A Memory Sterilized, Utilized, and Realized

After the French suffered a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the conditions were set for proletarian uprising in Paris, resulting in the formation of the Commune of Paris. The Commune’s abortive existence stood as a violent shock across Europe and generated highly charged opinions from the poorest laborers to the wealthiest members of the nobility. The effect of the Commune’s memory on the European political Left was particularly divergent as men and women continued to grapple with the memory of the Commune and determined for themselves how best to render it intelligible. Some decided to pacify the memory, preaching of heroism and class struggle rather than violent revolution and anarchy. Others decided to utilize the memory of the Commune to incite revolts and strikes, and others worked to realize the Commune’s mission by taking tangible lessons from the Communards’ example. This paper focuses on specific socialist movements in France and wider Europe to demonstrate the multiplicity of occasions in which the Commune was centrally remembered and the diverse outcomes of the use of that memory.

How Venus Got Her Furs

This, particular study explores how the Middle Ages gave birth to sadomasochistic erotica; how a burgeoning literary tradition influenced patterns of sexuality and media across medieval Europe. The bulk of the following analysis is centered around Chrétien de Troyes’ Knight of the Cart, and it is aimed at the following questions: Can the origins of sadomasochistic erotica be traced to the courtly romance of Chrétien de Troyes? What were the social ramifications of courtly romance literature? To what extent does Chrétien’s writing depict sadomasochistic relations? How did it affect patterns of sexual behavior in medieval Europe? How did it impact women’s agency? How did the world of sadomasochistic erotica change after the Middle Ages? And likewise, how did its effect on society evolve over time?

“Finished Knowing – Then –”

This essay explores the ways in which Emily Dickinson’s poems about death challenge romantic Puritan and Victorian conceptions of death, undermining the idea of death as a meaningful, knowable phenomenon. I argue that in placing pressure on Puritan logic—indeed, on the idea that logic might be applied to death at all—Dickinson’s poems ultimately rupture syntactically and semantically, rendering futile the search for certainty in death. This destruction of certainty, as I argue, allows Dickinson’s death poems to explore a variety of philosophical and spiritual perspectives on death and dying, taking on a renewed “life” of their own. Finally, I examine Dickinson’s poems within the context of the Civil War Era and New England Puritanism to reveal the extent to which these poetic explorations of death offer a crucial rebuttal to discourses and systems of belief eager to bring false certainty to the unknowable.

A Proposed fMRI Study: The Role of Self-Generated Object Formation in Novel Object Category Learning

Recent research indicates that the self-produced visual-motor nature of handwriting provides variable visual output that better facilitates symbol understanding (Li & James 2016). In addition, viewing novel objects/hearing novel verbs that were learned through active manipulation resulted in greater motor activation in the brain than learning through passive viewing (James & Swain 2011). The proposed study attempts to investigate the understanding and neural underpinnings of novel objects when learned in a self-production condition similar to handwriting: forming objects with clay. 7-8 year-old participants will learn novel object categories through three conditions: a high active condition in which participants form objects with clay, a low active condition in which participants actively hold/explore pre-made objects, and a passive condition in which participants watch the experimenter hold pre-made objects. Following this training session, an object-sorting task will be used to assess the participants’ knowledge of the object categories. Finally, a fMRI session will attempt to investigate motor and whole-brain activation differences between the two active conditions.

Back to the Future Consequences: Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Measure Correlates with Exercise Intensity

From training for a marathon to completing a college degree, long-term goals are used to accomplish several highly-valued life achievements. These goals require present activity with predominantly future benefits, a tradeoff that requires individuals to exert self-control as they work toward their goals. While these goals are highly valued, people frequently fail at achieving them. What individual and situational differences allow some people to succeed at working toward future goals? To address this question, we measured trait and motivational differences alongside exercise behavior, an activity with predominantly future benefits, in a campus gym. Specifically, we measured how the amount people report thinking about and working toward the future, a trait captured by the Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) questionnaire, correlates with workout behavior. We find that CFC scores predict several aspects of exercise including frequency of engagement, intensity of exercise, and perceived benefits associated with the activity. Overall, our study provides evidence that high CFC individuals, who pay greater attention to future outcomes, exhibit increased present performance to achieve them, a finding that provides evidence on how to aid in the achievement of long-term goals.

The World Upside-Down: The Carnivalesque Studio in Entre visillos

Entre visillos by Carmen Martín Gaite follows the lives of several middle-class young women living in Francoist Spain during the nineteen-fifties, portraying the restrictive and conservative confines of both traditional Spanish culture and fascist dictatorship in which these women lived. This essay, however, examines how Martín Gaite uses place and setting to define the characters’ behavior and their adherence to norms under Francisco Franco’s authoritarian, reactionary rule. Specifically, the essay analyzes the spatial conditions for liminal anomie, the temporal dissolution and subversion of norms, in the novel. Through an approximation of Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesqueand Michel de Certeau’s theory of everyday resistance, I argue that the characters employ tactics of resistance (de Certeau) to establish the bohemian party at the top-floor studio apartment of Yoni, the eccentric artist, as a carnivalesque that acts as a safe haven for anomie, the expression of hidden transcripts (James Scott) that constitute resistance against hegemonic Spanish society, and the reimagination of Spanish identity during the epoch. By studying how the characters stray from norms through their interpersonal relations, absurd values, and paradoxical and parodical behavior, it becomes clear that the studio is a unique, free space for contesting conventions of modesty and patriarchy under the Spanish dictatorship. The inclusion in the novel of such themes as promiscuity, infidelity, and immodest behavior further reveals that Entre visillositself is a carnivalesque work that reimagines the values, norms, and conscience of Spanish society.

