By Faith and Faith Alone: Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire and Religion as a Framework for Analyzing Imperium
By John Williamson
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Mi Fiona
By Madelynn Meyer
From the author:
This story was originally wrote from a prompt in one of my classes, which was to see the perspective of a story from a different point of view. I decided that that point of view should be from my dog, Fiona. This was actually a true story, although Fiona was not in the car when it happened. I was on a drive to pick up my laptop from the store and a car rear ended me. Thankfully, I was not really hurt at all, unlike how I was during the story, so I was able to pull from this real experience to exaggerate what really happened. I love the emotion I gave Fiona in this story. Throughout reading, it is noticeable that although Fiona is a character that has human-like attributes, she is still a dog that does dog things. This story is meant to provoke emotions of love, while also staying a little lighthearted because it comes from a dog’s perspective.
Read: Mi Fiona
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West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Collapse and Future Impacts on Sea Level Rise – Driven Migration on the United States Atlantic Coast
By Jaida Rhea
From the author:
Growing up in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area, I experienced the impacts of sea level rise even before learning the words to describe the process. Sea levels are rising, and they are rising fast. Many people, including myself, have heard the term “sea level rise” used in news sources and media outlets, but don’t completely understand what is happening, why it is happening, or how communities will be impacted in the future. In this mock research proposal written for ES415: Climate Change, I attempt to answer these questions. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, by the end of this century, global mean sea level is predicted to rise at least one foot above 2000 levels. As our planet grows warmer, sea levels will only continue to increase. In this proposal, I explore two major causes of global sea level rise and describe a specific event that could lead to sea levels increasing even faster than they are currently. I also look at the impacts this event could have on the United States Atlantic Coast and develop a framework of how we can better connect major sea level rise events and impacts on people and their communities.
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The Attractive, the Unattractive, and the Ugly: Appearance Adjectives and Gender
By Abby Morris
From the author:
This paper was originally written for WRT 285: Analyzing Linguistic Data. I developed my thesis and conducted further research throughout the course as I learned how to use various analysis tools. My essay serves as the compilation of this research, analyzing the gendered use of the adjectives “attractive,” “unattractive,” and “ugly” through both qualitative and quantitative lenses. I utilized multiple corpora and examined data from 1990-2019, examining several hundred examples of gendered usages of these words with the goal of comparing how often and in what ways adjectives relating to appearance are used when discussing women and men. In a world where the lived experiences of women are often dismissed as hyperbole and gender studies are labeled as being purely theory, I believe that my work can be useful in providing evidence to illuminate an extremely gendered disparity in how appearances are talked about to those who demand strictly data-driven evidence. At the very least, I hope it can be useful in furthering readers’ understandings of gendered linguistics and the ways in which language constructs our world.
Read: The Attractive, the Unattractive, and the Ugly: Appearance Adjectives and Gender
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La destrucción que la mente causa
By Madelynn Meyer
From the author:
This story was written from a personal perspective. I wrote it because I feel like I have a little voice in my head that dictates everything I do with snide comments and judgements. Although I do try to fight against this voice every day, I wanted to know what would happen if I stopped. I feel like I was able to capture the complicated relationship between a person’s body and mind. It is not easy to fight against that little voice and I wanted to make that struggle as real as possible.
Read: La destrucción que la mente causa
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Urban Morphology and Integrative Efficacy in Quito’s Major Metropolitan Parks
By James Mullooly
From the author:
Explosive population growth in Quito, Ecuador over the last 50 years has left modern urban planners with a challenge to reorganize this burgeoned city already crammed along extreme faults and valleys. My research for this urban morphological analysis focused on green spaces and their integration with the city. When I visited Quito in 2018, their metropolitan park system stood out to me for clearly having recent investments for amenities (like new sport courts and parking lots) in parks with remarkably few visitors, while small parks in the dense north remained packed. In this paper, I sought after the backstory.
Primarily utilizing edge permeability analysis to determine parks’ accessibility and integrative efficacy within “parishes” — Quito’s neighborhood planning units — the paper concludes that great and sustainable green space develops best when built concurrently with development of the surrounding neighborhood.
