Arts and Humanities Commons^™

New Info On The Hunt For The Ring, Chad Bornholdt, Bill Fliss

Mythcon

With Bill Fliss's assistance, Chad plots the paths of all characters, including individual Nazgûl, throughout Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings.

From Dust Bowl To Digital: Fueling Your Research In The Mythsoc Archives, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Janet Brennan Croft, Victoria Gaydosik, Brice Odom

Mythcon

The 5,122 posted works in the Mythsoc digital collections have been downloaded 1,560,574 times from July 2017 to June 2026. These usage statistics show that scholarship posted on the Mythsoc digital collections serves the research needs of scholars internationally, provides free and easy discoverability to authors’ works, and usage reports to contributors that provide evidence of the impact of their work. The Panelists will present on the success of the first eight years of using the SWOSU Digital Commons as the platform for the Mythopoeic Society Archives. This presentation will introduce you to the Mythopoeic Society Collections page of the …

Haunted, Will Travel: “Divided, Fractured, And Barely Legible” The Nightmare-Self In Harrow The Ninth, Atiyana Ringling

Mythcon

My research intends to bring Mark Fisher’s 2012 definition of Hauntology into conversation with the sci-fi journey in Tamsyn Muir’s Harrow the Ninth and its titular character. Using the lens of this Mythcon 54 to focus on the physical and parallel mental journey of Harrow, the physical journey traveled tracks and maps the “lost future” of the world’s inhabitants and questions the extent to which the physical road traveled can mask or hide its destructive inception. “The River” and road traveled in the novel are the result of catastrophic consumption and transformation of the Solar System by the novel's Emperor. …

How To Use Your Mythsoc Membership Online, Megan B. Abrahamson, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Sean Marlow, Grace Moone

Mythcon

Panelists Grace Moone, Sean Marlow, and Alicia Fox-Lenz will give a tutorial on the new Mythopoeic Society membership platform. Now up and running and attached to our website, the new Membershipworks platform allows you to view your membership, getting us off a 30-year-old spreadsheet and into the 21st century! Bring your computer, phone or tablet as the Stewards showcase the uses of the platform and help you with any login issues.

An Infinite Number Of Roads Diverged In A Wood: Robert Heinlein’S Maximalist Road Trip In The Number Of The Beast, Patrick Julian

Mythcon

Robert Heinlein, Grand Master of Speculative Fiction, was born in Butler, MO (one hour north of Route 66), raised in Kansas City, and lived much of his early adult life in Los Angeles, the westernmost terminus of Route 66. Given this proximity to the Mother Road, it’s no surprise that Heinlein spent a considerable portion of his career writing about various versions of the Road Trip, whether it was taken via foot, horse-drawn carriage, automobile or spaceship. The Roads Must Roll, his 3rd published short story (1940), name checks Route 66, while many of his early works of juvenile …

The Road Goes Ever On: Teaching Tolkien In Colleges Today, Leslie A. Donovan, Megan B. Abrahamson, Cami D. Agan, Katherine Wyma, Joseph Rex Young

Mythcon

As Tolkien studies has evolved, Middle-earth no longer needs to be defended as a legitimate academic subject. Today, Tolkien’s works are commonly taught as literary classics in colleges and universities alongside other mythic traditions such as The Odyssey and Beowulf. For students, however, the meaning of “classic” can be complicated. Many students encounter Tolkien long before entering college through popular media, films, games, and digital fandom, while the historical, linguistic, and cultural contexts that informed his writing (war, philology, faith, and medievalism, among others) can feel increasingly distant. As a result, Tolkien’s works may seem both deeply familiar and …

The Scholar's Journey: The Limits Of Academic Discourse, Katherine Mcloone

Mythcon

Indrapramit Das's The Devourers (2015) follows a Kolkata historian who encounters a werewolf with a complicated past. As Alok learns more about the vibrancy of that past, he discovers truths about himself and about the mythic traditions still alive in the remote Sundarban forest.

