Feeling Godly
Religious Affections and Christian Contact in Early North America
In 1746, Jonathan Edwards described his philosophy on the process of Christian conversion in “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.” For Edwards, a strict Congregationalist, true conversion is accompanied by a new heart and yields humility, forgiveness, and love—affections that work a change in the person’s nature. But, how did other early American communities understand religious affections […]
Rebecca Copeland: On learning to wear a kimono
With the publication of her first novel, “The Kimono Tattoo,” Rebecca Copeland moves from translation to fiction writing and brings a literary perspective to the cultural history of kimonos.
Lee selected as HistoryMakers ambassador
The HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral-history archive, has selected rising senior Jordan Lee as a 2021-22 Student Brand Ambassador.
University Libraries acquires papers of acclaimed author Charles Johnson
Washington University in St. Louis Libraries has acquired the collection of Charles Johnson, the acclaimed author, cartoonist and essayist who won the 1990 National Book Award for his novel “Middle Passage.”
The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction
The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction examines texts that portray the inner experience of Holocaust perpetrators and thus transform them from archetypes of evil into complex psychological and moral subjects. Employing relevant methodological tools of narrative theory, Erin McGlothlin analyzes these unsettling depictions, which manifest a certain tension regarding the ethics of […]
Valerio wins career fellowship
Miguel Valerio, assistant professor of Spanish in Arts & Sciences, has won a 2021–22 Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.
Yamamba
In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch
Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the fusion of mountains with the solitary old woman that produces such an enigmatic figure? And why does she still call to us in this modern, scientific era? Co-editors Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich […]
The Kimono Tattoo
“I jostled her shoulder and noticed when I did that her skin was cold to the touch….her entire torso was covered in tattoos from her collar bone to the midline of her thighs. All were of kimono motifs—fans, incense burners, peonies, and scrolls.” This ghastly scene was the last thing Ruth Bennett expected to encounter […]
Electrifying Mexico
Technology and the Transformation of a Modern City
Many visitors to Mexico City’s 1886 Electricity Exposition were amazed by their experience of the event, which included magnetic devices, electronic printers, and a banquet of light. It was both technological spectacle and political messaging, for speeches at the event lauded President Porfirio Díaz and bound such progress to his vision of a modern order. […]
Now playing: Propaganda at the movies
As China prepares for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party, thousands of theaters have been instructed to screen at least two propaganda films each week. But
political jargon and ideological mandates may not sit well with 21st-century moviegoers, argues Zhao Ma, associate professor of modern Chinese history and culture in Arts & Sciences.
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