This was presented at the 2019 Undergraduate Symposium.

In this article, I consider three influential poets of the Great War: Siegfried Sassoon, Charles Hamilton Sorley and Rupert Brooke. Since the birth of the modernist movement, the historical legacy of Great War poetry has tended to focus on the differing levels of “disenchantment” expressed in the works of these three poets when considered separately, applauding Sassoon and Sorley and criticizing Brooke. While I recognize a separation of the works of Brooke from those of Sorley and Sassoon in terms of (...) modernist disillusionment, I argue that analysing instead the literary elements which unify the works of all three poets offers a comprehensive understanding of the experience of trench warfare experience, unavailable through traditional methods of evaluating Great War poetry. (shrink)

In the 1880s and 1890s, the British Isles-Ireland especially-experienced a Celtic Literary Revival. Drawing on both history and religion, this revival focused on aspects of old Celtic spirituality and how their beliefs were intertwined with the natural world around them. While not everyone was sympathetic to this sense of spirituality and nostalgia, the revival did gain traction amongst many authors of the time. Using the works of influential writers like William Butler Yeats and the Rhymers Club, this paper seeks to (...) explore how Celtic spirituality was being rediscovered and interpreted during the late Victorian period. (shrink)

One of the most enduring legacies of the Cold War period was the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. This is especially true if one considers the ‘Space Race,’ of the mid 1950s-1960s, where each country tried to out-do the other in all manner of space technology. This paper, while acknowledging the importance held by military and scientific goals, argues that it was matters of nationalism and prestige that provided the biggest motivation for the creation of new (...) space technologies during this time. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the smuggling of tea during the long eighteenth century through several facets. In order to understand why smuggling occurred throughout the eighteenth century, one must take into consideration the laws which necessitated the need for smuggling, as well as the economic environment of Britain throughout the century. In addressing the widescale phenomena of ritualized tea drinking, one can comprehend why tea, specifically, was selected to be smuggled, admittedly among a myriad of other valuable commodities. It (...) is also critical to explore the materiality of tea ritual, as well as the smuggling process, as objects are a crucial element to the narrative and development of tea and its associated illicit activities. Bringing these components of examination together, one may begin to understand why tea was smuggled during the eighteenth century, and how the British government consequently worked to end smuggling altogether. (shrink)

This paper interacts specifically with two separate texts, that is Michel de Certeau’s The Possession at Loudun and Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. Both of these texts present a narrative of religious turmoil, demonic possessions and a heretical Inquisition, respectively, and the events which surround a single religious dissenter. Examining the two heretical men presented within these texts in comparison allows for an understanding of Catholic Church dogma during the age of (...) the Counter Reformation, and how such an institution managed threats, both external and internal. Moreover, this paper also examines the methodologies behind the historical discourse, in order to understand the validity of the narratives presented, and the scope of historical depth sought. Addressing methodology is crucial when one narrows focus to two singular case studies by two separate historians. Thus, this paper intends to illustrate the threats to normative religious discourse which Urbain Grandier and Menocchio possessed in the face of the Catholic Church, while also demonstrating the methodologies by which the two men are presented within their respective histories. (shrink)

Much of Edmonton’s municipal past lacked any overarching development plan. Once such absentee municipal planning gave way to more concrete forms of municipal planning in terms of shaping the urban environment, conflicting goals soon emerged. Between 1949 and the early 1980s a conflict in planning goals within both the Edmonton District Planning Commission and the City of Edmonton, at this time governed with a commission board became apparent. Often this conflict played out in Edmonton’s river valley with competing visions of (...) preservation and freeway construction. River valley neighborhoods were threatened with land acquisition policies that viewed the river valley as the sole domain of parkland. Concurrently, those neighborhoods and much of the river valley were also threatened by the Metropolitan Edmonton Transportation Study. Citizen engagement in an otherwise politically apathetic city led to its demise, although the threat of large-scale removal of river valley parks and homes throughout the city loomed for some time. The period between 1949 and 1983 represents a period in Edmonton’s history where environmental protection policy clashed with transportation policy that advocated for the wholesale destruction of the river valley and countless homes. It is this conflict that led to increased political awareness that directly contributed to the demise of the METS scheme and gave rise to renewed support for river valley protection while making rapid transit a possibility for Edmonton. (shrink)

The era of post-modernity has completely changed the way that we see, recognize and question the world, and what we accept to be true. During and after the 1960s many witnessed the rise of a greater multiplicity of local narratives. Prior to this, the grand narratives of the past, such as religion, the Enlightenment, and science were taken as whole, singular truths. However, such metanarratives tend to ignore the individual experiences that do not fit neatly into categories constructed by major (...) institutional authorities. This disconnection from the personal pushed more people to doubt, in favour of the narrative where the Self is visible and heard. It can be argued that this revolution in thought, and meaning and narrative-making in America grew after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. By examining Jean-Francois Lyotard’s theory of postmodernity, and those who expanded on his ideas, we can highlight how the assassination of JFK marked the onset and rise of the postmodern conspiracy theory. This includes the deconstruction of trust, the breakdown of “objective” reality and identity markers as well as the use of new mass media technologies, such as the film camera and the television. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between Christian persecution under Roman authorities in Late Antiquity and the role that consumption rituals played within it. Considering the similarities between condemned pagan and gnostic consumption rituals, which were often accused of being cannibalistic orgies, this paper determines whether comparisons drawn between these condemned rituals and Christian ones had any tangible similarities, or if Roman authorities projected their prejudices and knowledge of pagan rituals onto the Christian in order to justify their continued persecution.

This paper focuses on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the concentrated effort to shift away from the teachings of the Catholic Church and towards a rational science rooted in scholastic thought which did not rely on Divine causes and cures for illness. By looking at the growth of the medical programs in Paris and Salerno, northern versus southern trends and attitudes, and the deep influence of not only Christian rituals, but also pagan popular culture, this essay aims to explore (...) the exact nature of the relationship between religion and medicine, and the mediating role that superstition played between them. (shrink)

A selection of poems from a chapbook research creation regarding the mystery of the printing and distribution of the Treaty 6 parchment. Treaty 6 was signed in 1876 with the promise of parchment copies to be delivered to the signatories the following year. This delivery did not occur. A copy of the parchment with unknown provenance is housed in Bruce Peel Special Collections at the University of Alberta. These poems are part of an ongoing research project examining the implications of (...) one-sided document access in a nation-to-nation agreement. (shrink)

Michel de Certeau’s 1970 monograph The Possession at Loudun recounts a series of alleged demonic possessions at the Ursuline convent in Loudun, France, in the 1630s. These events led to the arrest of a local priest, Urbain Grandier, who was charged as a sorcerer and executed for his supposed crimes. Rather than seeking to verify the truth of the possessions, this paper analyses them through a feminist lens, suggesting that the state of ‘possession’ gave the afflicted nuns an agency which (...) was otherwise unavailable to them. Under the leadership of their clever prioress Jeanne des Anges, the possessed women used their new agency to target and eliminate Grandier, who can be seen as a representative or scapegoat for the patriarchy as whole. (shrink)

The Viennese obsession with sex at the fin-de-siècle was vividly expressed in the artworks of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Their depictions of women demonstrated their fascination with and fear of female sexual pleasure and desire, reflecting a wider societal anxiety and erotic fixation. This paper will analyse selected paintings and drawings by both Klimt and Schiele to explore this dynamic of 'erotic neurasthenia.'.