2022-2023 Faculty Research
Professor Esther Chung-Kim, RA BaoChau Le, and RA Chloe Kastl
Religion and Medicine
Academic Year 2022-2023
This research project investigates the connections between religion and medicine in early modern Europe. In the 16th and 17 centuries, the study of disease and sickness shows that spiritual and medical healing worked side by side. For regular diseases (endemic), most people accepted that both religious and secular approaches to illness were appropriate. But in times of plagues and epidemics, the possibility of conflict between religious institutions and public health increased. This research project seeks to examine the interactions between early modern medicine, natural history, and the Bible in what physicians called “sacred medicine” (medicina sacra). In the efforts to care for the body and soul, a series of texts on medicine and the Bible began to appear in the middle of the sixteenth century. This new scholarly interest sought to examine biblical accounts from a medical standpoint, to analyze disease and wounds, and to discover new methods for healing and treatments. One notable figure working in the field of sacred medicine in the second half of the sixteenth century was the Dutch physician, Levinus Lemnius who drew on the burgeoning interest around the natural world and healing arts. Such studies led to in-depth examination of herbal and plant remedies on the one hand, and on the other hand, the specific conditions for healing diseases and coping with illnesses.
Professor Minju Kim and RA AMy Kim
Development of the Korean Proximal Demonstrative into a Focus Marker
Spring 2023
Demonstratives (e.g., English this and that which point at physical objects) have long served as a source for various grammatical and discourse-pragmatic markers (Diessel 1999,
Greenberg 1985). Researchers have shown that human cognition reasons similarly and hence, across different languages, developments of grammatical markers tend to similarly follow from “propositional” (e.g., English that pointing to an object) to “textual” (e.g., English connective that, “I think that he is right”) and then to “expressive” uses which show speakers’ epistemic and
affective stances. Using natural conversation and scripted drama conversation corpora, this study will examine my hypothesis that the Korean demonstrative construct i-ke ya ‘this is’ developed into a focus marker that encodes the speaker’s emphasizing and boasting stance. Detailed examination of the development of i-ke ya ‘this is’ will thus provide another piece of supporting evidence for a universal pattern in the development of grammatical markers.
Professor Amy Kind and RA Andrew Holzer
Imagination and its Place in the Mind
Academic Year 2022-2023
Over the course of AY 2022-23 I will be working on three papers relating to imagination. Although the papers are not directly connected to one another, all three fit into my longstanding research program that aims to understand the nature of imagination and its place in the mind. The first of these papers aims to clarify the relationship between imagination and delusion. Recent philosophical discussion of delusion has raised some interesting challenges to the treatment of imagination as a mental state distinct from belief. In particular, some philosophers have argued that in order to account adequately for delusion we need to see belief and imagination on a continuum, where there are some states that are “midway” between the two – in some ways belief-like and in some ways imagination-like. My paper analyzes the motivations for the continuum hypothesis and argues that they should be resisted. A second paper that I will be working on over the course of the year takes up the issue of whether and how imagining can be appropriately characterized in terms of accuracy. Given that imagination is not reality-sensitive and often has fantastical ends, what would it mean to say that one imagining is more accurate than another? A third paper takes up imagination and creativity. In particular, I aim to show how both of these phenomena can be analyzed within a skills-based framework, and further, that doing so helps us to better understand the relationship between them.
Professor Suryatapa Jha and RA Jaimie Almaraz
Anthropogenic effects on biodiversity – shift of habitat distribution of native species California Sagebrush and Laurel Sumac, compared to invasive Black Mustard
Academic Year 2022-2023
Human-centered needs and activities have redefined the relationship between the human and the natural world, often to our detriment. In face of an expanding human race, ergo, it is imperative to find ways for a more fruitful alliance of humans with nature. In this proposal, I intend to build upon my findings about the introduction and distribution of Black Mustard in California and compare it to two of the crucial native species, California Sagebrush and Laurel Sumac. These species are important because they also have historically been used for human consumption. Taking historical and contemporary academic socio-cultural commentaries, we will discuss these three species, the reasons behind their changing habitat, and the efforts of restoration in our way forward. This study, helmed by humanistic and natural science inquiries, will enhance our understanding of interspecies relationships in the Anthropocene, factors that contribute to environmental hardiness and species biodiversity, and above all, of the relationship between humans and plants in their natural environments.
Professor Emily Pears and RA Jeissy Lee
Demagogic Rhetoric in American Political History
Fall 2022
Over the past six years, the concept of demagoguery has seemingly re-entered the American lexicon. The popular press is full of references to American demagogues and demagoguery, yet academic research has generally failed to keep up. Few systematic studies of demagoguery in American political history have appeared in the last 40 years, despite ample evidence that demagoguery poses an ongoing threat to the American republic. This project seeks a better empirical understanding of the role demagoguery has played in American political life by analyzing the demagogues most powerful took – rhetoric. We plan to compile a database of the public speeches of leaders labeled “demagogues”, and then identify when and how demagogues use specific themes are tropes. The result will be a far more complete picture both of how Americans have defined demagoguery differently over time, and how demagogues have used rhetorical devises, divisive language, and tropes of Americanism and populism to persuade democratic audiences.