American Freedom Story: a journey from "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" to the "Secret Life of Bees"

This dissertation identifies an American freedom story in a set of novels from 1885 to 2002 beginning with the foundation text Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Five American writers use similar elements and approaches to consider the freedom quest: Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, Bharati Mukherjee, and Sue Monk Kidd. This story frame leads a misfit hero to leave family and hometown to form a community and experience personal freedom without cultural, religious, gender, racial, or ethnic limitations. The community, as well as the experience of freedom, exists only fleetingly. As the notion of freedom itself changes in America from the Civil War to the present, the hero and the quest in these novels must change as well. The use of the freedom story genre facilitates viewing these works and their diverse authors across historical time, critical approaches, and social contexts

People and Animals, Kindness and Cruelty: Research Directions and Policy Implications

This article addresses the challenges of defining and assessing animal abuse, the relation between animal abuse and childhood mental health, the extensive research on animal abuse and intimate partner violence, and the implication of these empirical findings for programs to enhance human and animal welfare. Highlighted are recent developments and advances in research and policy issues on animal abuse. The reader is directed to existing reviews of research and areas of focus on the expanding horizon of empirical analyses and programmatic innovations addressing animal abuse. Following a discussion of forensic and veterinary issues related to animal abuse, we discuss policy issues including how the status of animals as human companions at times may place animals at risk. We also review developments in the field of human–animal relations and apply the primary– secondary–tertiary prevention public health model to prevention and treatment of animal abuse. We close with a description of community networks addressing animal abuse, interagency collaborations, and new developments in animal-related law