Humanities Institute

Undergraduate: 

• Emma Siewart 
• "Dawn of the Golden Law: Transnational Brazillian Abolitionist Discourse in the 1850s Abstract"

Abstract: 

"With the passage of the Golden Law in 1888, Brazil became the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. This law was the fruit of abolitionists’ long labor in opposing the institution. Who were these abolitionists, when did they begin writing about Brazilian slavery, and how did they frame their arguments? Most historians writing in English have claimed that the Brazilian abolitionist movement emerged in the 1860s and was largely driven by political elites. However, I argue that by examining the writings of abolitionists throughout the world who opposed to Brazilian slavery—in other words, transnational Brazilian abolitionist discourse—the dawn of this movement can be traced to the 1850s. A few of the anti-slavery works published in this decade include the freedman Mohammah Baquaqua's biography, the British scientist Thomas Ewbank’s travelogue, the Afro-Brazilian teacher Maria Firmina dos Reis’ novel, and the Afro-Brazilian lawyer Luiz Gama’s first poems. Within the bounds of their societies and experiences, these writers condemned slavery by undermining racial stereotypes, praising mothers, supporting more freedom for women, and appealing to Christian beliefs and symbols. In so doing, they engaged with elements of American and British abolitionist discourse and developed the key arguments of the Brazilian abolitionist movement. Centering these writers highlights the reality that the legal end of slavery in the Western Hemisphere was not due just to the work of lawmakers, but also to the work of many diverse voices for much longer than historians have imagined."  

Graduate: 

• Ava DeBourg
• "A Good Neighbor Gone Bad: Exploring U.S. Foreign Policy, Corporate Interests, and the Rise of Communist Activity in Guatemala and Honduras, 1954"

Abstract: 

"This paper examines the U.S. foreign policy response to the 1954 Honduran General Strike, in which nearly 15% of the national workforce mobilized against the exploitative practices of the United Fruit Company (UFCO). What began as a labor dispute among dock workers on Honduras’ northern coast quickly escalated into a nationwide protest, drawing support from students, teachers, and artisans who opposed both UFCO and the country’s oligarchic elite. Drawing on State Department documents, CIA reports, and media coverage from Time and The New York Times, this study analyzes how U.S. officials in Honduras and Washington, D.C. perceived and responded to the strike. Despite a long-standing history of supporting corporate interests, U.S. policymakers took an uncharacteristically pro-labor stance, siding against the UFCO. This shift, I argue, was driven by Cold War geopolitical concerns. By backing workers in Honduras, the U.S. aimed to prevent Communist influence from spreading from neighboring Guatemala, where Jacobo Arbenz’s left-leaning administration was sympathetic to Communist Party members and expropriated UFCO land. To avoid similar radicalization in Honduras, U.S. officials intervened to end the strike on terms favorable to the workers. Ultimately, however, this research shows how U.S. foreign policy in Honduras was shaped less by a genuine commitment to labor rights than by Cold War calculations aimed at containing communism and undermining the Arbenz regime."  

Undergraduate: 

• Kelsea Spotts, English Literature and Creative Writing
• "An Ecocritical Reading of Akii and Old Buffalo Woman"

Abstract: 

"An Ecocritical Reading of Akii and Old Buffalo Woman" analyzes the wiindigoo story in Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Round House, to explore the ways in which settler colonial greed has impacted biological and tribal ecosystems in the American West and also contributed to the persistent violence against Native American women. By examining Erdrich’s rendition of this Indigenous tale, we come to understand how American’s covetous relationship with mother earth’s resources is linked to emotional starvation—a condition that not only leads to cycles of destruction, overindulgence, and exploitation of the environment and her people, but also hints at the wiindigoo’s hold on Western society as a whole. Teachings about how to repair these self-destructive tendencies and America’s unethical relationship with the earth are found in the guidance offered by Akii and Old Buffalo Woman in Erdrich’s wiindigoo story. This story illustrates the importance of being in tune with the feminine aspects of nature and the knowledge of Indigenous women in order to restore collaborative actions towards our landscapes and communities.

