Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The House Of Our Gods, Reyna Collazo

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

3-D

Lingua Mortium: The Case For Classical Language Studies, Kadee Swanson

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

In recent decades, the world has seen an overall decrease in participation and programs for Latin and ancient Greek language studies in favor of modern languages with more of a “practical” application. This essay means to assert the continued relevance of classical language studies whilst simultaneously acknowledging and exploring the socio-economic barriers facing potential learners. The prevalence of Latin and ancient Greek in English and other Romance languages and the academic advantage associated with learning the languages makes an argument for their modern purpose. However, issues of classism and elitism are intertwined with the learning of classical languages in academia. …

How Technology Is Exacerbating The Mental Health Epidemic, Dhruv Schultz

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

Every year, technology of all mediums seems to make its way further into our lives. Offering unparalleled value in the workplace and classroom, as well as entertainment in our personal lives, it’s no wonder the world is becoming digital. However, this rapid digitalization may come at a hefty price. As technology becomes more integrated into daily life, mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction are on the rise. This research paper aims to explore the correlations between technology use and mental health, asking the question: to what extent is excessive technology use contributing to the mental health crisis? …

The Efficacy Of A Carbon Tax In Modern-Day America, Paige Adkins

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

Exploring how effective a carbon tax in the United States would be when considering the social, economic, and political factors its legislation would harbor. Delving into five articles and data analysis through a lens of critical thinking, the bias in studies conducted about the tax is examined, and further external implementation factors are considered. Flaws in scientific reasoning and inconsistencies among sources are discussed, and taken into consideration when determining a carbon tax’s efficacy. Driven by logic, these sources are put under the microscope to ultimately determine how beneficial a carbon tax would be without skewed opinions shaping its conclusion. …

Celebration Of Writing, John Ogan

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

For my project in Honors English Composition II, I researched, designed, and presented a program about the human invention of writing to an English as a Second Language class. My presentation focused on the moment of transition from Sumerian clay envelopes and tokens to cuneiform tablets. The historical portion was presented in slideshow format, and then we created clay envelopes together. Instead of placing tokens inside, each participant wrote a message to themselves on a piece of pa per and sealed them inside. The recreations serve as a source of inspiration and a reminder of the unique human achievement of …

Elizabeth I: The Queen With The Heart Of A King, Lloyd Guirola

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

I am writing a historical paper on Queen Elizabeth I for the symposium program; in my paper, I will discuss why Queen Elizabeth I was the greatest monarch in English history. In the paper, I am discussing why Queen Elizabeth I was the greatest English monarch based on various topics such as her resilience, dedication to the people and her kingdom, intelligence, foresight, and of course, her overall bravery. I will discuss various points where these topics can be seen and identified in her life. Faculty Sponsor: Professor Maria Ritzema

The Connection Between An Immoral Artist And Their Work, Emily Barbosa

COD Library Student Research and Award Symposium

Art holds significant value in our lives as it expresses emotions, serves as means of communication, and presents diverse perspectives. How ever, the appreciation for art may diminish if the artist is perceived as immoral or unethical. Various philosophical, moral, and literary perspectives are employed to examine whether or not it is possible to separate an artist from their work.

Faculty Sponsor: Professor Kelly Kristof

Power, Pleasure, And Privilege: Defining Depauw’S Hookup Culture And Its Mental Health Implications, Reanna Stiehler '23

Senior Scholarly and Creative Symposium

Hookup culture is not primarily about sex, pleasure, connection, or freedom. Hookup culture is about power—how power is used, distributed, and desired. Previous work in hookup culture discusses a discourse of desire; however, the root and nature of this desire are unclear. I posit that hookup culture, as it currently exists, is strongly related to rape culture. In this thesis, I will explicate my anecdotal, qualitative, and quantitative evidence supporting this hypothesis.

This thesis provides an overview of what hookup culture is at a broad level. It then focuses more specifically on defining it at DePauw and considering the impact …

Women Who Kill: Providing And Justifying Alternative Legal Pathways To The Use Of Battered Women Syndrome As Self-Defense, Sara Das '23

Senior Scholarly and Creative Symposium

Legal scholars have been grappling with how to handle legal cases concerning battered women since the 70s. Lenore Walker argued that battered women have a condition called battered woman syndrome that alters their perceptions. The cases by themselves do not fulfill requirements for self-defense, a justification doctrine nor duress, an excuse doctrine. I argue that battered women should be excused, not through using battered women syndrome to support pre-existing claims, but instead by using other psychological research to support Morse’s partial excuse doctrine. The first part of the paper argues why battered woman syndrome does not work as a psychological …

