School of Humanities

Fall 2021

Movement

“Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.” ― Anne Carson 

This past summer, we felt the movement back toward more familiar routines, only for them to change again. Yet, even as aspects of our collective reality remain static, I believe we are moving within, unearthing new reserves of strength and new thresholds of renewal. Modern dance pioneer Martha Graham refers to the “life force” within us. She also said, “Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away, unnoticed and unused.”

The essays in this issue capture exact moments when something moved within each writer, toward flashes of insight that affirm we are alive and present with our own humanity even when the world remains unpredictable. Some transformations, for Jay Fehntrich, René Garrett, and Sun Hwa Tamashiro, occur because an educator forges a connection with a student. Claudia Pascale tests the boundaries between the real and the supernatural to discover that a cascade of “what-ifs” accompanies the pursuit of any burning question. In “Weakness,” Jaime Lazaar recognizes, “If there is no room in this world for the weak of heart, then we must simply make room. Pain is an intrinsic component of life.” For Brandon Moresta, self-actualization arrives through the act of writing, while for Kristen Benner, Gabriel Ortega, and Gabriela Santos, new self-awareness forms because a character or a work of literature compels each writer to regard their experiences in a different way. Maureen Guy and Sadye Moore take us further into the latter process, modeling close reading and analysis of two short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri; the stories and their analyses also move, between what writer Jo Ann Beard refers to as “the story on the surface and the story under the surface.”

With gratitude to all contributing writers, and to Professor John Mitchell Morris, who wrote the Faculty Essay for this issue—it’s one to revisit time and again, as it reaffirms that writing and reading are interrelated, lifelong processes that necessitate time, focus, structure, support, and space; both draw out our creative and intellectual capabilities, and nurture our inner lives and critical thought process. Many thanks to the readers for this issue, Sonnel Hill Basora, who was also the first recipient of the Mary Ellen Marks Editorial Fellows Prize in the Spring of 2021,  as well as Professor Ellen Brooks, Professor Chris Konzelman, and Professor John Mitchell Morris. And, my deepest gratitude to featured artist Anna Brand, who has generously shared a body of work with us that reflects her own movement between the modalities of painting, sculpting, and wood burning. “Everything flows onward.”—Ovid

—Amy Beth Wright, Editor

 

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Faculty Essay