All Roads Lead to Homosociality: The Role of Chivalry in Medieval and Modern Society

This paper examines the role of chivalry in two of Marie de France’s lais, Guigemar and Bisclavret. One of the most studied authors of the Medieval period, Marie de France’s works reveal the values, anxieties, and societal dynamics of her time by both adhering to and pushing against literary norms. Guigemar and Bisclavret present near-perfect examples of knighthood, save for two flaws: Guigemar has no love for women, and Bisclavret is a werewolf. The treatment of these knights and their peculiarities reveals the strict expectations of masculinity and the risks of breaking from them. I pay particular attention to the importance of humility in chivalric masculinity and the ways in which their peculiarities affect their relationships, particularly with other men. When placed in conversation, these stories show that the main role of chivalry was to secure the relationships between men that formed the basis of Medieval society and that, for this reason, humility was one of the most important chivalric values. I argue that understanding the cultural history of chivalry is important for modern audiences because the concept of chivalry is still used by many groups to legitimize and promote their interests and continues to shape our perceptions of masculinity and gender dynamics. While what we think of chivalry has changed greatly since Marie de France’s time, the ends of chivalry remain the same—to promote the interests of those in positions of power.

Practices and Perspectives of Mental Health in the Balkan Countries: A Narrative Review

Mental health and wellness are integral parts to person’s overall health and happiness. Globally, there has been an increased initiative to treat and support people living with mental health issues and disease; the Balkan region of southeastern Europe is no exception. A literary review researching the background of mental health treatment and how it intersects with the unique history and current administrative environment within the nations of the former Yugoslav Republic was conducted. Existing literature about mental health prevalence and practices within the region was analyzed and contextualized with historical perspectives. Significant gaps in research literature were identified, including lack of research into everyday mental disorders in the region that are not to do with the recent civil war, a need for standardized data collection about where mental health infrastructure exists within the region and how effective it is in treating patients, and finally economic research to determine how and by which governing body national healthcare systems should be funded. Filling these gaps in knowledge would greatly reduce barriers to mental healthcare and overall wellness within the Balkans.

Irony, Contradiction, and Voltaire's Garden

Literary scholars have long debated the thematic significance of Voltaire's Candide, a 1759 novella that relentlessly satirizes Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism. In Candide, Voltaire assails his readers with displays of violence so absurd they might inspire anything from laughter to hopelessness. The novella's crude humor is hinged upon an unexpectedly-compassionate acknowledgement of human suffering. Voltaire uses Candide's plotline to attack the human assumption that any force of good will ever offset the evil in a world pervaded by cruelty and selfishness. He provokes questions with no answers in sight. Deriving a theme from the novella only becomes more difficult after reading its conclusion, which leaves readers dissatisfied, desperate for some sort of call to action. We are urged to cultivate our garden but given no advice on what that might entail. We are convinced of Leibnizian optimism's failures but deprived of a more-pragmatic philosophy to replace it with. In this essay, I analyze the ways Voltaire uses humor, irony, and structure in Candide not only to denounce deceitful forms of optimism, but to provoke future thought on the questions he could not answer himself.

Breeding Latitude and Annual Cycle Timing in a Songbird

In spring, songbirds undergo physiological changes such as migratory fattening and gonadal recrudescence in response to increasing day length. Past research suggests that the day length required to initiate physiological changes, known as the photoperiodic threshold, can vary by breeding latitude. In this study, we explored whether migrants breeding at higher latitudes require longer days in spring before physiological changes occur (i.e., whether breeding latitude of origin predicts photoperiodic threshold). We caught and housed male migrant and resident dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) in an indoor aviary. Photoperiod was increased incrementally from nine to sixteen hours over fourteen weeks. During each photocycle, morphological measurements of mass, subcutaneous body fat, and cloacal protuberance were measured as indicators of migratory and reproductive condition. Stable isotope signatures of hydrogen were used to estimate breeding latitude as an index of migratory distance. Our results show that migrants and residents differed in physiological changes, as migrants accumulated more subcutaneous fat, increased body mass, and displayed a significant delay in gonadal recrudescence relative to residents. Additionally, individuals breeding at higher latitudes deposited fat at a faster rate than individuals breeding at lower latitudes. These results supported our hypothesis that migratory strategy and breeding latitude may predict differences in photoperiodic threshold for both migratory and reproductive timing. Our findings contribute to the understanding of regulation of timing in annual cycles and improve predictions of how species might respond to changing environments.