Publisher's Synopsis
Welcome to Volume 5 of Proto: An Undergraduate Humanities Journal. We are again pleased by the variety of perspectives and scholarly approaches taken by our contributors. We are also glad to have more colleges and universities represented not just in the table of contents, but also in the submission pile. The theme for Volume 5 is "Take Two: Revisiting the Past." As you will see, a number of papers focus on both major and relatively obscure moments in history, distant as well as fairly recent. Nicole Ayasse looks at the poetry generated by the Occupy Wall Street movement in relation to the Beat poets and their tradition of deploying poetry in the service of political protest. While the Soviet Union no longer exists, Benjamin Israel finds fascinating contributions of early Soviet comedy to film. Closer to home, Rebecca Kaler studies the significance of the railroad in the life of the small town of Brunswick, Maryland from the nineteenth century to the present day. Patricia Hall re-examines the relationship between Christianity and imperialism, which has often been seen as purely working hand-in-glove with one another. Meanwhile, using a variety of photos, advertisements and images, Michael Abrams examines the concept of the New Woman as she appeared in magazine advertisements from the 1920s. Diana Wu provides an insightful interpretation of gender relationships within Kate Chopin's The Awakening by applying different theories of the gaze and visuality. We are also featuring two papers that are not directly related to this volume's theme. Sarah Rubinstein, writing originally in French, but also translating her own paper into English, analyzes Céline Sciamma's film Tomboy in terms of transgender identity and the film's interrogation of French society's binary views of gender. Closing this volume is Nicholas Sungenis, whose paper interweaves the ideas of eudaimonia in Aristotle with the musical thoughts of Hildegard von Bingen. Each accepted submission to Proto is reviewed by at least two members of the Editorial Board, which consists of professors in the Mid-Atlantic region. And each year the reviewers express surprise and gratitude at the range of intellectual interests and directions pursued by today's students.