Read: Urban Morphology and Integrative Efficacy in Quito’s Major Metropolitan Parks
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Kissing the Kiss of Betrayal: A Study of Veneration in the Berners’ Book of Hours
By Bronwyn Burke
From the author:
Kissing the Kiss of Betrayal was the final research project I completed for VMC 341, taught by Prof. Arnie Sanders. I was interested in working with medieval manuscripts, and Prof. Sanders recommended that I explore the Berners Book of Hours, ensuring me that I would find something worth writing about within its leaves. I was immediately struck by the vivid religious imagery within the text, especially the depictions of Christ’s Passion. However, I was taken aback by signs of veneration on the image of Judas Iscariot, a Biblical figure with traditionally negative associations. This image sent me on a journey exploring the complex world of medieval Catholic spirituality and devotional practices.
Read: Kissing the Kiss of Betrayal: A Study of Veneration in the Berners’ Book of Hours
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Kind Lands, Unkind Realities: The Conflicting Heritage(s) of the Baltimore Chinatown and Its Relations to Urban Developments in Asian neighborhoods
By Jamie Nguyen
From the author:
This paper was written as a final project for the seminar on American Sacred Space (VMC/AMS330) in the spring of 2022. While scouring for a topic, the issue of the preservation of the Philadelphia Chinatown came to my attention, especially as community members and institutions within the area (with one of the leaders being the Chinese American Museum of Washington D.C.) were rallying against the proposed construction of a stadium in the middle of the neighborhood. I already have a great interest in understanding the preservation and development of ethnic neighborhoods (especially with the fight against gentrification) through both personal experiences and earlier work within the course, therefore this topic came as part of a logical interest. I also have attended the 2019 Charm City Night Market – one of the cultural events that sparked the conversation on the future of the Asian community here in Baltimore – and have had an understanding on the cross-section of cultures, being both from a multicultural city and having exposure to multiple different ethnic and cultural backgrounds throughout my time in schools both in my origin country – Vietnam – and in the United States. Additionally, I have a unique position when writing this paper, having enough personal identity (being Asian) to talk about this issue on a theoretical standpoint, and have enough of a distance (not a US citizen and not from Baltimore) to have a more general viewpoint of the discussions at hand.
While writing this paper (and revisiting the theoretical framework on the sacrality of spaces in culture, especially in American culture), a major point that stood out to me is that most frameworks that we were taught tied the sacrality of space to its connection to the higher power of religion. While this is in no way untrue nor exclusive to one culture, the framework usually does not consider the emergence and existence of ethnic enclaves, with Chinatowns being a prime example. In many ways, the emergence and existence of these neighborhoods is a direct result and response from systemic discrimination or conflict. In its emergence, the enclaves promised both a sense of belonging, solidarity, community, and support, in a time and place where the public and/or the establishment promised a much less kind world towards the people of the enclaves (unfortunately, this sentiment still holds true today).
A stand-out aspect of the subject matter – the Baltimore Chinatown’s preservation and potential continuation – would be the contested nature of the site itself: as of current time, the Baltimore Chinatown is also known as Baltimore’s Little Ethiopia (and is now the heart of the city’s Ethiopian community), and the Ethiopian community is rightfully very wary of the potential for gentrification to rear its ugly head within Baltimore. However, the conversation for the continuation of the Chinatown neighborhood has been in place since the Bicentennial of the United States (1976) and the Chinese (and Asian-American communities at large) community has been advocating towards the reformation and continuation of the neighborhood since then. This brings in nuances for the conversation featured within the paper – with more than one community claiming sacrality, “how do we work towards a path that are inclusive of both of the living communities and ensure that both can have a future here?” became a central question towards the end.
This work would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the guidance and patience of Professor Duncan throughout that semester – as my topic ask for a different approach from the initial approach within the assignment. I would also like to thank staff members of the Maryland Department of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Central Library branch) for their assistance during my archival researching of the Chinese community of Baltimore, as well as of the Chinatown neighborhood and the history of Asian-American communities in Baltimore.
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Who Is My Shepherd?
By Emily Strickland
From the author:
After attending a folk music festival in the August of my junior year of college, my relationship with God was reawakened, not because I realized that I believed in Him, but because I realized I didn’t believe in Him. This revelation was the inspiration for this piece. Originally intended to explore this new liberation from some old-standing Catholic guilt, this piece instead became a review of all the ways my relationship with God had manifested throughout my life, written about through the lens of communal call-and-response music. Through this piece, I was able to realize that throughout my life, music had been the through line between all of my most formative and spiritually resonant experiences with God.
Read: Who Is My Shepherd?
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