Rivers Solomon’s The Deep (2019) portrays a historian from a culture of mermaid-like creatures descended from the pregnant women thrown overboard in the Middle Passage: She must leave her people so she can grapple with the weight of her profession. In R.F. Kuang's Katabasis (2025), two post-graduate students studying magick travel to the underworld to rescue …

Shared Trauma, Shared Drama: Faërian Drama In Russian Doll And Elsewhere, Janet Croft

Mythcon

In his seminal essay “On Fairy-stories” (1939), J.R.R. Tolkien introduces the concept of Faërian drama: experiences with a “realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism,” where the viewer feels he is “bodily inside [a] Secondary World” but instead is “in a dream that some other mind is weaving.” This framing structure is used, though not called by this name, in many other texts. In a series of four previously published essays, I have attempted to explore and codify this concept. Picking up a theme hinted at but not explored in my previous papers, what happens when the …

Travel In Ryan Coogler’S Sinners: The Going-Ons Of The Smoke Stack Twins And Remmick, Mena Nizam

Mythcon

This paper explores the adventures of the Smoke Stack Twins, Remmick the Vampire, the themes of travel (via walking, running, driving) their jukebox joint, its placement in a sawmill along the Mississippi Travel/black issues/the character of Remmick. The theme is purely on travel and the symbolism of traveling while experiencing racism.

Culmination Of The Arts And Stem To Enhance Creativity And Promote Learning, Kaleigh Evans

Physics and Astronomy Summer Fellows

In this work, we investigate the results from a survey, issued to a course in “Stained Glass” (n= 23 students). Major findings include that the introduction of a problem-based learning (PBL) course in the arts of stained glass may support high demand skills such as interdisciplinary conceptual learning as well as soft skills such as scientific confidence, interdisciplinary transfer, and collaborative learnings. A journal paper draft was completed and will be submitted this Fall. This summer, work was also done to establish a guide to modeling and 3D printing to help establish and grow a makerspace on campus for use …

How Christians Get "Calling" Wrong, David J. Mulder

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"How can you faithfully follow Jesus, using what God has given you to joyfully work towards addressing... broken places?"

Posting about Christian vocation from In All Things, a blog which highlights the shared faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian perspective of our writers, exploring how to fearlessly engage with every aspect of modern life—until all is made new.

How Christians Get "Calling" Wrong

Can Machines Testify? Llms And The Boundaries Of Testimonial Epistemology, Michael J. Cummins

Philosophy Summer Fellows

As Large Language Models and AI chatbots become increasingly prevalent, pressing questions are raised about whether beliefs formed through LLM interactions carry the same epistemic weight as beliefs formed through human testimony. How we answer this question depends on whether LLMs can function as testifiers, a role which is typically assumed to require a human or human-like agent. This assumption has gone largely unexamined, yet its consequences are significant: if LLM outputs cannot constitute testimony, then the justificatory tools of testimonial epistemology are unavailable to any beliefs formed through LLM interaction. This paper challenges that assumption. It first argues that …

Reseña Del Libro Introducción Al Estudio Del Discurso Digital En Español, De M. E. Placencia Y A. Parini (Eds.) (2024), New York: Routledge, David Sanchez-Jimenez

Publications and Research

Se trata de una reseña del libro Introducción al estudio del discurso digital en español, editado por  M. E. Placencia y A. Parini

From Seductress To Sovereign: A Reassessment Of Cleopatra Vii’S Power, Gender, And Historic Representation, Jordan L. Myrick

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Cleopatra VII is one of the most famous women in history. As Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BCE and a major player in the Augustan age, she had the power to change the fate of empires. Despite her powerful position in history, however, Cleopatra’s historical narrative is often focused on the alliances that surrounded her. She has been portrayed as a seductive ruler who snared Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius and whose drive for power led to the downfall of her kingdom. This original image of Cleopatra seems to have stemmed from the Augustan …

Batik Motifs For The Distinctive Jarik Of The Samin Community In Reinterpreting The Essence Of Samin Surosentiko Pitutur Luhur, Sugeng Wardoyo, Aryo Anggorojati, Tri Wulandari

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

The Samin community (Sedulur Sikep) in Margomulyo, Bojonegoro, has the value of Pitutur Luhur inherited by Samin Surosentiko, but it has not been represented in the batik jarik motif as a communal identity. This creation-based research aims to explore this value, realize it in the design of written batik, and examine its philosophical meaning as an effort to preserve intangible cultural heritage. The method used is practice-based research with a qualitative approach through literature study (ethical data), participatory observation, and in-depth interviews with elders (emic data). The creation process refers to the stages of experimentation, manekung, and the formation of …

Analisis Makna Denotatif, Konotatif, Dan Struktur Harmoni Pada Lagu Rabiya Karya Duane Fatri Rasfaesia, Rohid Atana, Tutut Pristianti

