Journal Issue: University of Massachusetts Undergraduate History Journal: Volume 6, Issue 1
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GENDER, BIOLOGY, AND POWER: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND WOMANHOOD
Cahill, Robert
For decades, feminist scholars engaged in discourses surrounding women as a biological and social identity. Scholars unpacked normative ideas of womanhood and gender, often drawing very different conclusions from one another. They theorized that womanhood was a social construction to ensure their subservient status to patriarchal institutions. The line between biological and social identity was and still is contentious between scholars. Writers like Judith Butler, Caroline Smith-Rosenberg, and Natalie Zemon Davis analyzed gender constructs in both a theoretical and historical sense and formed their analysis in different ways. Their work breaks down how medical orthodoxies created biological ideas of womanhood and how biology was used as a method to effectively enforce normative ideas of gender. This work seeks to compare the approaches of each scholar and their analysis of womanhood.
Violence in Print: A Brief Look into Violence Against Women as a Plot Device in Livy’s History
Foster, Caitlyn
Ancient Rome was a vast empire with a rich culture that has fascinated people for generations. Much of what is known of the early days of Rome is thanks to the work of Titus Livius, a historian living in Rome during the first century CE. Livy, as he is more commonly known, wrote a comprehensive history of Rome, starting with its early mytho-history, detailing Roman legends about its founding and journey to empire. In this early history, Livy discusses many now famous women, however, he treats these women more as plot devices than as actual characters. Using Livy’s translated work, as well as scholarly interpretations, in my article, I aim to examine how Livy uses and even misrepresents the reality of life in Ancient Rome for women in order to further his narrative.
History as Debate: An Analysis of Different Approaches to History
Hackenson, Bret
Historical interpretation is the process by which historians analyze historical evidence and craft an explanation of the past. This essay explores unique interpretations of history, including Haskell Fain’s approach to history as science, George M. Trevelyan’s belief in history as education, Karl Marx’s historical materialism, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s comparative history. Comparing each of these approaches reveals that although historians may disagree on how history should be interpreted, each interpretation offers unique insights into historical questions that some historians might not have considered. This condition helps provide complete answers to these historical questions by considering all interpretations, whether they be history as science or education, as materialism or comparisons, or even those not discussed here.
THE EVOLUTION OF A MYTH: ROMULUS & REMUS
Haskell, Laura
Myths offer an explanation of something unknown, as is the case with Rome’s founding myth of Romulus and Remus. The first known record was written four hundred years afterward and survives only as a reference in later material. In each subsequent account from the first, authors contribute the influence of their time to grasp the imaginations of their audience and renew interest in days long past. In 2019, director Matteo Rovere molded the Romulus and Remus myth to suit a modern audience in his film Il Primo Re, using reconstructed Proto-Latin to create an immersive 8th-century experience. Comparing early accounts such as those written by Livius’ and Plutarch, and methods of storytelling through film, we will examine how the myth of Romulus and Remus evolved and adapted to audiences of the past and present.
The Purpose and Relevance of the Grand Narrative
Hastry, Brianna
Scholars such as Jean-Francis Lyotard often disregard the grand narrative as far too broad to be considered an academic form of history. However, scholars such as Akhil Amar, NikoleHannah Jones, and Dorothy Ross prove otherwise. The grand narrative provides a broad perspective of historical events and answers philosophical questions that may appeal to the way society functions today and brings conversations to the table that may improve society overall. Admired and respected scholars use the grand narrative method to answer questions that add to society’s understanding of history, proving this method to be a useful and academic tool.