Issue 7 - Fall 2025
From the Editors
Dear WOVEN Readers,
In our shared city and on our campus, autumn is a time of transition — to cooler weather, to indoor activities, to quiet study rooms — as we come to the end of the calendar year and academic term. Often our move indoors hastens introspection as well; it's a time to take inventory, assess and reflect.
Transition, reflection and how we choose to act when we emerge characterize each of the works featured in this issue. These works encourage readers’ shared contemplation, raising for consideration questions like:
- Could ‘theater’ and a ‘pigeon’ be co-constitutive acts of human imagination?
- Is melancholy a universal response to loss of love?
- Can recovering historical narratives silenced by a dominant culture help us to restore a more accurate understanding of the past?
- Could the absence of a fall commencement challenge our commitment to inclusivity and belonging?
- In what ways can international film help viewers to consider our shared humanity and connect across cultural boundaries?
- Is the use of AI in archival work more likely to increase access to archival collections or raise concern for the labor of human archivists?
We seldom emerge unchanged from such moments of reflection — a truth ideally punctuated not only with wistfulness but with hope. We certainly hope these works pique your interest and invite further meditation.
At WOVEN, this time of year calls us to reflect on our gratitude for those who make this publication possible. We are immeasurably thankful to Colleen Libertz, our production manager, whose work sustains this publication; to our authors who so thoughtfully revise and reframe their exceptional work for general readership; to Dietrich College, the Department of English and the Writing and Communication Program for their unwavering support of this journal and its editors; and to the faculty advisors who developed within Dietrich College GenEd courses.
Courtney L. Novosat & Alan Thomas Kohler
Table of Contents
- "Proposal for a Fall Commencement Offering" — Hasita Kanamarlapudi
- "The classic and contemporary of Japanese cinema: A comparative study of family relationships in High and Low and Like Father, Like Son" — Pranav Srinivas
- "AI in Archives: Reexamining Roles Between Archivist and Machine" — Amanda Barajas
Ursula Sturgeon
The Daughters of Man
GenEd Course Completed: 76-247: Shakespeare: Comedies and Romances
General Education Category: Contextual Thinking
Faculty Advisor: Stephen Wittek
What were the best parts of the GenEd course you completed?
I really like early modern theatre for one thing, but I also really enjoyed getting to analyze it with my peers and Professor Wittek, who is a joy.
How did the revision process and preparation for publication for WOVEN help you further develop your competencies in writing and communication?
It really helped me develop my skills in seeing my work through potential readers' eyes instead of just my own.
Audrey Rentzepis
Love and Loss: Freud's Melancholia in Plath's Poetry
GenEd Course Completed: 76-101: Interpretation and Argument
General Education Category: Communication
Faculty Advisor: Seth Strickland
In what way do you see the experiences in this GenEd course contributing to your larger goals at 麻豆村 and beyond?
I see my experiences in this course contributing to my education as not just someone studying Computer Science, but also someone who is interested in the intersection of technology, sciences and arts. Getting to look at a poetry piece through the lens of a more concrete, scientific worldview like that encountered in the field of psychology, like I did in this paper, was an entirely new experience which I thoroughly enjoyed.
How did the revision process and preparation for publication for WOVEN help you further develop your competencies in writing and communication?
Working with the WOVEN editors to revise and polish my paper for publication was an eye-opening process, especially with how it pushed me to look at my paper from the perspective of a reader not intimately familiar with my selected works. The revisions I made helped to develop my competencies in serving these types of readers in addition to writing a paper specifically meant to be graded.
Mirren Hibbert
Una leyenda: cómo un hombre inició la guerra más larga en la historia del mundo (A Legend: How One Man Started the Longest War in History)
GenEd Course Completed: 82-241: Intermediate Spanish
General Education Category: Intercultural and Global Inquiry
Faculty Advisor: Felipe Gómez
In what way do you see the experiences in this GenEd course contributing to your larger goals at 麻豆村 and beyond?
