Old Habits Out and New Habits In: The New Way to Waste Food

Throughout my life I have had my fair share of wasteful habits. I have thrown food out because I thought it looked funky, to simply being too full and not wanting to eat another bite. In the moment, I never stop to think about the impact it may have on the world. However, try to…

Thanksgiving Ethnography: My Family’s Fryers

According to Warren Belasco, what defines a family holiday meal is its planning, its timing, its timelessness, and most importantly - its meaning. My family’s annual Thanksgiving is planned by my grandmother on my father’s side of the family at least weeks in advance. This is when she starts making her homemade cranberry bread. Sometimes…

Retracing the Steps of British Abolitionists: A Digital Learning Approach to the History of the Atlantic Slave Trade

The transatlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in history. It involved an intercontinental transfer of wealth, goods, and most importantly, millions of people over the course of four centuries. Great Britain was one of the chief participants in the traffic. According to estimates available through Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (2013),  Britain…

Breaking Machismo

MONTEVERDE, Costa Rica — Women in Costa Rica are rising out of the ashes and learning how to spread their own wings. For a long time, and some would argue still today, women in Costa Rica were considered second-class citizens, mostly due to machismo, or masculine culture, where men believe they hold dominant roles over…

Precision Agriculture: Feeding the Future

Agriculture has faced its fair share of adversity. In the 1930’s and 40’s, it was the dust bowl. The 1980’s Farm Crisis was a byproduct of overproduction, poor investments, and bad decisions made during the boom years of the late 1970’s.  As a result, farmers were pushed to the brink of bankruptcy and many lost…

Music of the Cherokee Nation

Introduction and General History Music history in North America begins long before Europeans came ashore; however, because classically trained musicians view music history through the lens of European practices and experiences, it becomes difficult to document an authentic musical experience of the indigenous populations without first understanding the history of the people being studied. To…

Takeover of Invasive Species Due to Climate Change: The Bush Honeysuckle

The Midwest region of the United States is composed of a variety of organisms that come from many different species and origins. From the western bank of the Mississippi River, to the eastern ridge of the Rocky Mountains, life of all forms thrive across this region. Some of these life forms originated here in the…

Christmas Holiday: Queering Family in 20th Century Southern Missouri

An obituary in The Southeast Missourian lists Elaine “Tommie” Davis as the business partner of Mary Jane “Miss Jane” Barnett for over forty years (Elaine Davis Obituary). However, the family albums of the two tell a richer story, they were life partners as well as business partners, a radical act in mid-century America, and perhaps…

“I Don’t Know Where My Boy Is!”: Abduction and Brainwashing in Stranger Things

In “Chapter Six: The Monster” of Netflix’s Stranger Things, there’s the big reveal: Eleven, the daughter of Terry, a former subject in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Project MK-Ultra, was stolen—abducted—by “the big bad Man” to be used as a psychic weapon against the Soviet Union. Everything’s there: child abduction, brainwashing, the Man, an irrational fear…

The Gay Lib Controversy: Social Change versus Social Norms at the University of Missouri

In 1971, a homosexual student organization known as Gay Liberation or Gay Lib requested and was denied recognition at the University of Missouri-Columbia. For the next seven years, Gay Lib members would work their way through a system of appeals and court cases until they were finally awarded recognition in April 1978. This was not…