Curt Flood V. Major League Baseball: The Intersection Of Race And Labor In America, Jack Fitzgerald '23

Senior Scholarly and Creative Symposium

On October 6, 1969, long-time St. Louis Cardinals' center fielder Curt Flood was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. The Major League Baseball labor system bound a player to one team, with the team being able to trade players at will and set their salaries. Flood, who was involved with entrepreneurial and philanthropic efforts in St. Louis, rejected his trade to Philadelphia and sued Major League Baseball. This paper examines the implications of Curt Flood’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball on sports labor and compares that to other labor movements in the United States. It argues that Curt Flood’s legacy must …

London's Handwriting: The Typeface Of Public Transportation, Alexandria Hamlin

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Graphic Design

Droidaken Hollow, Jennifer Trahant

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

3-D

Trash Can Be Treasure, Aunna Leach

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

3-D

Bioluminescent Jellyfish, Isabella Kosiba

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

3-D

Your Kingdom Come: Heaven As Described By Its Creator, Calian Chambers

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

2-D

Artistic And Cultural Impacts Of Impressionism, Lauren Booth

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

2-D

Depravity Of The Abyss: Feeding Your Spirit, Sebastian Lammers

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

2-D

Canine Conquests, Rachel Hughes

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

2-D

Music & Synesthesia: An Exploration Of Synesthesia And Its Relation To Musical Perception, Raquel S. Johnson

Pacific Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference (PURCC)

This research investigates synesthesia and its impact on musical perception. Synesthesia is the multimodal sensory phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sensory modality generates the experience of a second, otherwise unrelated sense. Discussed topics include: a description of synesthesia and its neurophysiological and perceptual characteristics, the historical conceptualization and documentation of synesthesia beginning with the ancient Greeks, and present-day scientific inquiry. This research explores three varying types of auditory synesthesia - chromesthesia (sound-to-color synesthesia), auditory-tactile synesthesia, and sound-gustatory/sound-olfactory synesthesia - and their multimodal sensory characteristics in relation to music. Prominent neurophysiological hypotheses regarding the existence of synesthesia are examined, …

Marina Abramović: Conveying Pain Through Performance, Danielle Filiowich

Student Academic Conference

A speech about Marina Abramović, some of her most well known pieces, and how that by being a woman performance artist, she injects a deeper meaning within her work.

Death And Vengeance Behind Every Corner: The Great Purge And The Psychology Of Joseph Stalin, Isabella Gurin

Young Historians Conference

Under Joseph Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union, the Purges, or “repressions” as they are now known in Russia, led to the direct and indirect deaths of an estimated twenty million people through starvation, executions, and forced labor camps. As the uncontested dictator of the Soviet Union for nearly twenty-five years, Stalin made no attempt to gain popular support among his nation but enforced his interpretation of communist-socialist rule by means of unremitting oppression and terror. Why did he utilize such vindictive measures? Was it his absolute aversion to any authority and ruthless insistence on total control at all times? …

Machiavelli's The Prince: Utopia And Dystopia, Lea Yonago

Young Historians Conference

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is regarded as one of the first works of political realism, a text that put power and pragmatism before all else. I speculate that Machiavelli took absolutism as a point of departure because he was attempting to regain Medici favor. However, his commitment to a prince and its corresponding praxis exemplifies the power of utopia. Along the lines of Lezsek Kolakowski, “utopia” here refers to a state of social consciousness that is an inevitable product of developing historical conditions. Without utopias, there could be no social subject which processes and shapes the world. Antonio Gramsci would …

The Court Of Versailles Under Lou’S Xiv: Home To The Desperate, The Destitute, And The Debauched, Evelyn L. Cooper

Young Historians Conference

“A nobleman, if he lives in his providence, lives free but without substance; if he lives at Court, he is taken care of, but enslaved.” A quote by a contemporary of Louis XIV, King of France and resident of Le Château de Versailles, Jean de La Bruyère reveals the more intricate reality of the Court in seventeenth century France. Versailles was not merely a royal spectacle, nor another French palace, it was a highly politicized project undertaken by Louis XIV with the express intent to devastate the noble class. This paper explores the means by which Louis weaponized Versailles and …

“An Impediment To Those Who Would Walk The Difficult Way”: How St. Francis Of Assisi’S Revolution In Catholic Thought Was Built On The Perceived Inferiority Of Femininity, Julian F. Balsley

