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A Social Change-Maker and a Dreamer: Olive Schreiner’s Figures for an Ideal Future
Get PDFSocial activist, theorist, and author Olive Schreiner dreamed and demanded that others dream as well. Living in the Victorian era, a time of extreme change but also rigid cultural values, she dreamed about an ideal future characterized by gender equality, sexual equality, and racial equality not just in her own “homes” of England and South Africa, but globally. However, for Schreiner, dreaming was not enough; we must act on our dreams in order to make the necessary social change to reach an ideal future. Schreiner acted on her own dreams for social change throughout her life by theorizing, joining important social movements, and combining each of those actions into her art of writing; these efforts were not mutually exclusive. Schreiner saw the importance of the work itself. The beauty is in what we do to attain our goals. The beauty is in how we get to a more just future. Important biographical moments and pieces of her political writing paired with her allegories titled Dreams unite to illustrate a radical social change-maker demanding progress from others as well as from Schreiner herself
Embodying \u3ci\u3eEveryman\u3c/i\u3e: Allegory in Medieval and Contemporary Performance
Get PDFMany scholars and theater artists accuse the Middle English morality play Everyman of being tedious, dry, or just plain boring due to its overt literal, religious, and dramatic allegory. However, when allegorical modes are placed in the theatrical sphere, an inherently fictional space curated for the purposes of exploration, allegory can yield discovery through personal interpretation achieved through theatrical meaning-making. This paper provides a deep examination of allegory, specifically in performance and in Everyman, arguing in favor of its relevance through prompting reevaluations and yielding subsequent revelations
The Impact of a California Clean Air Regulation on Infant Birth Weight: The Case for a Check Engine Light
Get PDFThis paper aims to analyze the effectiveness of California\u27s Clean Air regulations. Using historical data on infant birthweights from the NCHS, a Difference in Differences (DID) model will demonstrate changes in birthweight after the enforcement of a 1988 regulation. The regulation analyzed affected new cars, mandating that manufacturers install on board diagnostics (OBD) systems on all new vehicles in the state. In the case of the DID, California acts as the treatment, and the neighboring states will act as controls. This is due in part to limitations in the data with regional variables. The analysis also aims to measure the effectiveness of the policies on the basis of environmental indicators as well. This data was made publicly available by the EPA. These variables measure levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) levels. The findings of this research conclude that the enactment of this regulation may have had positive short-term effects on air quality as well as infant birthweight. There exist further opportunities to delve into this research looking at either a longer period or using more specific regional variables than made publicly available in the aforementioned data sets
Adapting to Adaptation: Turning YA Literature into Television
Get PDFI have always loved film and television, whether for casual consumption or academic pursuits. Throughout my time as an English and American Studies double major (and almost a Media and Film Studies minor), I have opted to study film and TV at every chance I could. In my junior year I began writing my own film, and I completed that film in the first half of senior year. When entering my final year of the English major and faced with making a decision surrounding my capstone, I was simultaneously deciding whether or not to pursue graduate studies in screenwriting. As I realized that my current career goal is to become a published screenwriter, I decided that I wanted to tackle a project that had been lying dormant in my head for years; adapting one of my favorite YA novels, Gone by Michael Grant, into a television show. This book was a major formative moment in my childhood, with its many intersectional representations that marked my first encounters with queerness, racial differences, and disability. On top of the positive social messages that the story promotes, the visual description in the book is immaculate, and makes translating it for the screen an easier challenge (but a challenge nonetheless). I was not only interested in the creative piece, however, as my academic career at Skidmore has always involved research. I also wanted to look at studies on adaptation, and discover what the implications of adaptation often are. Ultimately, I settled on pursuing a televisual adaptation of Gone because it synthesized all the different aspects of my academic career that I enjoy and am passionate about, as well as my career goals for the future
You Your Best Thing”: The Anti-Colonial Power of the Mind in Black and Chicanx American Literature
Get PDFIn the year 1987, two of the most important American writers of the twentieth century, Toni Morrison and Gloria Anzaldúa, published what many consider to be their respective magnum opuses: Morrison’s Beloved and Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In these groundbreaking texts, Morrison and Anzaldúa boldly confront the complex legacies of American imperialism and slavery, examining the effect colonization has had on their respective communities, ancestors, and selves. In this essay, I argue that literature emerging from marginalized communities within the United States can and should be considered among global postcolonial texts; Morrison and Anzaldúa illustrate the ways in which internalized colonialism harms and perpetuates colonization within their communities. Ultimately, though, they suggest that decolonization is possible through a rejection of these racist, colonialist projections