THE IMAGE of REDEMPTION in Literature, Media, and Society
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THE IMAGE OF REDEMPTION in Literature, Media, and Society 2018 Conference Proceedings Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery Edited by Thomas G. Endres Published by University of Northern Colorado ISSN 2572-4320 (online) THE IMAGE OF REDEMPTION in Literature, Media, and Society Proceedings of the 2018 Conference of the Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery March 2018 Greeley, Colorado Edited by Thomas G. Endres University of Northern Colorado Published by The Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery University of Northern Colorado Greeley, Colorado The online repository for SASSI proceedings is hosted by the University of Northern Colorado’s School of Communication and University Libraries Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC http://digscholarship.unco.edu/sassi/ ISSN 2572-4320 (online) Introduction and History These papers have been selected from among those presented at the spring 2018 conference of the Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery (SASSI), devoted to the theme of THE IMAGE OF REDEMPTION in Literature, Media, and Society. As the following papers demonstrate, this is a rich and provocative topic with interesting and surprising implications. Originally, the SASSI conference was known as SISSI (with the word "Interdisciplinary" used instead of "Academic") and was held for 25 years in Colorado Springs, CO. The following historical overview was written by SISSI co-founder Will Wright: In the fall of 1990 Dr. Steve Kaplan and I decided to try to hold an interdisciplinary conference in the spring of 1991. We thought Colorado was a place people like to visit and that we should take advantage of that somehow. Although our University was in Pueblo (then University of Southern Colorado, now Colorado State University-Pueblo), we thought the conference should be held in Colorado Springs, about 45 miles north, because flying into Colorado Springs was much easier. We thought the conference should be interdisciplinary because he was a professor of English and I was a professor of Sociology. We decided that the organizing idea of the conference should be Imagery, which seemed vague, abstract, and interdisciplinary, and that each annual event should have a more specific topic – The Image of (Something). We called ourselves, as an organizing structure, The Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery (SISSI), and then we picked the topic of the first SISSI conference, The Image of Crime. We found a great hotel, the Antlers in downtown Colorado Springs, and we reserved a set of meeting rooms and guest rooms. Then we made up and mailed out a Call for Papers, wondering if anyone would come. We decided to hold the conference in mid-March because we thought the weather would be good but that skiing would still be possible, so that people might come to the conference so that they could then go skiing. We asked a friend, the well-known criminologist Travis Hershi, if he would give a Keynote address, and he agreed. We figured out a registration fee, I think around $60, and a Proceedings fee (around $20), since we planned to produce a Proceedings, and we planned a two day conference. We accepted about 60-70 proposals, from around the country, and most people actually came, participated in sessions, and told us they had a good time. We could pay our bills with the money from the fees, and so it seemed to be a success, much to our surprise. We began to plan a second conference but this time we would plan for three days and send out far more Calls for Papers. The topic for the second year would be The Image of War, and this time we had about 150 participants, another success. After that we had our routine. We had a mailing list for the Calls of about 2000 universities and about seven departments at each university. We always arranged the conference at the Antlers Hotel, always for three days, and always in the middle of March. And our attendance ranged, depending on the topics, from about 120 to about 180. The Conference in this form lasted twenty-five years. Some of the topics included The Image of Nature, The Image of Technology, The Image of Violence, The Image of the Frontier, The Image of the Road, The Image of America, The Image of the American West, The image of the Outsider. Some of the Keynote Speakers included Vine Deloria, Jr. (Custer Died for Your Sins, God Is Red), Stanley Aronowitz (False Promises, Science as Power), Fredric Jameson (The Political Unconscious, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism), John Nichols (The Milagro Beanfield War, The Magic Journey), Patricia Limerickm (The Legacy of Conquest, Something in the Soil), and Carl Pletsch (Young Nietzsche, Beyond Preservation). Throughout the conferences the presentations were generally stimulating and the i sessions were generally lively. It was a rewarding effort and experience, and Steve and I are thrilled that it will now be continued in a slightly different form at the University of Northern Colorado. Will