Reading, Trauma and Literary Caregiving 1914-1918: Helen Mary Gaskell and the War Library

This article is about the relationship between reading, trauma and responsive literary caregiving in Britain during the First World War. Its analysis of two little-known documents describing the history of the War Library, begun by Helen Mary Gaskell in 1914, exposes a gap in the scholarship of war-time reading; generates a new narrative of "how," "when," and "why" books went to war; and foregrounds gender in its analysis of the historiography. The Library of Congress's T. W. Koch discovered Gaskell's ground-breaking work in 1917 and reported its successes to the American Library Association. The British Times also covered Gaskell's library, yet researchers working on reading during the war have routinely neglected her distinct model and method, skewing the research base on war-time reading and its association with trauma and caregiving. In the article's second half, a literary case study of a popular war novel demonstrates the extent of the "bitter cry for books." The success of Gaskell's intervention is examined alongside H. G. Wells's representation of textual healing. Reading is shown to offer sick, traumatized and recovering combatants emotional and psychological caregiving in ways that she could not always have predicted and that are not visible in the literary/historical record

Happily Ever After: An Analysis of Romance Novels

A current plaintive cry of, I need a book! is not unusual, yet fulfilling that need in the deadly 2020 coronavirus pandemic is often a godsend. For most, the new normal is unfamiliar territory. However, human beings are adaptable, and often amazingly creative in satisfying a need for escape and distraction. For many (17%) in this difficult time, that is the romance novel. This least respected, most popular genre, written by women for women, represents a cornerstone of popular culture. It is part of what is left after the literati decree what books belong to the canon and what books are not worth reading. The marketing of romance novels represents a new level of consumerism. Publishers supply what readers want, a story about loving relationships with a happy ending. This paper seeks to promote understanding of this maligned genre through a three-part inter-disciplinary approach. The authors examine the history of the genre. They analyze the statistics prized by publishers. Lastly, they perform a literary analysis on thirty romance novels, novellas, and short stories

A Measure of Emotional Empathy for Adolescents and Adults

A new, multi-dimensional scale of emotional empathy is described. The scale consists of 30 items and was administered to 793 adolescents and adults. A principal components analysis yielded six meaningful factors. Alpha reliabilities for all scale scores were moderate to high, and the scales demonstrate significant relationships to a number of behavioral criteria. The new empathy scale measures emotional aspects of empathy and can be used by researchers interested in a general measure of emotional empathy as well as providing detailed sub-scales

Climate Justice: The Cry of the Earth, the Cry of the Poor (The Case of the Yolanda/Hayain Tragedy in the Philippines)

In the Encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis relates the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Literally, cry is a metaphor pregnant with meanings. It can mean the feeling of pain and suffering, the experience of sadness and loss calling out for relief and sympathy. The earth and the poor have equally endured this tears of lamentation. The cry is not just an expression of pain but also an appeal to responsibility. Thus we need to take seriously the groaning of our ecology and humanity. In the context of climate change, the global warming affects the whole world but it specifically affects the poor more. The poor people vulnerable to exposure to disaster as demonstrated by the supertyphoon - internationally known as Haiyan and locally known as Yolanda - tragedy that worsens the poverty of the already poor. The poor daily depend on the earth for their sustenance and livelihood. Moreover, they are mostly endangered in times of disaster. Since they are made from light and cheap materials, their properties are easily damaged or even totally destroyed in times of disaster. Scholars argue that climate change is an issue of justice. Thus, they propose climate justice in distributing responsibility caused by global warming and eventually taking responsibility to the earth as a common home

Significance is the Weakness Point of Modern Linguistic Research

The semantic theory in circulation is not sufficient despite the numerous attempts to present a theory that accommodates the semantic level, as its procedural concepts and analytical tools did not meet this level and did not contain it, as many of the mothers of books in linguistics that have appeared in the last thirty years - which are the most influential literature - semantics do not pay attention to interest such as American linguistics, for example, which have been adopted for a long time A far cry from the principle that language should be analyzed without meaningful consideratio

Music and learning

The ideas and research that will be outlined and discussed here have been selected to show that music is more than a curriculum subject and that it can permeate many aspects of our lives and that it is important to our cognitive and physical development. Although the field of music education can sometimes be rather too focused on the development of young musicians, I am particularly interested in the development of young people and in ways that music can enhance and enrich their learning

Building a Christian Worldview through Response to Literature

Research has shown that what one reads can be an important factor in developing one’s worldview. This paper will report my thoughts about experiences I had while reading aloud-challenging texts in two Christian school classrooms. My goal for the read alouds was to have students think about issues related to justice, love, and commitment as they apply to both the family and the larger community. Various types of response methodologies (written, art, drama, discussion) were used to encourage students to build connections between what they learned, to what is the appropriate response and action

Cultural Differences in American and Southeast Asian Children\u27s Psychosocial Development

Observance of Southeast Asian parents and their preschool children during English as a Second Language (ESL) classes suggests that rethinking commonly held developmental phenomena in psychosocial development may produce insight into Southeast Asian culture and childrearing, middle class American culture and childrearing, and child development in general. Because it meets the needs of parents, the Des Moines Area Community College offers child care with ESL classes for refugees in the Ames, Iowa, area.[1] This article is based on observations from nearly five years of experience in the refugee nursery school with parents and young children. Children\u27s ages range from two weeks to seven years of age. Most were newly arrived in the United States, with little or no English ability