Graduate: 

• Skylar Tibbetts, Creative Writing
• “Satan as Incel:  Homosociality and Hegemonic Masculinity in Paradise Lost”

Abstract: 

Although concepts within contemporary gender studies were not available to Milton in the 17th-century, their application can further our modern understanding of classic literature—and in this case, empower a deeper, more complete reading of Paradise Lost. In this context, homosociality applies to the structures and relationships between the “male,” or masculinist, characters in the poem, specifically the angels, Satan, and God. In my paper, I analyze how Milton’s Satan reveals the function of hegemonic masculinity—a collective gender practice that operates in response to patriarchy—within the communal landscape of Paradise Lost, and takes on the role of an incel-like figure: “incel” being a relatively new term that refers to an online misogynistic subculture. The modern incel parallels Milton’s Satan in his belief that he has been wronged by a hierarchical society and deserves more than his present circumstance affords him, as well as through his primary obsession with the idealized romantic relationship and the potential of sex. By applying the work of prolific gender scholars—including but not limited to bell hooks, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sandra Gilbert, and R.W. Connell—I argue that Milton works to criticize the patriarchal structure through his characterization of the homosocial Satan and by illustrating the destructiveness intrinsic to hegemonic masculinity.

Undergraduate: 

• Lindsay Hause, English
• "‘No Shadow Unless There is also Light’ – How Dystopian Fantasy Worlds Can Help Us Reimagine Our Own"

Abstract:

In the era of anthropogenic climate change, when we face drastic changes and catastrophic occurrences on a global scale, it is more important than ever that we maintain open minds and attitudes toward our exchanges with the world around us and garner better relations with one another as well as beings beyond ourselves. Fantasy narratives are essential instruments to this end. Not only are they vital in keeping our imaginations active and engaged, but also in enlightening our ways of existence and offering up new ideas on how we might be. They also give examples of what we would do well to avoid, and, in this latter case, here enters the dystopia. Dystopic narratives abound in recent times, and it is little wonder why; but while they offer cautionary tales of the paths we ought not to tread, they also offer a glimmer of hope that a better outcome is still possible if we would only be willing to embrace change and see beyond what we have come to accept as the status quo. Through analyzing works by Margaret Atwood, N. K. Jemisin, and Karen Russell, this paper asserts that fantasy and dystopian stories serve purposes far beyond escapism in their capacity to enable the postmodern world to maintain open, adaptive minds and to salvage hope, even in the face of staggering predictions of global change.

Graduate: 

• Kaleb Cohen, Philosophy
• "Making the Hands Impure: On the Importance of Story and Translation for Environmental Philosophy"

Abstract: 

In this essay, I argue for the importance of story—specifically the stories of Indigenous oral literary traditions—for taking up environmental responsibility in the particularities of place. In this vein, I follow Robin Kimmerer’s advocacy for “re-story-ation.” I examine potential obstacles for learning these stories, such as the limitations of language, personal and communal identity, and an ongoing history of settler-colonial usurpation of Indigenous lands and lifeways, and suggest that we may need a kind of translation to accomplish this work of taking up environmental responsibility. In considering the possibilities of learning Indigenous oral literary stories of place in translation, I think through Steve Vogel’s accounts of “ventriloquism” and translation and then employ the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s commentary on a Talmudic discussion of the translation of the Hebrew scriptures. In the final analysis, I conclude that there are serious limitations to learning Indigenous oral literary stories in translation, but a necessary criterion for any possible translation is that, following the rabbis of the Talmud, the translation must retain the original’s ability to “make the hands impure.”

Undergraduate: 

India Hite, “Equal Under God: Black Baptist and Methodist Christianity and Resistance in the Antebellum South, 1800-1850”

Abstract: Protestant doctrine spread widely in the Antebellum South but the enslaved community adopted and understood it in a way that was completely antithetical to the version propagated by white Southerners and slaveholders. The enslaved populations in the Antebellum South utilized Protestant belief alongside Biblical interpretation to counter the horror and degradation that was their everyday experience, both spiritually and tangibly. Enslaved peoples used their religion not only as an introspective lens with which to endure day-to-day abuse, but as a tool—and sometimes, as was the case in Nat Turner’s revolt, as a weapon—to counter those realities externally. This religious inspired resistance took many different forms, from covert methods such as joining the church to become literate and subsequently interpreting the Bible counter to the white slaveholding narrative, to overt forms such as open and ecstatic worship, or running away and escaping from enslavers. In some cases, religious inspired resistance manifested in revolt, both planned and interrupted, as well as planned and enacted. Ample evidence exists to affirm enslaved individuals were most often genuine in their conversion to Protestant Christianity, however, that devotion was not entirely necessary for these populations to utilize religion as an effective tool to combat systemic and overwhelming oppression. 