Wright Department of Sociology Over the years, the SISSI conference became a favorite for our faculty and graduate students here in the School of Communication at the University of Northern Colorado. Upon professor Wright's retirement, we felt a great loss when there was no SISSI conference in the spring of 2016. We contacted Will and asked if he would be willing to pass the torch to us, and he thoughtfully turned over the reins. We have tried to keep intact as much of the original conference feel and structure as possible, e.g. keeping "The Image of (Something)" theme. Upon reflection, we rebranded the association as SASSI as a way to honor the long-standing title while simultaneously making it our own. While honoring the past, in some ways it is like starting over. Our inaugural 2017 theme - The Image of Rebirth - reflected that regeneration. The two-year hiatus since the 2015 conference, coupled with a new name and new locale (in a town on the edge of the plains with no commercial airport and no nearby skiing) disrupted the established momentum of SISSI. The first SASSI conference, like its forebearer, was modest in size yet dynamic in output. 2018 showed an encouraging increase. Just as Will Wright and Steven Kaplan experienced more than 25 years ago, we are hopeful the conference will grow in both popularity and size. We thank the SISSI founders for allowing us to carry the discussions of social imagery into its new era, and hope you enjoy these contributions from our inaugural gathering. Thomas Endres SASSI Executive Director University of Northern Colorado July 2018 2018 Advisory Board and Reviewers (all from UNC) Lin Allen Melissa Donley Dale Edwards Jarae Fulton Michelle Honald Cheryl Pawlowski David Staton ii Table of Contents Plenary Session Voices of Women in Prison: A Conversation with Women Constructing Futures, 1 Model Images of Redemption and Restoration Vanessa Thompson, Rheann Kelly, Nicole Hayes, Char’dae Avery, Kacey Rucker, Natalie Medley, Magdalena Lopez, Constructing Our Future, Indiana Women’s Prison, Indianapolis, IN; Jeralyn Faris, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN; and Andrew Falk, Constructing Our Future Exec. Dir., Sagamore Institute, Indianapolis, IN Essays (Alphabetical by Author) From Excalibur to Epic Allure: Recalibrating Redemption 11 Lin Allen and Dale Edwards, University of Northern Colorado Possibilities of Redemption in Alfred Andersch’s Sansibar 17 Ralph W. Buechler, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Osler’s Man’s Redemption of Man: Preemptive Protection, Attitudinal Inoculation, 22 and Smallpox Inoculation Josh Compton, Dartmouth College Media Portrayals and Mythic Constructs in the 2016 Presidential Campaigns 26 Dale Edwards, University of Northern Colorado A Band of Angles 34 Dale Edwards and Lin Allen, University of Northern Colorado Redeeming Celebrity News: TMZ’s Minority Content 41 Angelica Kalika, University of Colorado, Boulder The Redemption of Deep Blue 56 James Brad McCauley and Sara Pollet, University of Northern Colorado An Inversion Concept and Cultural Roots of Redemption as Finding One’s Freedom 67 Heidi L. Muller, University of Northern Colorado Redemption of Truth: Do Facts Matter in the Post-Truth World? 78 Andrey Reznikov, Black Hills State University The Machine, the Garden, and the Wilderness: Historical Images of Redemption 81 in America Kathleen M. Ryan, University of Colorado Boulder Eve (and Eden) Redeemed 88 David Staton, University of Northern Colorado iii The Spiritual Redemption of Margery Kempe 94 Jacob L. Thomas, Snow College ‘Coming Full Circle’: Redemption for John Rambo? 100 Rebecca Umland, University of Nebraska at Kearney Dreaming of a Better Tomorrow: The Image of Redemption in the Writings of 108 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Frederick D. Watson iv Plenary Session Voices of Women in Prison: A Conversation with Women Constructing Futures, Model Images of Redemption and Restoration Vanessa Thompson, Rheann Kelly, Nicole Hayes, Char’dae Avery, Kacey Rucker, Natalie Medley, Magdalena Lopez, Constructing Our Future, Indiana Women’s Prison, Indianapolis, IN Jeralyn Faris, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN Andrew Falk, Constructing Our Future Exec. Dir., Sagamore Institute, Indianapolis, IN Dr. Faris and Executive Director Falk used a slide presentation at the conference before introducing the seven women of IWP who represented Constructing Our Future (COF). Images represented the lived experiences of these women and were shown on the slides with the following series of questions: “How does one go from this…[a young girl sitting at a desk in elementary school] to this…[a teenaged girl being arrested]? And from this…[a young woman sitting in a jail cell dressed in institutional orange] to this…[a woman clothed in jeans, a t-shirt, hardhat, and leather construction belt loaded with tools]?” This last image is the vision of Constructing Our Future: a woman given the tools and training to provide not only an income sufficient to support herself and her children but also a home purchased with 5,000 hours of sweat equity.