Between Affliction and Alcatraz
Essay - 3 pages - Social, moral & civic education
History is littered by the decaying carcasses of punishment, institutions that will forever be remembered for their severity, even amidst the global hunger for something worse. The tortured ghosts of this nation's blackest memories still walk the halls of Alcatraz. The billowing sails of the...
Honor and the Honorable
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
According to newspaper headings and television reports, every man and woman who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 is a hero. Even three years later, memorials are still built, hymns are still sung, and candlelight vigils are still held in remembrance of the bravest individuals...
Not All is Cold in Iceland
Essay - 5 pages - Arts and art history
Humanity is nostalgic. There is no other way in which to explain the strips of antique malls in the Midwest or the string of collector shows on the shop-at-home networks. Like the sightseers searching for the Grand Canyon pictured on the poster in a local travel agency, humans are such...
The Man in the Mirror: Self-Awareness as Social Awareness
Essay - 5 pages - Psychology
Much of the realm of psychology, especially in the disciplines of neuroscience and cognitive studies, is focused on identifying the unified characteristics of human thought and behavior. The brain is studied extensively: years upon years of theories and experiments have yielded an accurate map...
Book Review of Beloved by Toni Morrison
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
It is easy for cataclysmic traumatism to press to obscurity past history because of the weakness and shame of the human spirit itself. History is never a clean palindrome backward and forward, because during its recollection there is always an emotional motive, and nearly every motive is bruised....
Frakenstein
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
When Mary Shelley set herself to the task of writing Frankenstein she consciously wanted to create a story “which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awake the thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of...
Postmodernism: Moving Toward Transcendence
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The conception of a utopian society has both motivated and haunted countless civilizations since the dawn of time. Sublime and intangible, the aspiration to reach a “perfect” society is arguably the heart of one of the world's most significant movements; modernism. Proponents of...
Ignorance is a Blight
Essay - 3 pages - Ecology & environment
Ever since modern humans have formed a cohesive society, they have slowly removed themselves from being manipulated by their surroundings, to being in direct control of the surrounding environment. One form of this control is the use of pesticides to keep crops, and various locations free of...
"Ligeia," "The Raven," and "The Cask:" Poe's Untrustworthy Narrators
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
In “Marginalia,” published in 1844, Edgar Allen Poe wrote, “To be thoroughly conversant with a Man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.” His outlook on humanity was somber at best, and is a theme that we see flowing through a large...
Deconstructing the Traditional View of Judas the Betrayer: An Exploration of the Gospel of Judas
Essay - 2 pages - Social, moral & civic education
“My god, I'm sick. I've been used and you knew all the time. God I'll never know why you chose me.” The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar features a torn, confused Judas Iscariot contemplating his suicide shortly after betraying Jesus Christ. These lyrics make it seem like Judas played...
Hamartia: Of Man And God
Essay - 4 pages - Social, moral & civic education
The human genome has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, genes of each intricately woven into the fabric of our beings. Their amino acid constituents are programmed to function and because they determine particular characteristics of organisms, they control who we are. Are we thus compelled by...
Digital Evolution
Essay - 11 pages - Electronics, mechanics, engineering & technology
The turn of the new century has brought outstanding leaps in the realm of technology. The rapid progression of technological development has changed the way our society operates. Moreover, the influence of technology has taken over our lives as a whole. It is with this premise that indeed...
Man's Loss of Nature
Essay - 3 pages - Ecology & environment
Mention of the term nature conjures many images in the minds of contemporary readers. Some picture the robed, ivy-crowned beauty of Mother Nature. Some consider the fields and forests of Whitman. The idea here in question is the nature of man—the state in which he is born—that of...
Church and Empire: Separate Roles for Separate Institutions
Essay - 5 pages - Social, moral & civic education
Dante's Divine Comedy is a political work as much as it is a religious one. Amongst the imprecations against Florence, the Papacy, and the French monarchy, there is a dominant political philosophy that shapes how Dante characterizes the political bodies that threaten his vision of universal...
The Rise And Fall Of The Slave Trade
Essay - 6 pages - Modern history
One of humanities most shameful and horrific periods, is the time of the transatlantic slave trade. This system of transporting human captives and agricultural goods to Europe and the Americas started on a small scale, and rapidly grew to catastrophic proportions. Originally, the slaves were...
