Sharing our Blessings with Those in Need

Each year, National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week asks us to think about our most challenged neighbors during the days before Thanksgiving. As we consider our own reasons to be thankful, let us ask ourselves how we may share our blessings with those around us in need of food and shelter. [excerpt

Student-Centered, Interactive Teaching of the Anglo-Saxon Cult of the Cross

Although most Anglo-Saxonists deal with Old English texts and contexts as a matter of course in our research agendas, many of us teach relatively few specialized courses focused on our areas of expertise to highly-trained students; thus, many Old English texts and objects which are commonplace in our research lives can seem arcane and esoteric to a great many of our students. This article proposes to confront this gap, to suggest some ways of teaching a few potentially obscure texts and artifacts to undergrads, to offer some guidance about uses of technology in this endeavor, and to help fellow teachers of undergraduate Old English to develop ways to impart some transferable skills and modes of critical thinking to unsuspecting students. [excerpt

State Funding Unfair to Traditional Schools

The present budget crisis in Pennsylvania has brought many lingering tensions to bear as school districts scramble to pay their bills without any support from the state. Notably, there has been a lot of talk about holding back payments to charter schools, which naturally sparks controversy. In order to make sense of the situation - and in order to understand the passionate debate which surrounds it - it\u27s worthwhile to know something about the history, theory, and funding of charter schools. [excerpt

Woody and arboreal habitats of the Green Salamander (Aneides aeneus) in the Blue Ridge Mountains

The green salamander (Aneides aeneus) is primarily considered a rock crevice dwelling species. However, many early observations from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia report A. aeneus taken from woody and arboreal habitats. There have been only four published records of A. aeneus using such habitats within the Blue Ridge Disjunct population of southwest North Carolina, northeast Georgia, and northwest South Carolina, and no records since 1952. Here I report two personal observations of A. aeneus using arboreal habitats in North Carolina. Additionally, I report nine observations, made by others, of A. aeneus using woody, arboreal, or otherwise non-rock-crevice habitats in North and South Carolina, including the first non-rock-crevice A. aeneus nesting record for the Blue Ridge. I also speculate that woody and arboreal habitats play a much larger role in the life-history of A. aeneus than generally thought, and that the rarity of A. aeneus is linked to the loss of American Chestnut and old-growth forests

Envisioning a Compulsory-Licensing System for Digital Samples Through Emergent Technologies

Despite the rapid development of modern creative culture, federal copyright law has remained largely stable, steeped in decades of tradition and history. For the most part, copyright finds strength in its stability, surviving the rise of recorded music, software programs, and, perhaps the most disruptive technology of our generation, the internet. On the other hand, copyright’s resistance to change can be detrimental, as with digital sampling. Although sampling can be a highly creative practice, and although copyright purports to promote creativity, current copyright law often interferes with the practice of sampling. The result is a largely broken system: Those who can legally sample are usually able to do so because they are wealthy, influential, or both. Those who cannot legally sample often sample illegally. Many scholars have suggested statutory solutions to this problem. Arguably, the most workable solutions are rooted in compulsory licenses. Unfortunately, implementing these solutions is practically difficult. Two recent developments invite us to revisit these proposals. First, with the passage of the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), Congress has evinced a willingness to “modernize” parts of copyright law. Second, emergent technologies—from the MMA’s musical-works database to blockchain to smart contracts—can be leveraged to more easily implement a compulsory-licensing solution. This time around, rather than simply discuss why this solution is favorable, this Note will focus on how it can be implemented

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Died Today. Or, Maybe, Yesterday; I Can\u27t Be Sure...

50 years on, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead continues to captivate and to entertain audiences with its darkly comic examination of existential themes of life, death, and indecision drawn from the pages, situations, and characters of Hamlet. First produced at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966, the play opened at the Old Vic in London in 1967, and has been reprised there this season to rave reviews, with none other than Harry Potter in a leading role