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Review of \u3ci\u3eThe Life of Madam de Beaumount and The Life of Charlotta Du Pont\u3c/i\u3e, edited by David A. Brewer. Broadview Press, 2023. Pp. 312. $22.95. ISBN: 978-1554813537.
Get PDFGod’s Magician: The Legacy of Merlin in the Writings of Gerald of Wales and Robert de Boron
Get PDFThis paper explores the role of Merlin and magic in the writings of two early 13th century authors, Gerald of Wales and Robert de Boron, and seeks to outline more clearly the ambiguous figure of the priest-magician in the literature of this time period. Although scholars have thoroughly explored the relationship of magic, religion, and science in the High Middle Ages, little work has been done on the innovative moves these two writers make as they seek to navigate the nebulous space between medieval Catholicism and occult practice. Through a study of Gerald’s ethnographic and autobiographical works and Robert’s Arthurian prose cycle, I reveal the uses to which two writers put Merlin and the magical arts in their explicitly Christian political and cultural projects. While Gerald seeks to coopt the role of Merlin to further his own political and ecclesial rise in Angevin England, Robert imagines a sacral role for kingship that serves the eucharistic rite and so gives existential and spiritual purpose to Western European cultural identity. Both writers use Merlin and magical practice as tools to further their goals highlighting and further complicating the ambiguous relationship between religion and magic during the 12th and 13th centuries
Lived Experiences In The North Korean Correctional Labor Camps: A Qualitative Study On Health, Healthcare, And Resilience In North Korean Refugees.
Get PDFRefugee populations fled their country of origin to escape violence, poverty, or persecution. North Korean refugees are no exception, evident by the reports of famine, economic inequality, and human rights violations in correctional labor camps. The North Korean correctional labor camps have been compared to Gulags, but the existence of these prisons has not been confirmed by the United Nations. An empirical study which detailed the daily environment and experiences in these camps was needed. However, literature also revealed a need for narrative of agency in refugee populations. Drawn upon the content analysis of transcribed interviews with North Korean refugees (N=34), I argue that the social suffering of North Korean prisoners’ bare life promoted the formation of social networks in and out of the prison. The interviews were translated from Korean to English using DeepL, and 1000+ pages were uploaded to Atlas.ti 24.2.1 for analysis. Based on the interviews, bare life was evident by the harsh environment and working conditions. Additionally, a dependence on social networks was required to survive the prison environment. This dependence on networks challenged the notion of self-reliance, a foundation to North Korea’s dominant political ideology called the Juche. This created a counter-hegemony to the Juche philosophy and manifested in prisoners’ behaviors as hidden transcripts. Global and gendered health implications are discussed in relation to the study’s findings
In Defense of Disobedience: Radical Acts of Agency in Fairy Tale
No full textThis project examines the “Bluebeard” fairy tale, investigating the transgressive potential if acts of disobedience to create agency. It introduces the field of fairy tale scholarship, the history of the genre and its vogue in 17th-century France. Adding to the field of study, this piece puts forward that understanding the “Bluebeard” tales from a strictly patriarchal view diminishes the constant core of the story that remains through three centuries of retellings. Charles Perrault, who wrote the first published version of “Bluebeard”, had a social agenda that was situated in a gendered hierarchy, and his portrayal of the tale influenced how it moved forward in time. Perrault’s narrative focuses on curiosity and disobedience as vices, thus vilifying the feminine protagonist. By looking at other variants and modern retellings, it becomes clear that “Bluebeard” is a tale of resistance against oppressive structures and that disobedience is a life-saving mechanism. Disobedience creates agency for fairy tale characters where they may otherwise be harmed and allows them to move forward to defeat their villains. This project argues that there must always be “Bluebeard” stories to tell, so long as agents of oppression are allowed to continue cycles of violence
Talktistic: how autistic speech variants facilitate communication
No full textSpeech patterns that are commonly associated with autistic individuals, like hyper-articulation, echolalia, and literality serve communicative functions that are often overlooked. These speech patterns are pathologized in allistic (non autistic) communities, causing indelible harm to everyone who internalizes the concept of a lesser form of language. Originally published as an Instagram campaign, this project works to decenter allistic normativity and reframe autistic speech variants through an assets based lens. With examples from popular media and research based in both scholarly and in-community perspectives, this work provides tools to autistic people that aid them in recognizing and valuing their language
Early Supports: Measuring the Presence of Community in the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department
No full textComing out of COVID-19, the transition from virtual to in-person was marked by the rebuilding of communities that had disappeared or adapted during the pandemic. Healthcare fields in particular saw an increased number of medical providers experiencing occupational burnout associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) Department at Western Washington University houses speech language pathologists and audiologists as staff and faculty and prepares students to become medical providers in clinical settings. This project conducted a general survey and an undergraduate interview to measure the current perceived community within the CSD department after COVID-19, as well as the importance of community in the lives of those in the department. Due to the nature of the survey, all findings cannot be ruled as conclusive, but rather trends between groups of people in the department. The study found patterns of differences in perceived community within the department based on department roles from an anonymous online survey. Undergraduates reported feeling the least amount of community and knowing the least about resources available to them. The interviews focused on undergraduate experiences in the department, including ways that they felt more community could be fostered and ways that the community currently welcomes people in