Words about God
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
If Martin Luther's assumptions on faith in the Word of God are correct, then humanity has nothing to doubt. But his skepticism of the Catholic Church is not a complete philosophical skepticism: at no point in his work is the notion of God questioned. Descartes does question the existence...
Into the Darkness: Marlow's Discovery of the Relationship between Darkness and Civilization
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In his novel Heart of Darkness, published in 1902, Joseph Conrad explores the deepest reaches of the African continent, and at the same time, the innermost secrets of human nature. The novel is narrated mostly by Marlow, a seaman known for his “inconclusive experiences,” who has, over...
Human catharsis in war
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Do you ever look at something for so long it doesn't make sense anymore? Have you ever been stuck in a moment that was your entire life? Cheated death, but regretted it afterwards? Looked at the man standing next to you and thought, “Who will die first, you or me?” This is every single...
Tool or trifle: The moral question of style
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
“You know not what hurt you do to learning that care not for words, but for matter, and so make a divorce betwixt the tongue and the heart.” (Roger Ascham) I am thirteen. Almost every afternoon I shove a book in my pocket, a hat on my head, and I wander out into the scurry-flurry of a...
Irony in 18th century British Literature
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
Philosophers as early as Plato have made distinctions between the mind and body, or reason and material perception, resulting in a dualism of being that has seeped into all aspects of Western Civilization. The cycle of perception and judgment of exterior forms has caused an anxiety prevalent in...
Erupted states, Corrupted hearts, Disrupted narratives: Sleep and Sleeplessness in Hamlet and Macbeth
Essay - 12 pages - Literature
In so many plays, Shakespeare's night crawls with offending shadows. Though the witching hour sees graves' tenants off to their malicious machinations, humans take refuge in cozy beds. Sleep can thus protect mankind from wandering evils, but further yet, sleep is a rejuvenative force than can...
Elsie Venner: A destiny of obscurity
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In it's own words, the novel Elsie Venner, written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, has been called “A Romance of Destiny” (Title), “a medicated novel” (Preface 1), and a “test [of] the doctrine of ‘original sin' and human responsibility” (Preface 1). I see very little...
Radical poetry: William Blake and the fight against oppression
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
The industrial revolution. The term conjures up images of unstoppable progress, the advancement of mankind, economic expansion, and technological achievement. At the same time, it also drags up such sights as the oppression of the common man, dehumanizing working conditions, and dreary and...
Dark comedy in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen
Essay - 6 pages - Film studies
Joel and Ethan Coen have made eleven very different films since 1984. From a film noir set in rural Texas to a Homer's “Odyssey”-inspired convict film, their films jump from genre to genre. Each one, however, is imbued with the Coens' authorial signature. Their heroes are flawed, their...
Genocide: The case of Rwanda
Essay - 4 pages - Modern history
The situation in Darfur illustrates the difficulties the international community faces when it comes to deal with acts of genocide. Genocide has been defined as a crime in international law, an international Convention has been signed and international tribunals have been created to try...
Spirulin: astonishing seaweed
Essay - 8 pages - Ecology & environment
From a biological point of view, Spirulin is one of the oldest inhabitants of the Earth. This cyanobacterium appeared 3.5 billions years ago. It is thought to have achieved photosynthesis for another billion years, until the first plant apparition. It naturally grows between latitudes 35°N and...
Nuclear risk perception in La Hague: An integration of sociological risk theories
Thesis - 4 pages - Journalism
Risk and uncertainty issues are especially distinct in the case of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy, as one of the symbols of the technological development of modern societies, is controversial in its nature. On the one hand, it was created to enable the unlimited production of energy, but on the...
The green future of the car industry
Essay - 8 pages - Business strategy
Cars and, through them, all the automotive industries, from the conception to the end of the vehicles is one of the most polluting industries. Nowadays nobody can ignore that the effect of the pollution on the earth is the major problem that humanity has to deal with. We should react, and...
Aung San Suu Kyi
Essay - 5 pages - Social, moral & civic education
To understand Aung San Suu Kyi, we must first understand the country and the circumstances in which she fights. Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Burma. Burma lies between Bangladesh and Thailand; it was a province of India until 1937 when it became a self-governing colony, its capital is Rangoon. In...
E-Leclerc in China: Fictive case
Essay - 13 pages - Services marketing
The objective of this report is to introduce a marketing plan to implant E-Leclerc centers in China. Currently the French market of supermarkets is saturated. The European market is a part of international strategy of E-Leclerc. Nevertheless, China represents an “Eldorado” with a...
