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Letter from the Editors
Letter from the Editors
Inventio was founded in 2015 to further Catholic University’s mission to “discover and impart the truth.” The name of the journal reflects this mission as Inventio comes from the Latin word invenire which means “to discover.” At the heart of the University’s mission lies the responsibility not only to seek the truth but then to share that light with others so as to illuminate society. An undergraduate research journal such as Inventio allows students to impart the knowledge they have discovered to the broader community.
For five years, Inventio’s presence as an academic journal through which knowledge can be disseminated has shaped the academic culture of Catholic University. When students hear about Inventio, and especially when professors promote the journal in their classroom, students see that their studies can take on a new level of meaning. The possibility of publication motivates students to strive for excellence in their research and writing projects because they see that their research has value beyond the classroom. Perhaps more importantly, the possibility of sharing their work prompts students to choose topics that are meaningful to a wider audience. Students are thus encouraged to work towards the proper end of an education, which consists not merely in maintaining a high GPA to achieve professional success but is instead principally focused on improving the individual and his or her community. Inventio reminds students that the fruits of their education should be offered for the benefit of others and provides a way for students to achieve this goal.
Inventio’s impact upon the University has increased as the presence of the journal on campus has grown. This year, Inventio received a record number of high caliber submissions, making the selection process more competitive than ever. This growth in sub- missions has also prompted the journal to expand its production in a landmark way: the publication of two issues of original, undergraduate research, to be published in the spring and fall of 2020 respectively.
This growth would not be possible without the generous support of the faculty who have promoted Inventio, encouraging students to realize the full potential of their education by sharing their meaningful research, and the Office of Undergraduate Studies, which has sustained the journal for the past five years. We hope that by featuring undergraduate research we will assist Catholic University students in their efforts to impart the truth they have discovered.
Elizabeth Hughes, Editor-in-Chief Rachel Dugan Wood, Associate Editor
Articles
Articles
by Veronica Smaldone
The Beatles’ pivotal 1966 album Revolver reveals a marked shift in the musical intentionality of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. As the first album released after the Beatles chose to end the hectic touring years of Beatlemania, Revolver is a clear instance of the band members redefining the relationships that existed among themselves, between musician and listener, and ultimately between the listener and him or herself, to include an element of introspection and truth-seeking yet unknown to their listening base.
by Cosette Vincent
Although a seemingly morbid approach to understanding a people, analyzing last wills and testaments provides a unique and personal insight into the life of the will-maker, or testator. During England’s Tudor era, will-making became increasingly popular, though it must be considered that wills do not represent the total population equally, and not all sixteenth-century wills have survived. Despite these factors, wills are a valuable tool for understanding the concerns of sixteenth-century people coming to the ends of their lives, particularly regarding society, politics, and religion. The Tudor era lasted from 1509 to 1603, including the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. These changes in political power also brought religious changes, and together the two created great turmoil through all levels of society that can be seen in wills from the era. This paper studies a selection of twelve wills, analyzing specifically how women are represented and portrayed and how deathbed donations changed in relation to the reigning monarch.
by Ian L. Flanders
In two different works, Tertullian translates the same Old Testament passage in different ways. In the Adversus Marcionem, he translates ἔθνων as nationem, while in the passage he adapts from that work for the Adversus Judaeos he translates it as gentium. This paper both looks at the important differences in the subtleties of meaning of these words and discusses the potential reasons for both the varying language use and the consequences for interpreting Tertullian that arise therefrom.
by Rachel Dugan Wood
The ending of Chaucer’s poem Troilus and Criseyde has puzzled readers for years, as Chaucer seems to conclude a lengthy narrative that celebrates human love with a stern contemptus mundi exhortation that negates the value of human desires and thus undermines all that came before. Some critics respond to this ending by disregarding either the narrative or the moral, and still others believe readers are simply meant to feel the tension between the two. In this essay, I argue that Chaucer does not abandon readers to this conflict but instead ultimately concludes with a third, more integrated view that affirms the goodness of human love and its ability to serve as a bridge by which man can reach the divine. This resolution is created through references to Dante’s Divine Comedy, an earlier poem that offers a similar affirmation of human love. This essay examines the way in which these Dante allusions link Book III and Book V of Chaucer’s poem, revealing how the divine dimension and potential of human love discovered by the pagan Troilus is ultimately affirmed and brought to fulfillment by Christianity.
by Abigail Anger
India’s efforts to pursue industrialization and lessen dependency on agriculture will result in higher greenhouse gas emissions that pose a threat not only to India itself but to the larger global community. Modern India still faces the consequences of limited infrastructure development during the British imperial rule—mainly an economic dependency on agriculture. The two-thirds of agriculturally dependent Indians are reliant on groundwater based irrigation systems, which are filled by rain from the monsoon cycle. The monsoon cycle will continue to be highly impacted by greater greenhouse gas emissions from industrialization, resulting in a shortened and intensified monsoon cycle that will overwhelm these rudimentary irrigation systems. The Indian government’s efforts to industrially modernize the country have faced resistance due to Indians’ loyalties to regional rather than national governance. To address these regional loyalties, the Indian government has channeled their efforts into creating a unified national market through constitutional modifications, central planning and urbanization incentive programs. While these efforts have successfully shifted India further from agricultural dependence and towards urban-centered industrialization, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions are now consistently increasing, causing outcry from the global community. This paper studies the regionalist and federal dynamics of India as they relate to the national government’s policy on industrial modernization in the face of high levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
by Graham Fassero
PROMPT: For your final ENG 101 essay, you will apply the writing skills that you have been honing this semester in order to present a persuasive argument based on original research. Ultimately, your essay should: identify a specific issue and question related to our class research theme that is significant to current scholarship, analyze how other researchers and writers have engaged with this issue, and present an argument that makes an original contribution to the critical conversation. To do so, you will need to engage in exploratory thinking and writing to develop your ideas, description to present the issue, analysis to evaluate your sources, and argumentation to advance your own original claim and support it in a way that will be persuasive to your specific audience.
by Graham Fassero
PROMPT: Courage and death. Should death be feared? Do we need to be courageous in the face of death, or do we need merely to change our thinking about what death is? Your essay must be an original, philosophical work that develops and supports a claim. Successful philosophy papers deal with problems, and so writing a good paper requires you first to problematize the text you are writing about: Find a question that the text raises, or prompts you to raise, and then attempt to resolve or at least grapple seriously with that question. Pick one or two of the philosophers we have read and write a paper that reads the relevant texts closely and carefully in support of a thesis. If you decide to write about two philosophers, make sure that your paper does more than just “compare and contrast” but also explains the similarities and differences by appealing to the various principles at work.
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