Tribal sovereignty describes the inherent authority of independent Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within a separate nation’s borders, in this case, within the borders of the United States. The United States Constitution, in its original draft, mentions Native Americans twice: once to exclude the Native population from the population count used in congressional apportionment (which would later be amended by the 14th Amendment), and once to grant Congress the power to regulate commerce with Native nations and foreign nations, which the text places in the same category. These two clauses imply that tribal sovereignty was originally assumed in the Constitution, …

“I said no, before I knew I had answered at all.” (Burney 123) This assertion by Frances Burney’s heroine, Evelina, summarizes my argument quite perfectly. In Evelina, Burney reveals a social world that consistently puts women in situations where they’d like to refuse, and as such, our heroine develops both an instinct for refusal and an awareness of its limits. Throughout Evelina, Burney crafts a heroine continuously determined to say no – to dancing and to proposals, and these instances exist as the moments where Evelina exerts agency as a heroine. For the purposes of this paper, affirmative power is …

Few words have garnered more criticism in Austen scholarship than the “dead silence” in Mansfield Park. When Fanny Price asks Sir Thomas about the slave trade upon his return from Antigua, her inquiry is met by “dead silence,” and these words have puzzled decades of readers and scholars (Austen 214). A two pronged reading has emerged, and they occupy opposite ends of a binary. One reading interprets the silence as an authorial copout, for Austen chooses not to breach the pertinent, present, and consequential conversation of abolition that her contemporary readers would be aware of. This reading would hold that …

Introduction I was born in Leon County in Tallahassee, Florida on September 14, 2000. A month later, the most highly contested election in history occurred between Governor George Bush and Vice President Al Gore, initiating months of jurisprudence, years of public doubt in both the electoral process and the judicial system, and the introduction of a novel judicial philosophy containing serious implications for the present moment in 2021. Though the long term effects were not immediately clear, the post-election-night chaos was immediately apparent. The news spread nationwide with haste, but the core of the controversy was in my backyard, a …

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian communication theorist authored a study entitled Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. In this profoundly successful, pioneering study of media theory, McLuhan argues that the infrastructure and mechanics of media, rather than the content it carries, should be the true focus of study. In the opening paragraph, McLuhan declares the following statement:  In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is …

On the day my childhood best friend died in a car accident, it began raining minutes after I heard the news. A year later, on the first anniversary, the sky emptied itself once again, as if on purpose. When rain fell three years in a row, I truly began to believe that the sky, like myself, was crying for Ansley on those dreaded, solemn February days as well. It rained every year after that.  In 2020, the first anniversary whilst in college, I was sure that the rain wouldn’t come. The forecast predicted sun, I was three hundred miles away …

I think that as I’ve grown to learn more about poetry this year, one of the things I’ve come to realize is inevitably true is that if you are a poet who has successfully created a new form, you are one badass writer. Poetry is a medium of art that has been prevalent for thousands of years, an impulse so primal to human behavior that despite the immense passage of time, we are never finished with poetry. Poetry is ancient, and I am always in awe when I read an author that makes poetry feel new again – poets that …

I grew up in a church. From the day I was born until the day I left for college, each Sunday (with truly few exceptions) I could be found inside that space. I could be found with God – or rather, I could be found trying to get to him. I was raised on David and Goliath and the ten commandments and Adam and Eve and the seven cardinal sins.  I read the bible cover to cover at age eleven, determined to impress my parents and as pretentious about literature as ever. I no longer believe in God, and in fact, …

The sharing of books is the primary love language among the women in my family. My grandmother rarely hugs me, and yet, every Christmas I receive a cardboard box with a selection of beaten up, perfectly loved paperback beauties carefully curated for me. I receive one from my mother too, though this collection is in a whole foods bag, not in a box, and often features hardbacks as well. I give them to my mother and grandmother in return. These have been facts of my life for the past decade. They have been the primary love I have given and …