Humanities

Heidi Herrera, Brigham Young University Remarkable in both subject and execution, Los Desastres de la Guerra (Disasters of War) is exceptional in Goya’s oeuvre and in artistic representations of wartime rape. Filled with scenes illustrating the consequences and violence of war, Goya offers an insightful yet ambiguous commentary, particularly in the plates in which rape is presented as a first-hand account; plate 9, No quieren—“They don’t want it”—, plate 10, Tampoco—“Nor do these”— and plate 11, Ni por ésas—“Nor those.” Indicting the French soldiers for the rape of women during the French occupation, the Disasters of War offers offering a brutal and deceptively truthful view on the inevitable and horrible consequences which war and looting wage on women, transforming both viewer and artist into witnesses of the gruesome scenes, implicating both as detached, though unwitting, participants in the sexual violence enacted against these women; the artist in his creation of these rapes and the viewers in their reception of the images. By making the viewer a first-hand witness to these rape scenes, Goya accomplishes greater empathy for the women than other artistic portrayals of rape, however, he also unintentionally sheds a spotlight on the callousness of the viewer, and by extension, the artist himself. Both created and publicly received my men, the scenes of sexual violence shown in plates 9-11 display and discuss the rape of women as a means to an end in which the lives and suffering of these women, fictional or real, are periphery to what acts of sexual violence say about the men who wage war. Although art historians and critics today may consider the beauty of the plate’s compositions, is it at all possible for scenes which portray violence against women, as in the Disasters of War, to be considered beautiful? I would like to address how these images were received when The Disasters of War was released in 1863, considering the plate’s reception by contemporaneous art critics such Enrique Mélida within the context of how rape was understood in the nineteenth century. By comparing They don’t want it, Nor do these, and Nor those to portrayals of rape by Goya and other nineteenth-century artists, in addition to portrayals of rape by female artists, I hope to clarify where Goya’s rape scenes reside on a spectrum of artistic representations of rape, ranging from exploitative to empathetic.

A majority of the population in North America endorses religious/spiritual beliefs, with the highest levels of endorsement occurring among ethnic minority groups. Despite this important cultural trend, previous psychological research looking at religion and psychological well-being has been focused on White (European American) populations. There is a growing need to further understand the psychological effects of religiosity among minority groups. Given that ethnic minorities are also at an elevated risk of suffering from mental illness, it is in the best interest of both patients and providers to note any factors that may serve as therapeutic support. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to assess the relationship between religious or spiritual beliefs and psychological well-being. We also hypothesized that a number of moderating factors will be revealed through our data analysis. Through our intensive literature review we extracted data from 120 research studies which reported 42,972 individuals’ psychological well-being as a function of their self-reported religiosity/spirituality. Inclusion criteria were studies from 1980 to 2008 that reported correlational data on constructs of religiosity (religious activities and spiritual beliefs) with constructs of mental health, conducted in North America, with populations that self-identified as being racial, ethnic, or cultural minorities. Retrieved studies were coded twice and verified for accuracy. The modal study involved cross-sectional (correlational) data obtained by convenience sampling from community samples of middle-aged adults. All age groups except children were adequately represented in the literature. Notably, most studies (78%) reported African American participants. On average, across all types of measures of well-being, the random effects weighted correlation with participant religiosity/spirituality was .14 (se = .01, 95% CI = .12 to .16, p < .0001). These results show low to moderate correlations between religion/spirituality and mental health among ethnic minority groups. The range of correlations was from -.11 to .55. These associations held up across racial groups. The association was stronger among older populations and samples with greater percentages of female participants. Mental health professionals need to consider client beliefs when providing treatment. Research may need to further assess the degree to which religion and spirituality affect positive psychological functions rather than distress. Likewise, the nature of psychopathology may be such that it alters the very construct of religion that we were attempting to assess. Formulating an empirical basis for these relationships constitutes a major step forward in the implementation of validated spiritually adapted interventions in mental health care for ethnic minorities.