Kayla Irish, ““A New Torch in the Cold War: The Tibetan Uprising and American Religion and Rights Policies, 1959-1960”

Abstract: Tensions boiled over between China and Tibet in March of 1959 when mass protests broke out in Tibet’s capital, energizing American engagement with the Cold War. This paper details how American interpretations of the Tibetan Uprising shaped public dialogue and reaffirmed beliefs about communism’s sinister and indiscriminate expansion. An array of religious groups and grassroots activists in the U.S. generated sympathetic and paternalistic narratives depicting Tibetans as helpless victims of Chinese communists. Straying from previous anticommunist commentary that focused on religiously and ethnically similar groups like the Catholic Hungarians, journalists and Christian leaders used Tibet to rally Americans. Ultimately, Tibet complicated Christianity-based interpretations of communism. To elicit public engagement, analysts, editorialists, and religious leaders posited that if communism had stripped autonomy from a modern European state and a remote plateau, no segment of the globe was safe. A diversifying cast of Americans also used Tibet to serve domestic reform agendas and geopolitical commentary. Some called for a more authoritative approach in pursuing justice for the Tibetans while others used the Uprising to highlight American racial inequality and rapacious capitalism. American interpretations of the Tibetan Uprising ultimately created a seemingly equal, yet simplistic portrayal of Tibetans as crusaders in a political struggle against the godless communists. Americans of multiple spheres not only became sympathetic but used the issue of Tibet as a conduit to articulate their political ideas. 

Graduate:

Elizabeth Barrs, ““Marketing the Golden Rule: Near East Relief and Philanthropy’s Role in the U.S. Political Economy, 1915-1930”

Abstract: The history of the American aid agency Near East Relief (NER), which from 1915 to 1930 saved tens of thousands Armenian orphans, reveals an integral part played by philanthropy in the political economy of food in the interwar years. NER’s pioneering marketing relationships with American processed foods industries forged a symbiotic partnership between philanthropy and corporate businesses in the 1920s. These overlapping interests were most apparent in NER’s Golden Rule Sunday fundraising campaign, which became a nation-wide cultural phenomenon from 1923 to 1928.

NER worked particularly closely with the Corn Products Refining Company (CRPC), which paid for advertising and in turn received NER endorsements that its Karo corn syrup was as healthful for American children as it had been in nourishing Armenian orphans. The American corn industry leveraged NER’s well-deserved reputation for humanitarianism and child health expertise to legitimize the healthfulness of corn sugars to consumers and government regulators. This arguably contributed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allowing corn sugars to flood American processed foods in 1930 without being labeled as an additive.

This story forms one chapter in a larger project examining the important but understudied roles that philanthropy has historically played in business and in the U.S. political economy—their interests often intertwined with those of for-profit business and the state. Nonprofit corporations have had both overt and subtle influences in the political economy of food both domestically and globally, with significant impacts on consumer tastes, agribusiness practices, health, and ecology.

Undergraduate/History

Stephen Hayes, "A Time for Radical Action: The Black Grassroots Freedom Struggle in America's Second City in the Mid-1960s"

Abstract: The traditional civil rights narrative focuses on the South, national organizations, and the men who led these organizations. Consequently, this narrative often ignores important actions and actors that fall outside this limited purview. The traditional narrative also presupposes that nonviolence was the movement’s primary organizing ethos. Yet recent scholarship has challenged this assumption and argued that armed resistance was also critical. This essay examines Chicago grassroots activists who challenged school segregation, police brutality, and housing discrimination and argues that most actions in Chicago were not nonviolent. If one defines nonviolence as the refusal to respond to violence in kind, then many peaceful actions can be redefined as unviolent. This essay uses the concepts of armed, unviolent, and nonviolent resistance to develop a new framework called the resistance continuum. This framework allows one to understand more intuitively that all movement actions were fundamentally resistance to oppression rather than competing acts from antithetical factions. Furthermore, one can more easily explain how purported dogmatists vacillated and sometimes found cause to welcome actions that conflicted with their ostensible philosophy. These actors sought only to advance their cause, which occasionally meant sliding along the continuum. Ultimately, this essay argues that most actions in Chicago were unviolent because actors there had greater opportunities for unviolent resistance as compared to the South. Moreover, women took advantage of opportunities for unviolent resistance more than men and were frequently leaders of Chicago activism. Lastly, nonviolent actors at times traversed the continuum to participate in armed resistance, and vice versa.

