Volume 5, Issue 2
Letter from the Editors
The publication of Volume 5, Issue 2 of Inventio marks the first time the journal has published two issues of research in one year. This second issue allows us to carry out Inventio’s mission of imparting the truth yet further. In addition to publishing students’ research, Inventio fulfills its mission by promoting this research across Catholic University’s campus and beyond.
Inventio has always promoted student research on campus, which occurs primarily through the distribution of our print journals. These printed copies endure and provide a physical presence of the journal on campus. The first four volumes are even in Mullen Library and are available for student reference.
This year, we furthered our publicity efforts by focusing on our online presence. We recognized that this would both enable us to reach more people and make it easier to read the journal. First, we created a position on the Student Editorial Board, Social Media Manager, to develop social media and highlight the journal throughout the year. We also continued to develop our website, newly created last year, to increase the accessibility of our journal. Rather than just posting the PDF of the journal online, we created an online version of the journal which is easily navigable. This transition to an online journal was extremely helpful during Covid-19 when the virtual release became the only option for un-veiling Volume 5, Issue 1.
With the release of Volume 5, Issue 2 of Inventio, both online and in print, the journal has expanded the presence of the student research it features, allowing people on campus to pick up printed copies, while also enabling those off campus to still view the high caliber research featured.
Inventio is committed to sharing the journal with the widest audience possible because we believe that the truth uncovered by students should be offered for the enrichment of all. Outside the university, Inventio provides a unique opportunity for prospective students, along with friends and families of authors, to get a glimpse of the research being conducted at Catholic University. Within the campus community, viewing student research has additional value for faculty who can see the fruits of their efforts to help students and be further encouraged to improve academic life on campus. Inventio also gives faculty a bird’s-eye view of the university, highlighting the discoveries made by students in a wide variety of departments. Similarly, sharing Inventio with students enables them to encounter work done by their peers in different disciplines and may even spur their interest in a field other than their own. Further, Inventio can also encourage students in their own academic efforts and gives them a standard of excellence toward which to aim.
Reading Inventio has particular value for first-year students, who face the daunting task of researching at the collegiate level for the first time. Viewing student research in Inventio not only inspires first-year students to undertake research early in their academic career but emboldens them to share their findings with others through publication. Since its inception, Inventio has showcased essays written in first year Learning Community courses in the “Best of the FYE” section as a way to encourage first year students to publish their research. Two years ago, we inaugurated the Phi Beta Kappa First Year Experience Essay prize to honor students for excellence in first-year research.
This year, Inventio is continuing its mission to promote student research, particularly among first-year students, by visit- ing Learning Community classes to introduce Inventio and encourage students to read the journal and submit their work. The deadline for FYE submissions is Dec. 31, 2020, so we encourage all readers to consider submitting first-year research undertaken during this academic year or the previous one.
We hope you will join us in helping Inventio reach an even wider audience so that Catholic University undergraduate research will enrich many within our university and beyond.
Elizabeth Hughes, Editor-in-Chief Rachel Dugan Wood, Associate Editor
By Joslyn Felicijan
British music halls during World War I entertained their working- and lower-class audiences through the popular mockery of societal realities, such as the conservative roles of British women. Yet, the First World War challenged traditional gender expectations through the situational necessity of female wartime workers. Even though the majority of wartime popular hall music resonated with the societal gender stereotypes of feminine domesticity and motherhood, a distinct, yet rare, number of wartime songs thanked women for their progressive wartime employment. Through a comparative analysis of forty-one songs per- formed in wartime music halls investigating the similarities and differences between popular music and twentieth-century British gender stereotypes, a distinct contrast emerges differentiating wartime entertainment gender portrayals and traditional British female standards.
by Angelica Brice
The focus of my project is the cultural influences that have impacted Catholic funeral liturgy in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. Contrary to widespread belief, these changes to funeral liturgy were not a direct result of the Second Vatican Council, but rather were a result of changing popular attitudes about death that resulted in a shift in behavioral patterns in society during that time. By comparing evidence from popular culture through the decades with the responses of the Church both liturgically and pastorally, I will trace patterns in her desire to balance preaching the truth with compassionate companionship. In all times the Church teaches truth, regardless of how that truth is presented differently as is appropriate for certain times and places. I will offer various explanations for why this shift in attitudes may have occurred in the first place, such as the drastic change in warfare, advancement in medicine, unprecedented communication technology, and most importantly, a disillusionment with science which cannot provide all the answers of our existence or explain death, and the resulting collective decision to turn inwards on our own power rather than to trust in a power greater than our own.
by Dominick Cristofori D’Alessandro
Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B-minor is one of the most extensively scrutinized compositions in all of music history. In the work, Liszt departed from Classical sonata form and thus achieved the most significant formal advancement in the solo piano sonata since Beethoven’s late period. He combined the traditional four-movement sonata into one single- movement work, altered the treatment of thematic and motivic material so that it follows a two-dimensional sonata form, and abandoned the tonal constraints of the Classical sonata. In doing so, Liszt not only dismantled the conventions of the Classical sonata but also retained and repurposed many of its formal attributes in order to create a unique approach to a century-old genre.
by Alexandra Patterson
Diverging opinions within the suffragette movement regarding patriot- ism in Great Britain emerged following the eruption of the Great War in 1914. Several women’s organization groups and suffrage leaders like Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst asserted that patriotism meant putting aside their own political motivations and fighting alongside the government and the men at war. Essentially, they adopted a “patriotism before politics” attitude along with a nationalistic stance once the Great War broke out. On the other hand, Sylvia Pankhurst and the East London Federation of Suffragettes aligned with the pacifist movement as their form of patriotism. Sylvia Pankhurst assumed a vastly different position regarding what the suffragettes should do during the war. She focused more on the women and families who were affected by the men being taken away by the war. This paper will examine the different forms of patriotism expressed by Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, and work to prove that neither woman epitomized the sole definition of patriotism.
by Anna Stephens
This paper presents an analysis of characterization and the courtly love tradition within Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. It compares Troilus, an ideal courtly lover who is always faithful and devoted to his beloved, with Pandarus, a pragmatic courtly lover who is committed to playing the game of love. In an examination of both characters and their different perspectives on love, it becomes evident that both a solely pragmatic and an overly idealistic view of courtly love fall short, leading the reader to consider the insufficiency of either approach to love in isolation from the other. This comparison illustrates the necessity of an alternative approach to love, aside from the perspectives which both Troilus and Pandarus present, and leads the reader to a greater understanding of the courtly love tradition.
by Ian L. Flanders
We are currently in the midst of a cultural revaluation and battle over the purpose of the institution of marriage. While to many this appears to be a crisis that threatens our day-to-day life, to us historians it has been a godsend, as it has provoked much deeper interest in the study of marriage throughout the ages and immensely deepened our understanding of various cultures through new ways of looking at history. This paper looks at one aspect of a specific era of history in which a cultural shift in the understanding of marriage was taking place. By looking at the reception of the story of Rebecca and Isaac in the writings of three early theologians, namely Origen, John Chrysostom, and Ambrose, this paper will touch on how Jewish tradition affected Christian-inspired cultural shifts in the Roman world. This paper does not deal with the reception of the teachings of these theologians by Christians in the fourth century, but merely with what these theologians themselves were trying to promote.