Taylor Driggers’ `13 essay “Modern Medievalism and Myth: Tolkein, Tennyson, and the Quest for a Hero” was published in the Oct. 2013 “Journal of Inklings Studies,” making him the first undergraduate to ever be published in this literary journal. In this particular issue, Driggers’ essay appears with one by Crystal Downing, distinguished professor of English and film studies.
According to the abstract, “This essay considers Tennyson’s portrayal of an autonomous, evolved Arthur in Idylls of the King as a segue into the modernist context against which Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. While Tennyson’s mythmaking has all the outward trappings of the medieval tradition, it uses this setting to put forth ideas reflective of the Victorian faith crisis and anticipatory of the modernist obsession with autonomy and progress. Tennyson’s Arthur functions as a modernist’s Messiah, standing in stark contrast to Tolkien’s Frodo, who more fully embodies a Christian ideal that the modernists would interpret as medieval or obsolete. The Lord of the Rings is, in this light, a deconstruction of Tennysonian heroism and a re-establishment of the Christian virtues of humility, self-denial and sacrifice as the pinnacle of true mythic heroism.”
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Rolando Vega’s `13 film “Palace” won the Best Student Film Award at the FirstGlance Festival in Philadelphia. “Palace” is the story of a struggling theater owner and his granddaughter who face the possible extinction of their 50-year-old magical movie palace as a young corporate executive and his company threaten to demolish it.
Associate Professor of Writing Larry Lake will travel to Jakarta, Indonesia in early November to present on the topic of cultural adaptation in the teaching of writing. The conference, “Faith, Learning and the Media of Hope,” is co-sponsored by Universitas Pelita Harapan and Biola University.
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Meg Ramey, assistant professor of biblical studies, recently published “The Quest for the Fictional Jesus: Gospel Rewrites, Gospel (Re)Interpretation, and Christological Portraits within Jesus Novels,” an examination of diverse modern, fictional accounts of Jesus and how they interplay with biblical accounts.
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Kelly Warner `13 and Erik Hornberger `12 are among approximately 610 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received a scholarship from the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship (CLS). CLS participants spend seven to 10 weeks in intensive language institutes in one of 13 countries.
Warner’s host country is Russia. She is an English major with teaching certification. Hornberger’s host country is Japan. He is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. engineering program at the University of Kansas.
The CLS program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages.
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Douglas Jacobsen, distinguished professor of church history and theology at Messiah College, has been awarded a Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from the Louisville Institute. His proposal is to write a new book on global Christianity that emphasizes both the diversity and the interconnectedness of the world Christian movement. The volume will explain the divergent histories of Christianity in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America and will also reflect on what Christians in differing parts of the world can learn from each other.
The Louisville Institute’s Sabbatical Grant for Researchers Program enables scholars to conduct a major study that can contribute to the vitality of Christianity in North America. Grants of up to $40,000 support year-long research projects that address Christian faith and life, pastoral leadership, and/or religious institutions.
The Louisville Institute is funded by the Religion Division of Lilly Endowment and based at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary (Louisville, Kentucky). The Institute’s fundamental mission is to enrich the religious life of North American Christians and to encourage the revitalization of their institutions, by bringing together those who lead religious institutions with those who study them, so that the work of each might inform and strengthen the other.
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Robin Collins, professor of philosophy, recently received a $53, 644 grant through the Providence and Chance project (funded by the John Templeton Foundation) to work on a two-year project entitled “Discoverability, Providence, and Chance.” He will be working with Messiah College physicist Abaz Kryemadhi.
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David Pettegrew, associate professor of history, has received a grant from Harvard University’s Loeb Classical Library Foundation to complete research on a work titled, “The Isthmus of Corinth: Crossroads of the Roman Mediterranean.” The book explores the story of the Isthmus of Corinth and the region’s connections to the Mediterranean world during the Roman era.
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Working under the direction of Library curators and specialists in various divisions, the Junior Fellows explore and increase access to the institution’s unparalleled collections and resources. They are exposed to a broad spectrum of library work: copyright, preservation, reference, access standards, information management and digital initiatives. In the past, summer interns have identified hundreds of historical, literary, artistic, cinematic and musical gems in the course of their work, representing the Library’s rich cultural, creative and intellectual assets.
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