Young Historians Conference

St. Francis of Assisi is undoubtedly one of the most famous saints in the Catholic Church. Known for his complete poverty and deep love for the poor and animals, the Little Poor Man of Assisi has become renowned for his way of life and the fraternity he started that has continued for over eight hundred years. In an organization rife with cardinal sin, Francis was in stark contrast with his asceticism and rankless order. However, St. Francis’ entire ideology is built on the Catholic belief that women are inherently inferior to men and dangerous to those following God. Francis used …

Most Vulgar And Barbarous: A History Of Tattoo Stigma, Sophie Luzier

Young Historians Conference

For thousands of years, tattoos have been used cross-culturally for purposes ranging from religious affiliation to ritual. Still, many societies today associate tattoos with deviance and criminality, making it difficult for tattooed people to find employment and acceptance within society. This negative stigma can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece, when tattoos were used to mark slaves and prisoners of war. Other examples are given from Dynastic China, Japan, the American circus, and the Holocaust. This examination of tattoo stigma throughout history exposes larger patterns of racism, hegemony, and ostracism, and gives us an awareness of social …

Odysseus Of The Arctic: The Epic Of John Franklin And The Search For His Lost Expedition, Andy Manne

Young Historians Conference

This paper examines and maps the reasons for the lasting impression and legacy of the search for Sir. John Franklin's disappeared 1845 expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, burgeoning British Arctic exploration provided a rich foundation for serialized narratives, which, as they played off sentiments of national ambition and imperial pride, inspired a romanticization of the Arctic region and the men who explored it. The search for John Franklin's missing expedition became the epicenter of this trend due to the search efforts of his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, and the controversial findings …

The Contribution Of Domestic And International Conflict In Renaissance Italy To The Sport Of Fencing, Amelia E. Nason

Young Historians Conference

Fencing, the art or practice of attack and defense with the foil, épée, or saber, has progressed over hundreds of years from the warfare of Germanic tribes to a regulated Olympic sport. This paper investigates the development of fencing during the fifteenth and sixteenth century Italian Renaissance and outlines a variety of ways that fencing culture mirrored Italy’s at the time, demonstrating that Italian fencing was a product of both international and domestic conflict beyond the sport itself. The competitive cultural influence of aesthetic epicenters such as the Florentine Republic over other European countries—particularly France, Spain, and Italy—was paralleled by …

Rite To Death, Left To Life: Death Ritual As A Cross-Cultural Unit Of Analysis, Ro M. Runkel

Young Historians Conference

Death ritual is a nearly ubiquitous aspect of life within civilization, and serves the purpose of reconciling the logical positivist societal constructions that uphold social order with the fundamentally logic-breaking nature of death. This paper posits that death ritual serves as a strong cross-cultural unit of analysis as it provides insight into the defining socio-cultural traits and spiritual outlooks of different cultures. This unit of analysis is applied to Song-era Ch’an Buddhism, pre-colonial Hindu India, and Maori death ritual. For each of these examples, death rites are connected to aspects of art, culture, social organization, and spirituality or religion, and …

A Double Edged Blade: Contrasting Theories Of Dissection Within 16th Century Italy, Sarah Zdebski

Young Historians Conference

Up until the Middle Ages, dissection was largely nonexistent. Gory and unsettling to the modern eye, physicians and anatomists alike agreed that animal dissections and comparative anatomies were more than sufficient to map out the human body. When academic dissections did begin to occur with regularity, they were rigid and formal in nature, relying on inaccurate anatomical texts written over a millennia ago by the Greek physician Galen. Dissection was a visual exercise, conducted primarily in Italian universities to provide a gory illustration for the medical student. The established format for dissection at the beginning of the 16^th century …

The History Of Vampire Folklore: Fear And Introspection 2000 Bce.-2000 Ce., Poppy N. Baxter Game

Young Historians Conference

The History of Vampire Folklore: Fear and Introspection, 2000 BCE.-2000 CE., is an exploration of the history of vampire folklore and how legends of vampires have influenced the behaviors of different cultures for centuries. Chapter one “Ancient and Classical Vampire Legends” begins with examples of pre-Christian vampire mythology including the vampire king Abhartach from Celtic Ireland, Classical Greecian vampires, Lilith as she is depicted in Sumer, as well the Old Testament during the Talmudic period of Hebrew mythology, and finally the Rakasha from Ancient Indian legends. “Slavic Vampire Folklore” concerns European vampires, more specifically the three types of vampires in …