Graduate/History 

Jared Norwood, "The Other NRA: The National Rehabilitation Association, the American State, and the Defense of Disability, 1925-1935"

Abstract: In 1920, Congress passed the Smith-Fess Act establishing the Civilian Vocational Rehabilitation program for the nation’s crippled population and placed it under the direction of the Federal Board for Vocational Education (FBVE). The language of the law provided only scant criteria for the states to follow in the implementation of the program. Due to the lack of professional qualifications and credentials among staff, a group of rehabilitation officials, state-level directors and members of the FBVE, gathered in private to establish a new organization tasked with bringing the needs of the rehabilitation program and people with disabilities to the attention of federal officials. The National Rehabilitation Association (NRA), established to provide some level of national standards, quickly evolved into an authoritative body that wielded the power of the FBVE. Governmental agencies in the post-World War I era emerged to fill the gaps between federal and state power; Congress tended to act while agencies and nongovernmental organizations tended to react. What happened, however, if a nongovernmental association chose to act? This essay explores this question and argues that the NRA, not the FBVE, acted as the primary policy vehicle for change.

Undergraduate/English

Noah Belanger, “The Eternity of Memory: Knausgaard, Augustine, and the Fictive Self Portrait of My Struggle”

Abstract: Much of the criticism surrounding Karl Ove Knausgaard’s book My Struggle has to do with its form, which disregards traditional ideas of genre in favor of something that is autobiography and fiction, narrative and philosophical handbook. This essay, however, is primarily concerned with the existential questions the book raises. The literary and psychoanalytic contexts of these existential questions offer an opportunity for a new interpretation of the book’s form. Knausgaard is obsessed with time and how to locate a stable human self within ever shifting temporalities. In this way, Knausgaard’s work is part of a long tradition of semi-autobiographical writing that questions the nature of the temporal subject, and in particular, My Struggle can be seen as a modern iteration of Saint Augustine’s Confessions. Augustine celebrates memory as a human reflection of the eternal nature of God, but since memory is only an imitation of eternity, Augustine never truly resolves his anxieties. My Struggle, however, accepts the psychoanalytic notion of the self as a construction of narrative, and as a result, Knausgaard’s writing knowingly blends fiction and nonfiction into one form, a fictive self-portrait. The form of My Struggle, therefore, is Knausgaard’s answer to the existential questions that plague him, and the memory on which the book’s 3600 pages are based is a semi-fictional creation that reasserts the self in a modified version of the Augustinian celebration of memory.

Graduate/Environmental Philosophy

André Kushnir, “Overcoming Climate Crisis Apathy Through Virtual Ethics”

Abstract: One of the major issues facing contemporary environmental decision making is inconsequentialism—the idea that the sustainable actions of the one (or few) are inefficacious in a culture in which the super-majority acts harmfully towards the environment. According to Ronald Sandler, this happens for one of three reasons: 1) there is no political arrangement in place to address these issues; 2) there is a political arrangement, but it is inadequate to address the problem; 3) there is an adequate arrangement but the costs to the individual of contribution are greater than that of not complying. This essay gives examples of why all three of these drivers of inconsequentialism accurately describe the socio-ethical conditions in the United States. Then, I discuss how we can overcome our atomistic way of thinking about responsibility that results in the driver 3) of inconsequentialism—the one that still remains even if adequate policy is in place—by replacing it with a relational ontology. Finally, I argue that it is through practicing virtue ethics that we will best be able to actualize this relational ontology. The future we envision through environmental thinking is going to require some fundamental changes in our behaviors; in order to see these changes through to their ends, we will need to have a practice that compliments our principles: this paper attempts to give an idea of what that practice might look like.

Undergraduate Winner

Joshua Hall, “Grappling with Milton’s God”

Graduate Winner

Beatrice Garrard, “Museum of Whales”

Undergraduate

Ryan Garnsey, "Dostoyevsky: Definite Circumstances and the Character of an Individual"

Graduate

Dwight Curtis, “The Play Within the Play: Eschaton, Hamlet, and 'Theater-Boundaries' in Infinite Jest"