Letter from the Editor

Instead of starting this journal off with a note about the unprecedented times in which we are living, I instead want to comment on the unprecedented times that captivate us. The 2021 LCTSU Academic Conference brought together strong undergraduate scholars who shared an interest in how time shapes our worlds, how we fight against it, and how it mysteriously shapes us all. For both the conference and the journal, we asked students to consider “Perceptions on the Passage of Time.” Without a doubt, this year’s contributors’ perceptions varied greatly.

The 2021 journal features six academic articles on time, two stories, one creative article, one poem, and one comic. Bushra Boblai, the winner of the 2021 Conference Award, discusses temporality in Northanger Abbey. Ishtar Warda presents their phenomenological research on the pandemic and the self. Khadija Alam demonstrates the role of flashbacks in the novel Monkey Beach. Seavey van Walsum retells the story of Ishmael from Moby Dick in their comic. Every contribution takes a different approach to time, making this journal a true mosaic of perceptions.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this journal this fall and see these works to their publication. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank Ellen Grace who started this journal in the spring of 2021 and who passed it on to me this fall. I would also like to acknowledge all members of the Literature and Critical Theory program, whose resilience over the past year has been truly inspiring.

Sincerely,

Rion Levy

Editor-in-Chief