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

This study aims to analyze the denotative and connotative meanings, as well as the harmonic structure, in the song Rabiya by Duane Fatri Rasfaesia. A descriptive qualitative approach was employed using Roland Barthes' semiotic theory to examine the meanings embedded in the lyrics and harmony theory to analyze the song's musical structure. The research data consisted of the song lyrics and harmonic composition. Data were collected through literature review, interviews, and documentation. Interviews were conducted with the songwriter, a Sumbawa community leader, and listeners to strengthen the interpretation of the findings. Data trustworthiness was established through source and technique triangulation, …

“He Had Named Himself The Stranger”: From 'Germanic' Heroic Hospitality To Elvish Memorial Mediation In Tolkien’S Book Of Lost Tales, Paolo Pizzimento Dr.

Journal of Tolkien Research

This article examines the narrative functions of strangeness and hospitality in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Book of Lost Tales, focusing on Eriol’s transformation from foreign traveller into listener, witness, and transmitter of Elvish tradition. Through a comparative reading of selected Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon texts—particularly Hávamál, Gylfaginning, and Beowulf—it identifies recurrent literary configurations in which hospitality regulates admission, identity, reciprocity, danger, and access to knowledge. The comparison is morphological rather than genetic: it does not posit direct derivation or a uniform Germanic code. Drawing on Jan Assmann’s theory of cultural memory, the article argues that Tolkien redirects …

Contributors

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

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Does Reporting Of Israeli Organ Harvesting Constitute Blood Libelous Folklore, And Why Does It Matter?, Simon J. Bronner

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

Global news reporting of “organ harvesting” by Israeli soldiers for medical institutions in the twenty-first century is analyzed as “newslore,” defined by folklorist- journalist Russell Frank as “folklore that comments on, and is therefore indecipherable without knowledge of, current events.” Built on hearsay, the reports, especially in the Arab press during the Israel-Hamas War, begun in 2023, have connections to a complex of antisemitic “blood libel” narratives in Europe about Jews violating the bodies of Christian children. The accusations of organ harvesting invoked a number of antisemitic tropes that were visually conveyed globally through memes and posts on the internet, …

Words Of War: The Rhetorical Weapons Of Folklore After October 7, Steve Siporin

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” became well known after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War (October 7, 2023) due to its widespread use at anti-Israel demonstrations and on news broadcasts, social media, and YouTube videos. A retort that mocked the inability of demonstrators who espoused the slogan to answer the questions “Which river? Which sea?” also circulated widely. Noncombatants on the domestic front relied on these two items of folklore (among others), a chant and a retort, to support their aims and satisfy their emotions. This essay traces the origins of each of …

Jewish Women’S Folk Memory Of Argentine Schooldays, 1900–1955, Jacqueline Laznow

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This essay explores the folkloric formation of Jewish-Argentine female identity through schoolyard experiences and domestic resistance in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on interviews with women who later made aliyah, the study analyzes these accounts as personal experience narratives, arguing that painful memories of antisemitism and “otherness” are cognitively restructured through folk processes into a symbolic frame for communal interpretation. These narratives function as “legend discourse,” sparking commentary and intergenerational transmission, and serve as mechanisms for reconstructing daily life within a dominant Christian culture. They reveal a “hyphenated” Jewish-Argentine identity reimagined from the perspective of the narrators’ …

Folk Narratives Of “The Wandering Jew” (Atu 777) In Latvian Folklore, Svetlana Pogodina

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

This essay reports field-collected texts of “The Wandering Jew” (ATU 777) recorded in the twentieth century in Latvia to determine if they are distinctive within the global tradition of the folk narrative. The Archives of Latvian Folklore (Latviešu folkloras krātuve) collection contains versions of the narrative recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. These texts have not previously been published in English translation. An interpretation is made that the narratives borrow elements from Jewish stereotypes that exist in a local folklore tradition. Comparing the Latvian material to the European and Slavic versions of the story of the Eternal Jew, a major …

Introduction: The Folklore And Ethnology Of Antisemitism, Simon J. Bronner

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

A global rise in incidents and beliefs in the twenty-first century that monitoring and polling organizations label “antisemitic” raises several questions addressed by contributors to this special issue. A basic one is definitional regarding discourse about the shifting meaning of antisemitism in light of post-Holocaust events and digital age communication. A historical question is whether contemporary forms of antisemitism are connected to or a break from the term’s nineteenth-century roots. Related to that issue in modern discourse is whether antisemitism is an umbrella concept or separate from anti-Judaism, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-Zionism movements. The materials of folklore—both as esoteric forms …