Natasha Mickelson, Brigham Young University Humanities Young adult contemporary realistic fiction is a genre which attempts to portray real life. Young adult readers of these novels should be able to find themselves in the characters and relate to their backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives on life. While many young adult novels deal with controversial topics such as sexuality, drug use, physical abuse, suicide, and other difficult subjects in an attempt to be realistic, one aspect of life still largely considered a literary “taboo” is religion.Through examining studies done and looking at a sample of novels in the young adult contemporary realistic fiction genre I found that most of these books mention nothing about the religious beliefs or backgrounds of their characters. In the few novels which do bring up religion, Christian beliefs and characters are more common than minority religions. However, those novels depicting Christian characters are more likely to show them in a negative light. These novels frequently portray religious characters (especially leaders) as bigoted, fanatical, or gullible. Often the main adolescent character is trying to break free from cultish groups, and their eventual loss of faith is celebrated. Since contemporary realistic fiction attempts to portray the real world and real teenagers, I researched recent studies surveying American teenagers’ views on and involvement with religion. The results of these studies show that most teenagers identify with and willingly participate in religious groups and practices. In my research I found that this disparity between real life and realistic YA fiction exists due to the aversion of writers and publishers to possible censorship issues and alienating potential readership. However, scholars agree that both the lack of religion and the negative religious stereotypes in these novels can leave teenage readers incorrectly feeling as though their beliefs in or questions about God and religion are uncommon or wrong.

Andy Mickelson, Brigham Young University Humanities The infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke is one of the most popular passages of Christian scripture: the story of Jesus’ birth has been recited and depicted in Christmas celebrations for centuries. Yet modern readers are far removed in time, language, and culture from the first-century world in which Luke was composed. Because of this distance, our traditional understanding of this text may differ from what Luke intended to convey. One particular misunderstanding of the text centers on an ambiguous Greek term used in Luke 2:7. Most English translations of this verse state that Mary, after delivering Jesus, “laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” However, the term translated as “inn” in this passage—κατάλυμα—had a wide variety of meanings in Hellenistic Greek. Even within Luke itself the term is translated differently: the “upper room” in which Jesus shares his last meal with his disciples is, in Greek, a κατάλυμα (Luke 22:11). Properly understanding κατάλυμα profoundly impacts how we read Luke’s infancy narrative: were Mary and Joseph turned away from a crowded inn on the eve of her delivery? Or does a nuanced translation of κατάλυμα change the circumstances of Jesus’ birth?This paper philologically examines how κατάλυμα is used by other Hellenistic Greek authors: Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, and others. Their writings created the literary milieu in which the Gospel of Luke was composed; their use of this term may have influenced Luke as he crafted his account. Based on this philological context, κατάλυμα here most likely means “guest room,” and infers that Joseph and Mary were staying with another family (possibly relatives) in Bethlehem. This reading, though nontraditional, brings us closer to approaching the text as Luke’s original audience would have understood it.

Matthew Halverson, University of Utah Humanities Adults learning second languages typically exhibit a great deal of difficulty discriminating the sounds of the new language. For example, the English R and L sounds (as in ‘lead’ vs. ‘read’) are difficult for native speakers of Japanese to discriminate because there is no such sound contrast in Japanese. Despite these difficulties, some research indicates that there are cognitive benefits of being bilingual. For example, Bialystock et al. (2003) found that bilingual children performed more accurately on tasks testing phonological awareness (a measure of sound-related skills) in English when compared to monolingual English speakers. Antoniou, Best, and Tyler (2013) found that Greek-English bilinguals were better at discriminating contrastive word-initial consonants in the language Ma’di than English monolinguals—but that they performed worse than Greek monolinguals. We thus see that the apparent bilingual advantage may be confounded with the particular language backgrounds of participants in these studies. The present study attempts to tease apart the contributions of language background and bilingualism. Spanish-English bilinguals were compared to English monolinguals in their ability to discriminate Thai sounds. The predictions were that if Spanish-English bilinguals performed better than English monolinguals, it would indicate that bilingualism was responsible for the advantage. On the other hand, if there was not a significant difference or the Spanish-English bilinguals performed worse than English monolinguals, the results could be attributed to language background. We found that there was not a significant difference between how the Spanish- English bilinguals performed compared to English speakers. We note that the study, however, is limited due to a lack of a Spanish monolingual group, thus we were unable account for a possible effect of language background.