Making Space for Climate Migrants: Exploring Urban Policies to Support Climate Displaced Populations
No full textGlobal climate change is leading to increased migration and displacement, within countries and internationally between countries. These influxes of migrants are often unsupported by policy in their new cities, leading to many negative impacts such as lower per capita income, homeownership rates, and educational attainment rates. The lack of policy support is prohibitive towards placemaking, which is a migrant’s ability to make a new place feel like a home. In creating policy to support climate migrants and placemaking within those communities, cities should embrace flexibility and informality, practice proper hazard mitigation to ensure that migrants do not end up back at risk, and work to build spaces that promote building social capital. Understanding the trauma of environmental disasters compounded with dislocation and the social stressors of adjusting to a new place highlights the importance of utilizing trauma-informed design. This toolkit provides a guide for cities in creating policy accordingly
Security & Privacy in Online Healthcare
No full textWith the rapid growth of the telehealth industry following the COVID-19 pandemic, government regulations have struggled to address emerging privacy and ethical concerns. During my senior research at WWU, my group developed a functional telehealth platform but we lacked the time to explore the issues that we uncovered in depth. This paper extends that work by investigating privacy risks, unethical data practices, and user manipulation tactics in online healthcare platforms. It draws from my group\u27s comparative analysis, psychological studies, and real-world lawsuits to highlight gaps in current protections. Finally, it proposes both technical and policy-based solutions to improve transparency, user control, and data security in future telehealth systems
Finding Space for the Island Marble Butterfly: Modeling the Habitat of a Highly Endangered Endemic Butterfly in the Salish Sea Ecoregion
No full textThe island marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides insulanus) is an extremely endangered butterfly found only on islands in the Salish Sea ecoregion. The butterfly relies on coastal prairies for habitat; these prairies have become extremely rare because of habitat destruction, severely limiting the amount of available habitat for the butterfly, which now exists at a single site on a single island. Species that only exist at a single site face a high risk of extinction, so finding more habitat for the island marble butterfly is a crucial component of its conservation. I created habitat suitability models to find more habitat for the butterfly in the Salish Sea ecoregion. These models indicate that the fundamental niche of the butterfly is primarily limited by precipitation and that suitable habitat for the butterfly is limited to areas where its host plants can grow within the rainshadows of the Olympic Mountains and Vancouver Island Ranges. Much of the highest-quality potential habitat is located in the San Juan Islands and on Whidbey Island, but additional potential habitat exists on the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island. Because most potential habitat for the butterfly is located in and around agricultural fields, cooperation with farmers is essential for the butterfly’s conservation. While the island marble may be able to tolerate warmer and drier summers, the indirect effects of climate change such as shifts in phenology and an increase in extreme weather events such as storm surges pose the highest long-term threat to the butterfly’s survival outside of habitat loss. Preserving the butterfly’s current habitat and creating more habitat for the butterfly, especially on San Juan Island, should be the first priority of conservation practitioners working with the species
Spatiotemporal Variability in Water Properties at a Newly Constructed Clam Garden: The Influence of Physical Forcing Mechanisms
No full textWater properties in the intertidal vary on hourly and seasonal time scales, bringing change to this unique marine habitat. The impact of water properties and their associated variability on intertidal organisms is dependent on their tidal depth, the magnitude of the tide, and the ability to flee abnormal conditions. In the Salish Sea, clams are an important traditional food sourced from the intertidal that have served as a reliable protein source for millennia. Many coastal Indigenous communities utilized unique management strategies to increase traditional food security spanning from prairies to beaches. Clam gardens, also known as sea gardens to some communities, are one of these management tools. Clam gardening is a traditional mariculture technique that alters beach slope in the intertidal, increasing available optimal clam habitat. These structures have been noted to increase the biomass and growth rate of butter and littleneck clams.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community is building a clam garden on Kiket Island as a biocultural restoration project to revive this traditional practice and improve climate resiliency. The SITC fisheries department is conducting a long-term water property monitoring study to complement traditional knowledge of clam gardens and understand the changes in water properties as they relate to the presence of a clam garden. Here, I quantify the spatial and temporal variance in water properties at this newly constructed clam garden compared to an unwalled neighboring beach. The water properties included in this observational study are: temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH and chlorophyll concentration. Each of the water properties recorded in this monitoring study play an important role in clam’s individual biology, life history patterns and population dynamics. The variance in these properties can be attributed to both physical and biologic processes, though here I focus on physical processes. Tidal exchange is a dominating influence leading to the variance at the Swinomish clam garden. River discharge and localized weather events also influence the variance of water properties at synoptic frequencies. This study provides context for conditions that shape the intertidal zone, including the clam garden, while encouraging informed management decisions to support a healthy and sustainable ecosystem in the Salish Sea