysis of the given poems revealed similarities in the emotions evoked, either as an athlete or as a spectator. Future directions would include exploration of other sport roles besides athletes and spectators, as well as the incorporation of additional artistic modalities besides poetry. Published on 2022-04-27 00:00:00
Abstract: Our brain is plastic: it changes and adapts in response to our environment. While some circuits in our brain remain plastic during our whole life, others are capable of plasticity only at a certain age, and for a limited amount of time. These confined periods of intense development are called critical periods. Through the example of the visual system, we will explore the concept of critical periods in the brain, how they were discovered, what causes them, and how they contribute to the brain development in health and pathology. Published on 2021-05-18 00:00:00
Abstract: Current tsunami hazard inundation and evacuation maps in the Puget Sound are based primarily on Cascadia and Seattle fault tsunamis. The standard evaluation process for tsunami impacts focuses on elevation and hypothetical fault rupture of known and predicted earthquakes. However, there are several known tsunami deposits in the Puget Sound that are not from Cascadia or Seattle fault tsunamis, potentially from other faults within the region, that could affect tsunami mitigation. Work to understand newly discovered crustal deformation and faults in Puget Sound is ongoing, therefore evacuation and inundation maps need to be updated to include these new faults and integrate universal design more broadly. Methods involved using GeoClaw software to map tsunamis from the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), Leech River fault (LRF), and Utsalady Point fault (UPF). Modeled tsunamis determined the overall inundation of Port Angeles, Washington through a wide range of earthquake inputs of magnitude, proximity, and recurrence. The output simulations were evaluated with key components of universal design to create a new tsunami hazard map. Comparison between the universal design-based map to current the tsunami hazard map allowed for an evaluation of the current evacuation map. This evaluation can improve the assessment of bridges and other evacuation mechanisms. This research can contribute to future tsunami hazard map revisions saving lives, can help with emergency management planning, and spur reevaluating evacuation plans within the tsunami impact area. Published on 2021-05-17 00:00:00
Abstract: Classroom management is one of the biggest challenges first-, second, and third-year (referred to as novice) teachers face. Research has shown novice teachers feel unequipped to manage their classrooms due to inadequate preservice training. In this study, 96 novice elementary school teachers from school districts throughout South Carolina completed an online survey that addressed preservice classroom management experiences and teachers’ beliefs about classroom management preparation. It was found that although 80% of participants did receive preservice classroom management training, some of these participants felt unprepared to manage their classrooms. Over 90% of participants agreed that a preservice classroom management course in college is beneficial for future teachers. The results indicate a need for strong preservice courses in classroom management that offer both strategies and classroom experiences, as well as inservice professional development opportunities, to provide educators with the tools necessary to successfully manage their classrooms. Published on 2021-04-29 00:00:00
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