Daniel Cox, Dixie State University Humanities Community correctional professionals stand between offenders and their potential relapse into criminal behavior, i.e., recidivism. These officers are expected to monitor conduct and use evidence-based practices for rehabilitation. However, this important dual-role is too often distorted. Researchers have noted that training for officers about the use of evidence- based practices filters through officers’ attributions (their values and professional orientation), thereby impeding implementation of these practices (Whetzel et al. 2011). In this presentation, I argue that training of this sort often fails apparently because its delivery does not address officers’ attributions, especially regarding stereotypes of psychology and organizational support. I plan to suggest that recidivism, as well, will drop when training accounts for how and to what extent attribution biases interact with efforts to implement evidence-based practices. These preliminary findings are drawn from a study I am leading that assesses 50 officers throughout the State of Utah, utilizing surveys provided by researchers Mario Paparozzi (University of North Carolina– Pembroke) and Jennifer Skeem (University of California– Berkeley), about their attributions prior to and after training to measure for positive change in using evidence-based practices. The study also evaluates officers’ use of evidence-based practices during interactions with offenders with evaluation tools provided by researchers Peter Raynor (Swansea University) and Faye Taxman (George Mason University). The intent of the study, ultimately, is to determine if and to what extent attribution-based training for evidence-based practices will cause positive organizational change, the outcome of which is likely not only to influence the manner in which correctional professionals are trained but also the manner in which their training manuals are written.

Miranda Roland, Southern Utah University Humanities Voluntourism (volunteer tourism) is the action of using personal vacation time to assist in volunteer service usually in foreign countries. Voluntourism has recently received negative connotation as research has deemed them “non-beneficial” or even “harmful” due to the short duration spent and overall adverse effect caused unintentionally by the project. This research was conducted to determine what participants of the temporary medical clinics hosted by the Global Medical Training program really think of the provided service. This information can deem if the alternative breaks taken by pre-medical and medical volunteers are beneficial to the areas they serve and if future breaks should be considered, if not strongly encouraged. The surveys were completed verbally to the patient with the aid of a Spanish translator. Surveys contained questions that addressed the influence of how they receive medical attention due to these clinics and satisfaction of attention received during the clinic. All of the surveys (100%) signified that these Global Medical Training clinics do influence how they receive medical care with additional comments of “beneficial to the low class economy”, “traveling to us is very helpful”, and “appreciate the advice given”. 98.08% signified that they are satisfied with the medical attention received through the clinics. As demonstrated through these results many communities are satisfied with the service provided and they wish to see more clinics of this set-up as it relieves the cost financially and time-wise of traveling to the nearby medical center. Upon conclusion, the trips taken by pre-medical and medical students through the Global Medical Training program are deemed beneficial to both the volunteers and the recipients of their service. These trips should not be demoted by the negative connotation of voluntourism but instead should be strongly encouraged if a volunteer desires.

Mahreen Bashir, University of Utah Humanities A complicated social paradox humanity faces is assessing the union between the seemingly contradictory ideologies of “sustainability” and “growth” into one viable system. Adapting a merger between concepts such as: the retention of cultural values and social systems, industry, urban sprawl, modernity, sanitation, progress and the environment. This objective of this research project centers around using understandings of post-colonial theory to find new connections in South Asian identity through South Asian literature written in English, and the literature’s relationship to ecology. Specifically, it applies the nascent subaltern lens of a historiography that examines South Asia as both a post-colonial subcontinent, and an emerging “superpower,” in the rhetoric of a global economy, to understand a relationship between Indian people and India as place. Questions asked are posed in regard to the affects of orientalism and a cultural infiltration of seeing endemic knowledge to be degenerate in relation to Western academia; Indian-American identity; and the weight of the term “subaltern” through works by South Asian writers. Furthermore, the project uses an ecocritical lens on these works to extract how identity discourse and post-colonialism have created understandings of Indian identity within English literature. The anticipated outcome of this research paper is to create a greater understanding of both emergent academic lenses, and their application in understanding Indian culture and identity as portrayed by works written by Indo-American writers. This research idea was born out of my passion for both ecology and post-colonial studies that I have honed through my studies as an environmental studies and gender studies double major. The main objective is to investigate the plurality of identity, and the ramifications that identity, has on the establishment of more sustainable behavior to counter the impending global crisis the planet is facing in terms of lack of environmental stewardship, and subsequent social justice.