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Before England was united under the monarchy, kings had to establish their legitimacy to gain and maintain power. Loyalty to the king, and support of his authority, were not yet attached to the crown, but had to be won. To discover how this was done, Matthew Currier '16 is examining royal diplomas, a type of charter specific to the crown.

A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects by Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate has continued to generate reviews and interviews. In its July issue, the Utne Reader excerpted the book for its online site under the title of "Drums: The Rhythme of Life"; the website "Spirituality and Practice" named it one of "The Best Spiritual Books of 2014 (so far),” describing it as “an elegant and illuminating book on the spiritual importance of objects in the religious life.”

Mercy Corredor ’15, a philosophy major, is working on an Emerson research project, “Absolute Spirit, Logic, and Contemporary Philosophy: Returning to Hegelian Thought” with Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack. Corredor is reading Phenomenology of Spirit, to examine Hegel’s view on metaphysics, “the study of what and how things exist,” she explained.

This summer, Tori Fukumitsu ’15, an English major and Japanese minor, is working on an independent Emerson project,“Performing With the Picture, Moving With the Times: the Role of Benshi in Preserving a Japanese Cultural Practice and Adapting to a Global Audience” with Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures (Japanese) Kyoko Omori. Fukumitsu is exploring benshi, Japanese silent film narrators, and their performing art of setsumei.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate recently took part in a roundtable discussion on the place of religion in contemporary art. Joining Plate were several NYC-based artists working in a variety of media. They included Lawrence Graham-Brown, Meg Hitchcock-Steger, Yona Verwer, Kysa Johnson and Patricia Bellucci.

Kerri Grimaldi '16 and Janet Thomas Simons, co-director of Hamilton's Digital Humanities Initiative, gave a poster presentation, "Empowering Student Digital Scholarship: CLASS Program as a model for digital humanities scholarship in the Liberal Arts" on July 10 at the International Digital Humanities Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.

While writing is often used to convey an idea or a thought, it doesn’t often try to mimic the haphazard connections our mind makes.  But one literary technique, stream of consciousness, attempts to do just that. Nate Lanman ‘15, a creative writing major, is working with Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Benjamin Widiss on his Emerson research project, “The Thought of Thought: Contemporary Inheritances of the Modernist Stream of Consciousness Narrative.”

Approaching 501 Park Street in Syracuse, a visitor would see what looks like a Catholic church. Though this site was once home to the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, the building is now being converted into a mosque. As neighborhood demographics change, the need for specific religious spaces tends to shift as well. This summer, three students are working on a Levitt Group Research Project, “Sacred Spaces in Transition.”

Style has devoted a special issue (Volume 48/1) to recent pedagogical work by Peter J. Rabinowitz and Corinne Bancroft ’10. Rabinowitz is  the Carolyn C. and David M. Ellis ’38 Distinguished Teaching Professor of Comparative Literature. The issue begins with Rabinowitz and Bancroft’s “Euclid at the Core: Recentering Literary Education.”

Lainie Smith ’16, through the Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi), is examining meditation in her summer research project titled “Investigating the Growth and Adaptations of the Practice of Meditation” with Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Abhishek Amar.