Vol. 4 (2017)

Volume 4 of Western Tributaries represents the best of interdisciplinary scholarship from the June 2017 West Coast Liberal Studies Symposium. The essays included reflect the diversity of thinking encouraged in the different programs, and collectively make for an engaging read. The journal opens with Libby O’Neil’s insightful analysis of the role of women pushing for political change in her discussion of how “the intertwined concepts of virtue, race and gender function” during American Abolitionism. Cathy Collis picks up this theme in her discussion of women’s involvement in the 1960s radical protest group The Weathermen. Building on the theme of women seeking change during the 1960s, Andrea Terpenkas discusses how the work of Shigeko Kubota, Kate Millet, and Yoko Ono contributed to the Fluxus art movement, which sought to challenge “the engendered power structures” in North American society. Rebecca Ross continues with the discussion of the role of artist in her close reading of Octavia Butler’s work. Ross illustrates how Butler develops the idea of the feminine uncanny in order to explore the freedoms and constraints of race and gender. Laura Damone tackles a different aspect of freedom and constraint in her close reading of the metrical construction of William Wordsworth’s poetry. She argues that the changing metrical form makes his poetry more accessible to a wider audience.  Like Wordsworth, James Joyce, in Ulysses, also attempts to make his writing more accessible to a wider audience. Neil Ramiller argues in “Inventorying Ithaca” that the everyday objects included in this section play an important role in understanding “our own identities in the context of the material world.” Lynette Yetter explores a different aspect of the importance of objects in society in her discussion of iconography of the Virgin Mary and Pachamama in Early-Colonial Copacabana.  She illustrates how the people of Copacabana wove together the two symbols as part of their religious practice rather than converting to Catholicism as previous scholarship has suggested. Volume 4 closes with Tony Westman’s challenging and humorous look at climate change in his essay “Dreams of Utopia and the Zombie Apocalypse.“  From early-colonial history to the future, the essays included in Western Tributaries encourage readers to travel through time, genre and discipline in order to continue to wrestle with the big ideas of race, gender, language, art, politics, and material culture. We hope that Volume 4 reflects the excitement and engagement with diverse ideas found at the annual June Symposium.

Enjoy!

Jennifer Chutter

Western Tributaries Managing Editor

Editorial Board: Barbara Amen (Reed), Joan Baranow (Dominican), Peter Kline (Stanford), Riki Thompson (University of Washington Tacoma), Ana Thorne (Mt. St. Mary’s), Amy Wong (Dominican).