Vol. 1 No. 2

This issue of Meliora was published under the guidance of editors-in-chief Audrey Pettit and Meredith Phipps with the support of faculty advisors Professor Atefeh Akbari and Professor Lisa Gordis.

Within this issue, readers will find Gabrielle Edwards' exploration of Marxism in Mansfield Park, but they will also discover Hannah Rubenstein's tracing of the performance history of the Jewish moneylender Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Both interrogate how new perspectives on these centuries-old narratives might instigate social change. As Sophia D'Urso navigates the notion of a language void of oppressive hierarchies in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Esther Goldberg considers what life forms are granted animacy—delving into climate science and viral loads—in Emily Fridlund's History of Wolves. Both Catherine Ferrante and Maggie Toole explore depictions of empathy in literature, yet while Ferrante takes a closer look at Ishmael's collectivist philosophy in Moby-Dick, Toole contends that Jenny Offill's novels might remedy widespread social alienation.

Meliora refuses boundaries of time period and subject matter. In doing so, it allows for the genesis of original and exciting scholarly ideas, expanding opportunities for publication to emergent undergraduate thinkers.