“No Friend Like a Sister”: Christina Rossetti’s Fantastic Departure from Pre-Raphaelite Poetics and Art in “Goblin Market”

Christina Rossetti’s poetics and artistic vision in her seminal poem, “Goblin Market,” have yielded a range of critical theories, from positions on sisterhood to the ambiguous position of capitalist markets. While considering the socioeconomic and cultural context behind the poem’s development and resonance among contemporary feminist movements, readers also ought to consider the actual “goblin brotherhood” — the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) — behind Rossetti’s authorial ventures. This paper argues that Rossetti’s fantastical methods draw influence from and participate in the PRB’s poetics and artistic traditions, while subverting the same conventions within a feminist paradigm. Rossetti not only envisions a homosocial feminine utopia at the poem’s closure, but makes undeniable and pointed references to several of the PRB’s most formative poems and artwork, such as her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Jenny,” and “Ecce Ancilla Domini!” As the fantastical world of “Goblin Market” and the literal circumstances of her poetic enterprise collide, Rossetti imagines a new discourse for women poets of her time and beyond

Eliot’s Raid on the Ineffable

In the poem Four Quartets, T.S Eliot employs a fragmentary form to dramatize the disjointed continuity of time. Within the poem though, the fluctuation or fragmentation of the form is also in service to the whole by showing the unending exploration of man to reach the “still point” of divine contemplation. For Eliot, the fragmentary nature of the form in Four Quartets is in service to the whole, because the continual fluctuation of musicality embodies a journey or exploration for the “still point” of the world to achieve true contemplation. In that sense, Eliot’s poem is an artistic success, due to the fluctuation or fragmentary nature of the form serving the whole of the poem. The point is that the unity of the piece comes from the fluctuation of musicality that reinforces the idea of a journey across time to the “still point.

1986 NCOD Pastoral Week Program

Documents from the 1986 NCOD Pastoral Week held in Orlando, FL in 1986 ScheduleInvitatio

Introduction:Towards an Economic Anthropology of Catholicism, in the Age of Pope Francis

Introduction to Towards an Economic Anthropology of Catholicism, in the Age of Pope Francis

The Jesuit Tradition of Astronomy at Holy Cross

This paper summarizes the study of astronomy and related fields as part of the curriculum at the College of the Holy Cross. It briefly profiles four Jesuit priests who were associated with Holy Cross and made significant contributions to the study of astronomy, solar physics and other scientific disciplines. The history of a campus observatory is briefly described as well. This paper was presented an event sponsored by the Holy Cross Libraries to commemmorate the solar exclipse which occurred April 8. 2024

Downfall to Friendliness?: Analyzing Common Tropes in The Boy Who Loved Too Much

One of the most commonly held misconceptions regarding the disabled population is that living with any disability automatically decreases the quality of life. It is assumed that any deviation from society’s established norm for the perfect brain and body must be a burden. Both the physical and social implications associated with disability have forged in the minds of many the idea that a disabled life could not possibly be a good life. This overarching negativity, however, is turned on its head when considering Williams Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder more accurately described as happy syndrome. This so-called disability is not only a biological source of that individual’s happiness, but also of their great vulnerability. Jennifer Latson’s novel, The Boy Who Loved Too Much: A True Story of Pathological Friendliness, follows Eli, a young boy with Williams, and his mother, Gayle, as they navigate an unkind world with their own unique sense of love. Their story emphasizes the cost not of disability, but of the suffocating grip of societal norms, as well as the need for strong advocacy, not control

The Double Bond of Catholic Abolition: Christianity, Chattel Slavery, and Racial Capitalism

The reign of the first Pope to originate in the former colonies of the modern Euro-Christian empires calls us into awareness of the layers of interconnection between the Roman Catholic Church and the long “wake” (Sharpe 2016) of 1492. As anthropologists, I argue, our studies of Catholic practices must be informed by a detailed awareness of this history. I offer a broad historical view of how the Roman Catholic Church participated and, at times, led the way in initiating the trans-Atlantic system of Black chattel slavery and colonial expropriation in Euro-Christian Empires. As a scholar of Catholicism in France, I then turn to a more detailed examination of the role of French Catholic actors in efforts aimed at slowing abolition and maintaining systems of racialized hierarchy in French colonial territories between 1830 and 1860. Arguments made by some Church actors at the time—as well as the practices of Catholic missionaries and priests—aimed to constrain enslaved people before and following abolition to ensure the continued exploitation of their labor under conditions that would come to be known as racial capitalism. Such efforts were never totalizing and were always variously refused, but the French Catholic Church’s repeated alignment with forces committed to maintaining systems of oppression must shape our analysis of its operations in the present

1986 NCOD Pastoral Week Report

Documents from the 1986 NCOD Pastoral Week held in Orlando, FL in 1986 Report for Region 5: the NortheastReport to the NCOD Board of DirectorsNCOD Region I reportRegion III, NCOD Midwest Region reportGreat Lakes Region reportDirector ReportProposal to the Board of National Catholic Office of the Dea

The Configuration of Society in The Dispossessed and Blindness

In both Ursula K. Le Guin\u27s The Dispossessed and José Saramago’s Blindness, character’s are posited into scenarios where the structure of society is either foreign, dilapidated, or outright missing. This essay aims to rationalize why the authors arranged their respective worlds this way, and illuminate points of comparison and contrast between the two works. To achieve this goal, this essay specifically analyzes the types of societies seen within the two novels, and what role individual characters have in shaping them. Additionally, through a supplementary examination of related secondary sources, this essay hopes to answer fundamental questions about the portrayal of society in literature