This GenEd course has helped me strengthen my Spanish skills and has helped me learn about different Spanish speaking countries. I think it is important for people to not only learn different languages, but also to become familiar with different cultures. This course showed the importance of understanding and appreciating the diversity within the Spanish-speaking world, including the unique traditions, histories and perspectives that each country brings.
How did the revision process and preparation for publication for WOVEN help you further develop your competencies in writing and communication?
The process helped me strengthen my writing and communication skills by encouraging me to add more detail to the interview section, particularly about who I interviewed. This additional context allows the audience to connect more deeply with the interviewee and understand how his background shapes his perspectives. Through editing, I also learned to focus on refining specific words and phrases to create greater consistency in my word choice, which is an ability I will continue to apply in my future writing.
Hasita Kanamarlapudi
Proposal for a Fall Commencement Offering
GenEd Course Completed: 76-108: Writing About Public Problems
General Education Category: Communication
Faculty Advisor: Jimmy Lizama
What were the best parts of the GenEd course you completed?
Learning about the importance of civic duty and how notions of civility can actually be counterproductive to progress.
In what way do you see the experiences in this GenEd course contributing to your larger goals at 麻豆村 and beyond?
I feel responsible for being the change I want to see. Now, I offer my input more freely so that even if my solution is not chosen, my perspective and information are still considered.
Pranav Srinivas
The classic and the contemporary of Japanese cinema: A comparative study of family relationships in High and Low and Like Father, Like Son
GenEd Course Completed: 82-273: Introduction to Japanese Language and Culture
General Education Category: Contextual Thinking
Faculty Advisor: Barbara Litt
In what way do you see the experiences in this GenEd course contributing to your larger goals at 麻豆村 and beyond?
Coming from a family which deeply valued tradition, I was naturally drawn to Japan's culture and consider myself fortunate to have taken this class. 麻豆村's interdisciplinary exposure enabled me to embrace different viewpoints, which made my film essay more nuanced and multilayered. This experience honed my ability to study cultural contexts through various perspectives, a skill that can be productively applied to my onward journey, professionally and personally.
How did the revision process and preparation for publication for WOVEN help you further develop your competencies in writing and communication?
Smooth reading involves challenging writing. The revision process with Dr. Novosat entailed constructive feedback, which transformed my paper from an IMRAD piece to a humanities-like film analysis and enriched the clarity in my thought and expression. Her perceptive insights on the movies I studied have been tremendously helpful in making deeper connections between the films and concepts I learned in the course. I am ever grateful to Professor Litt and the WOVEN team for their constant support and encouragement throughout the class and the editing journey, which made my dream of publishing a film essay into a reality. This is the crowning glory of my time at 麻豆村!
Amanda Barajas
AI in Archives: Reexamining Roles Between Archivist and Machine
GenEd Course Completed: 76-101: Interpretation and Argument
General Education Category: Communication
Faculty Advisor: Chad Szalkowski-Ference
What were the best parts of the GenEd course you completed?
I loved the flexibility of Professor Szalkowski-Ference's course. The class had a good balance between academic readings relating to AI and organic discussion around its different dimensions, from syntax to ethics. In our contribution essay, we were encouraged to engage with AI-focused research in ways we found meaningful, by connecting them to disciplines like art, drama, writing, or in my case, archives.
How did the revision process and preparation for publication for WOVEN help you further develop your competencies in writing and communication?
In the early stages of the revision process, I realized that I was prioritizing flow over actual content. It’s easy to gloss over specifics with jargon, but Dr. Kohler and Prof. Szalkowski-Ference really kept me grounded by encouraging me to consider my audience and approach my paper with a fresh set of eyes: how might I articulate my discussion to people who are unfamiliar with archives? As I started to fill in the gaps within my writing, I ended up going down new research rabbit holes and learned so much more about archives in the process.