2,168 words

Preston Tucker's revolutionary automobile design and business conflict with American manufacturers

Preston Tucker was a revolutionary and at the same time a rebel, an inventor and at the same time, a hero. He was a man before his time who managed to design an automobile that was so very advanced for this time that till today no one has been able to catch up with that invention.

~11 min read

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1,307 words

Suzanne Lebsock's "A Murder in Virginia" and post-Civil War justice

Suzanne Lebsock's a Murder in Virginia presents a glimpse into post Civil War southern justice. The book recounts the events surrounding a murder case in 1895 Lunenburg County, Virginia in a rather unique manner.

~7 min read

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2,244 words

Political oppression and the construction of otherness in authoritarian systems

Political conflict and oppressive political power are most often associated with the desires and in some cases even the whim of the ruling body, be it authoritarian or otherwise.

~12 min read

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1,768 words

Social structure and moral decay in Lazarillo de Tormes

The Spanish Picaresque Novel: The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (1554): Its Social Structure and Its Characters The Spanish picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes written in 1554 by an anonymous author, possibly a Jewish converso (that is, a Jewish individual forced to convert to Catholicism during the…

~9 min read

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1,651 words

Racial bias and arbitrariness in America's juvenile death penalty

In America, twenty-five states permit the execution of juveniles, twenty-one states set the minimum age for execution at 16 and four states at set it at 17. No other Western country, no other industrialized state, and in fact no other democracy in the world allows juveniles to be executed.

~9 min read

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1,734 words

Portraying autism through Christopher Boone in Haddon's novel

Mark Haddon's the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a particularly unique glimpse into the mind of an autistic child. Largely, the book is successful because the disorder is described through the eyes of a character who suffers from it.

~9 min read

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1,927 words

George Orwell's 1984 and contemporary American political control

Orwell's novel, entitled 1984, is essentially a fictional projection of possibilities and "what if" scenarios.

~10 min read

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2,063 words

Mairowitz and Crumb's illustrated biography of Franz Kafka

This report aims to present my findings on my study and research of Franz Kafka. Although there are literally thousands of books, articles and journals that cover Kafka in one way or another, this report honed in on the famous author through the work David Zane Mairowitz and Robert Crumb entitled…

~11 min read

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1,487 words

Transgenerational trauma: how the Holocaust affects survivors and their descendants

The Holocaust is a painful reminder that humanity can turn upon itself and inflict incomprehensible damage. It undoubtedly altered the course of millions of lives, many of which are still attempting to heal, despite the decades that separate the event from the present.

~8 min read

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1,218 words

Gender and political power in Atwood's and Piercy's dystopian novels

Potential political realities in the present and not-so-distant future are examined in Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. These novels have become modern classics precisely because of their poignant relevance to real-world social and political affairs.

~7 min read

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