Review Of Supernatural: A History Of Television’S Unearthly Road Trip By Erin Giannini, Duane Ebesu

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

No abstract (book review)

Fostering Responsible Ai Use In Communication: An Integrated Approach To Digital Literacy Education, Omer Keynan, Liron Mishkin Drezner, Yuval Gozansky

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The paper presents an innovative approach to teaching digital literacy to eighty-two B.A. communication students, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI). Over a semester, students developed proficiency in using AI tools for content creation while exploring their ethical implications. The course integrated practical skills with ethical considerations, providing hands-on experience with AI platforms and facilitating critical discussions on issues such as AI biases. For their final projects, students created social media campaigns using AI tools, accompanied by introspective reports on their creative process and ethical reflections. We aimed to equip future communication professionals with skills to navigate AI-driven content creation responsibly. …

Mapping Media Literacy Assessment: A Systematic Review To Connect The Dots, Lara Azar, Casey Frechette, Hafsa Zia, Joy Amulya

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The goal of this study was to address persistent challenges in assessing media literacy by reviewing assessments developed between 2011 and 2020. We combined landscape analysis, research synthesis, and grounded theory to select assessments, identify key attributes, iteratively code, analyze, and create an integrated synthesis of approaches to media literacy assessments. The analysis classified media literacy constructs by learning dimension (knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors) and participation mode (consumption, engagement, creation). The results showed that while most assessments focused on consumption-oriented constructs, engagement- and creation-oriented constructs were also included. Assessments primarily served three research purposes: evaluating media literacy levels in populations, …

Fact-Checking In The University: The Experience Of The ‘Verificatón Electoral’ As A Model Of Teaching Innovation, Irene Larraz, Samuel Toledano, Jordi Rodríguez-Virgili, Félix Arias Robles, Ángeles Durán, Marta Pérez-Escolar, Rocío Zamora Medina, Rubén Ramos Antón, Óscar Espíritusanto Nicolás, Miguel Ángel Esteban Navarro, Marcos Bermejo Gil

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article analyzes the experience of Verificatón, a teaching innovation project based on a live fact-checking hackathon aimed at identifying and combating disinformation in the electoral context. The initiative, developed by the fact-checking media outlet Newtral in collaboration with nine Spanish universities, brought together a hundred journalism students. The results show that this experience facilitates the adoption of the fact-checking methodology in the students' professional practice and contributes to overcoming the competency gap in university journalism education. The case study validates this training proposal, which, framed within an electoral scenario, reinforces students’ learning of the role of critical thinking in …

Eschatological Echoes: Reading The Bible And The Harry Potter Series, Athira Mohan Dr

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Death has been a major topic in children’s and adolescent literature , which has invited scholarly discourse over different ages. While death was very commonly featured in the puritanical texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was also deemed to be a subject too sensitive for the genre of children’s literature in the early twentieth century(Aries 1975), due to a combination of factors such as lowered child mortality rate and heightened concern for childhood as a special social category. However, contemporary children’s and adolescent literature focuses on death as an important part of human life, and invites discussions on …

Ƒ(Enlightenment): A Complex Adaptive Systems Model Of Recursive Causality And Human Meaning-Making, Daniel Lambert

Dissertations and Theses

Conflict Resolution has developed as a richly interdisciplinary field; however, its theoretical architecture remains fragmented across distinct bodies of scholarship. Existing approaches offer valuable but often isolated explanations of conflict behavior, limiting their ability to account for its complexity. This thesis addresses this limitation by advancing systems science as an organizing framework for integrating these perspectives. It introduces the Human-Complex Adaptive Systems (H-CAS) framework, which conceptualizes human behavior as a recursive adaptive process operating across interconnected regulatory domains. Within this model, conflict is not treated as a discrete event or purely deliberative process, but as an emergent property arising from …

Cultural Humility, Reformation Of Power Structures, And Cultural Competence As Seeds And Fruits Of Interculturality, Doug Herbek

Obsculta

This piece examines how interculturality both promotes and is fostered by cultural humility, reformation of power structures, and development of cultural competence. As we pursue interculturality, we incarnate the Gospel. In the process, local church leadership becomes inclusive and integrative, worship becomes more heartfelt, and community and unity are fostered as we celebrate our differences.