English
Presenter(s): Gloria Baek
Advisor(s): Dr. Eileen Jankowski
Records show that humans past and present try to find the causes of and explanations for the objects and events surrounding them. Before the advent of science they created mythological stories about gods and goddesses, monsters and heroes, to explain life. For example, Egyptian and Greek mythology showed a great interest in death, and as a result, proposed two gods to represent this universal phenomenon: Hades and Osiris. Both Greek and Egyptian culture created such figures to practice justice, yet the difference is in their representatives: while Hades was the fearsome figure, Osiris was worshiped in multiple religions- Atenism, Hermeticism, Thelema, and Kemeticism. The difference in the impact of two was caused by the rivers they were associated with. The River Styx remains as the figurative region for Greek mythology, but the Nile River had both a figurative and realistic impact on Egyptian life in that region. Hades and Osiris as the gods of death represented each culture’s views of death and the afterlife, tied in many ways to their respective rivers. The differences between a feared god like Hades and a widely revered god like Osiris reveals important aspects of each culture, evident in their mythological stories.
Shifts in Slaughter
Presenter(s): Anthony Robinson
Advisor(s): Sam Risak
The purpose of my short story is to show how shifts in perspective can determine how an audience's empathy shifts away from what it normally tends toward. My story is designed to follow the story of an animal that is taken to a slaughterhouse, but is told in vague enough detail where the audience does not recognize this until the very end. I intend for the audience to feel surprise as well as disgust as the antagonist is revealed to be humans rather than the typical monster. The aim of this is to show how we can lack reflection on what others experience, especially those that aren’t human. This will function because, as explained by David Miall and Don Kuiken in New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective, the audience will usually form feelings based on their interpretation of perspective and how it shifts. This will contain details that are very commonplace in a job like one working in a slaughterhouse and while the majority of jobs do not consist of killing animals, there are plenty of things we do that might impact others in a way we do not fully understand. In addition, my story will be written short, to the point, and will attempt to convey my aim through as little writing as needed. There is also an element of how animals are treated within this story, and this will be touched upon, as well as the issues that can arise within slaughterhouses. As a subsidiary idea of what my main idea is, I will intertwine this idea as it is so closely related to the subject matter that is the main focus.
Haunted Doll Short Story
Presenter(s): Ava Garrett
Advisor(s): Sam Risak
The purpose of this project is to show how a normal object like a doll can be turned into something scary in the genre of horror. A doll itself is not scary at all and girls have collected them for generations. There has always however been a stigma with dolls that implies something creepy about them. Older dolls were made with real human hair and at one point people even believed that human spirits were tied to the hairs on the dolls and caused them to be haunted. I plan to write a short story about a young girl who receives an old antique doll with real human hair. When the girl finds out that it is real human hair she gets scared and thinks the doll is haunted. The doll terrorizes her by only moving when it’s just the two of them around and making her feel crazy. This will symbolize that how just the fear of knowing something could be haunted tricks our minds into believing that it is. This short story should appeal to the younger audiences. It is the kind of horror that can teach young children a lesson about not believing everything just because someone says it is true.