N. Scott Momaday and the Kiowa People: Returning to Heritage

  By Heather Fabritze ’25 Majors: English and Communications & Media Studies; Minor: Journalism, Editing, & Publishing   Brief Description: A culmination paper of my research on the Kiowa Tribe’s history, cultural practices, and myths, as well as an analysis of Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday’s works. I tie together his motivations as an author…

Rejections of Patriarchal Authority and Expectations of Female Passivity in Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple

By Emma Reilly ’23 Majors: English, History; Minors: Journalism, Editing, & Publishing, Gender Studies Brief Description: My paper examines agency and authority in America’s first bestselling novel. Close readings and analyses of relevant paratexts position the novel as distinctly anti-patriarchal. I argue that instances of narratorial and character authority encourage a proto-feminist reading of a…

Elden Ring and the Monstrous Feminine

By Ally Allen ’24 Majors: English and Communications & Media Studies Brief Description: Some game journalists claim that FromSoftware has a “woman problem”. In this paper, I argue that in Elden Ring both Rennala and Melania are monstrously feminine, Rennala being the embodiment of the Monstrous Mother and Melania being the complex representation of abject…

The Values Necessary For a Healthy Nurse-Patient Relationship: How Compassion and Respect Help to Navigate Racism and Sexism From Alzheimer’s Patients

By Nora Beebe ’26 Majors: Philosophy and Political Science; Minor: Religious Studies Brief Description: This piece discusses the virtues needed by both patients and nurses when patients lack the ability for full cognitive function. This paper focus on African American female nurses and Alzheimer patients in order to emphasize how the intersectionality between race and…

Jane and Catherine Join Society: Northanger Abbey’s Plot and Publication

By Grace Hogsten ’25 Major: English; Minors: Gender Studies, Creative Writing, and Journalism, Editing, & Publishing The following was written for ENG 394: Jane Austen Although Northanger Abbey was one of the last of Jane Austen’s works to be published, it is one of her earlier written works. Before writing Northanger Abbey, Austen had not…

Financial Stability or Mutual Affection: What Makes a Happier Marriage?

By Delaney Runge ’24 Major: English; Minors: Education Studies, Journalism, Editing, and Publishing, and Creative Writing Brief Description: Within Jane Austen’s literature, the endings for characters are often happy, but ultimately make the reader think about their true implications. Through this essay, the marital outcomes of Elizabeth Bennet and close friend, Charlotte Lucas, are compared…

The Beginning of the End: Possibilities of the Posthuman in Frankenstein

By: Erica Quinones ’22 English and German Studies majors, Political Science and European Studies minors Abstract: This essay will explore Frankenstein as the stillbirth of a posthuman society, revealing insights into the social norms that Mary Shelley uses to define “human” and the structures therein. These insights arise by reading the Creature in Tandem with…

Voices of the Past

By Alaina Perdon ’22 Environmental Studies major, Anthropology and Chesapeake Regional Studies minors Brief Description: Both within and outside of the linguistic community, many consider modern humans to be the only beings in the evolutionary line capable of speech. This essay examines the biological and cultural evidence suggesting Neanderthals were capable of complex vocal communication…

Illegal Pangolin Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa and Its Reflection on the International Political Economy

What a “Scaly Anteater” Can Teach Us About International Relations and Informal Economic Sectors By Julianna Sterling ’23 International Studies, French and Economics majors Brief Description: An analysis on illegal trading and poaching of the African pangolin in the face of increasing Asian enterprise presence in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how these interactions can overshadow localized…

Magnifying Meaning: Making Sense of Annie Dillard’s Methods

By Analiese Bush ’22 Environmental Studies Brief Description: A review of writer Annie Dillard’s techniques and methods in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The following was written for American Environmental Writing (ENG 347). Magnifying Meaning: Making Sense of Annie Dillard’s Methods Have you ever gone herping? Herping is the act of going out and finding slippery…

Virginia Woolf’s Unrecognized Female Shakespeare: Margaret Cavendish

By: Megan Loock ’22 English major, Journalism Publishing and Editing minor Brief Description: This research paper is an extension of a presentation on philosopher and scientist Margaret Cavendish, her play Convent of Pleasure, and the play’s muti-disciplinary outreach. This paper dives deeper into the University College of Ripon and York St. John’s 1995 performance—the only…

British Abolition Movements and Romanticism

By: Liz Hay ’22 Economics and Humanities majors, Public Health minor Brief Description: This paper focuses on the connections between British Romanticism and abolition, particularly regarding how each movement influenced the characteristics and trajectory of the other. The paper analyzes specific Romantic representations of slavery and their relevance to the abolition movement. The argument concludes…

Inversion of the Serpent and a Queer Reading of Coleridge

By: Vee Sharp ’24 English and Art Majors with Art History concentration and Creative Writing minor Brief Description: Animals hold a very specific weight as symbols, a weight that shifts and changes depending on what culture one looks at them from. Living in a culture very much influenced by Christian symbolism, we tend to associate…

Writers Together Essay: Sappho and Jahan Khatun

By: Emma Russell ’23 English and Theatre majors, Journalism Publishing and Editing minor Brief Description: This piece is about the similarities between the Greek poet Sappho and the Injuid poet Jahan Khatun’s work. Sappho is famous for being regarded as a lesbian due to how she writes her poetry. Jahan Khatun writes similarly to Sappho,…

Mitigating Risk While Maintaining Community: An Examination of the Effect of the Rise in Antisemitism on the American Reform Jewish Community

By: Kat DeSantis ’22, a Political Science and Philosophy major. The following was created for the Roy Ans Research Fellowship on the Study of Jewish Life and Thought at Washington College. Brief description: “Mitigating Risk While Maintaining Community: An Examination of the Effect of the Rise in Antisemitism on the American Reform Jewish Community” examines…

STEM in Politics

By: Iyonna Young ’22, a Business Management and Political Science major, and Spanish minor. The following work was created for POL 390: Political Science Internship. Brief description: Have you ever noticed that your congressperson may not actually have a thorough or complete idea about the science behind much of the legislation they present? STEM and its…