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Editors’ Introduction
Editors’ Introduction
Aegis 2021 5 t-
As this year’s editors, we are pleased to present the campus community with the 2021 edition of Aegis: The Otterbein Humanities Journal. The essays that have been selected for this year’s edition of Aegis exemplify the talent and commitment to academics that are continuously exhibited by students at Otterbein University. The topics covered examine issues of film studies, political theory, music history, playwriting, literary theory, and more. All of the essays in the journal meet the standards of rigorous research in the humanities, but more importantly, they are engaging pieces that work to address a variety of complex issues. In “COVID-19 as the Collapse of Capitalism: A Socio-Political Marxist Analysis of the Pandemic and a Post-Pandemic Future” by Paige Skaff, the economic and socio-political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are investigated through a Marxist framework. In “T.S. Eliot: Reinventing the Modernist Tradition” by Kat Gibson, seeks to understand Eliot within the broader framework of modernist society and offers a personal and historical contextualization for his analysis. In “Masochism and Sinthomosexuality: Caleb and Ava’s Relationship in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina” by Miranda Hilt, the psychoanalytic concepts of masochism and sinthomosexuality are employed to investigate the relationship between Caleb and Ava in the film, Ex Machina. In “The Dissolute Punished: An Overview of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, K. 527” the influential eighteenth-century opera, Don Giovanni and its creator Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are analyzed. These essays, as well as others published in this edition represent the fine work being done by students in the humanities at Otterbein. Also included in this edition of Aegis is a selection of book reviews written by the Editorial Board that reflect their intellectual interests and speak to their respective disciplines. The books reviewed in this year’s edition include Temporary, an absurd and fantastical novel that scrutinizes the capitalist preoccupation with work by following a woman working for a temp agency. The Queen tells the story of Martha Louis White, the “welfare queen” whose crimes potentially went beyond fraud. Cherry is the story of an unnamed war veteran whose journey would lead to a life of crime and drug addiction. The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness speaks of the unpredictable journey of someone suffering a chronic illness. These and other fiction and nonfiction titles are discussed in the following pages. As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact our globe in unprecedented ways, we were forced to move Aegis entirely remote this year. With the help of active communication and great Wi-Fi, we were able to engage with our board members and contributing authors to complete this journal. Compared to our previous year and the abrupt change that caused enormous pressure and delay, this year our Aegis board remained vigilant in keeping the same enthusiasm for completing the journal as always, for that we are grateful. Thank you to all the board members for coming to virtual meetings, actively participating, and keeping dedicated to publishing such a work completely online. We’d also like to thank all of this year’s contributors for remaining appreciative of Aegis during this time and providing your insight, art, and passions to this journal.
Aegis is proud to belong to a strong scholarly community of students and faculty within the humanities at Otterbein University. The reviews, essays and interviews included within Aegis speak to Otterbein’s commitment to that community. We hope that our readers find engaging, stimulating, and thought-provoking work throughout this year’s edition.
