The Natural Alien, By William James

The author of the book, a kingdom strange, is Dr. James Horn. Horn was born in Kent, England. He got his doctors of philosophy in History from University of Chicago, Field of Concentration: Early Modern Europe in 1982. Horn moved from England in twentieth century and currently lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. He taught at University of Brighton for twenty years. Dr. James Horn is the Vice president of research and historical interpretation and lecturer at the College of William & Mary. He is the author of various books like A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America and also published several articles and another one of his most recent and best seller is, “A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke”. He is also the editor for five books on colonial and early American history. “A kingdom strange” by Dr. James Horn was copyright and published in the United States of America in March of 2010. A kingdom strange is a book that shares the political events along with other events that took place in 1587, which led to the lost English colony of the Roanoke Island.

“The Misunderstood Shark” was written by Gregory Skomal, a biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and shark fanatic. His article was published by The Wall Street Journal on August 7, 2015. The engaging title, itself grabs the reader’s attention, making the reader feel sympathetic towards the shark. Upon hearing the word, “shark”, an individual may cringe. The author makes a solid claim that our attitudes about sharks are changing, but not towards direction it needs to be. He supports his argument with strong appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos throughout the article.

Discuss how your investigation of the generic conventions of poetry has influenced your understanding of at least one poem that you have studied in this unit.

A Kingdom Strange by John Horn is a history book about settlers trying to establish the first English colony in America. They faced many obstacles and challenges trying to establish the colony of Roanoke.

In “The Interlopers,” Ulrich von Gradwitz and George Znaeym are descendants of wealthy families, who have been in dispute over some land for some years.In Ulrich’s grandfather’s time, his family used the court to seize the land from the neighboring Znaeym family, who the Gradwitzs believed illegally possessed the land. The Znaeyms never accepted the court’s decision, and have continued to hunt in the forest patch. Georg continues to hunt on the strip of land at the edge of Ulrich’s forest because he believes it should still belong to his family.

Alexander Von Humboldt was a Prussian naturalist whose work has helped shape and define our modern understanding of nature. He used enlightenment rationalism to navigate his way through life and his deep connection to his natural environment inspired a visionary movement in ushering out the monotheistic creationist worldview. “Humboldt’s books, diaries and letters reveal a visionary, a thinker far ahead of his time. He invented isotherms...discovered the magnetic equator...came up with the idea of vegetation and climate zones that snake across the globe…and revolutionized the way we see the natural world.” (Invention of Nature, 5). Although his work was extensive, author of ‘The Invention of Nature, Andrea Wulf suggests that his work has largely been forgotten due to his polymath approach of including art, history, poetry and politics that made him unfavorable. While Humboldt gave us our concept of nature itself, “the irony is that Humboldt’s views have become so self-evident that we have largely forgotten the man behind them.” However, although his work individual work may be overlooked, Humboldt’s success in making science more accessible work and as a result, his legacy lives on as the source of inspiration for many influential thinkers throughout history.

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

As we begin to go on an excursion through literature, it is important to understand the concept of what an ethnography is. Ethnography is known to be a descriptive type of work that analyzes culture and customs of individual people. James Clifford has implemented this work into his studies and has influenced many others to do the same. I saw through the books I have read, ethnography makes these books become vivacious for a reader.

In the book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert there are a lot of examples that are going on in the world today and also examples of things that started when the first human being was around. This book talks about how we are in the sixth mass extinction, and that is caused by humans. Overall the book goes chapter by chapter and talks about the different mass extinctions there have been, and how they were caused, but also the book talks about different species that have gone extinct and the reasons why. For example the book talks about golden frogs that are located in Panama and how they were seen everywhere located in El Valle de Anton, but they suddenly started disappearing. They were disappearing because of a chytrid fungis cause by humans, when humans travel they were bring this fungis to different places, this ended up killing the frogs (Chapter 1, Kolbert). That is just one example, but throughout the book Kolbert talks about different extinctions like this and what caused them.

The fall of society to aliens is a frightening thought too many. This is exactly what happens in the book The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. Aliens are attacking the earth in waves and are plunging it into chaos. The book follows the main character Cassie Sullivan as she is traveling to a training facility to try and find her brother in this somber world. Along her travels she meets a boy named Evan Walker. She begins to fall in love with him. Over time it is discovered he is an Other. Others are what the aliens are called. Cassie is shocked but comes to accept it. The story also follows the character Ben Parish who is at the facility called Camp Haven that Cassie is traveling too. He is trained to become part of the army there in a squad. He becomes known as Private Zombie. Cassie’s brother Sammy who is also at the facility ends up joining Zombie’s squad. He becomes known as Private Nugget. As time goes on Zombie’s squad

In “Monster Culture”, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the decision of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.

Many people strive in life for the things that are not meant to be, but very few actually live life and follow the path that was set for them. Some fall into the path of greed, others into the path of lust, but the majority fall into the path of envy. This is the worse one to fall into out of all of them, when you start envying the goods of others it leads you to the other two paths: greed and lust. If you envy their wife you start lusting and if you envy their money to start to have greed and want it all. This particular situation happens with Roy in the novel "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud. Roy had many opportunities oportunities to be an exemplinary role model but instead he fell into these temptations of life: greed, lust, and envy.

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

LGBTQ social movements have evolved over time from liberationist politics of the 1970s to an enormous contemporary focus on gay and lesbian marriage rights, a controversial and arguably assimilationist priority for mainstream LGBTQ advocacy groups. Different forms of activism have approached assimilationism versus societal reformation or preservation of unique constructions of queer identities with a myriad of arguments. In “The Trouble with Normal” by Michael Warner, the author focuses primarily on a criticism of gay marriage rights activism in which he posits that all marriage is “selective legitimacy.” He points to other LGBT movements and issues as more worthy of pursuing, particularly intersectional pursuits of equal rights for people regardless of coupled status. In “Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” authors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor give a snapshot history of LGBTQ activism since the 1970s and offer similar arguments as Warner about the heteronormative and neoliberal nature of placing the fight for legal marriage rights at the forefront of LGBTQ activism, although they do also introduce emerging improvements with the increasingly intersectional awareness of modern advocacy efforts.

According to Susanne Langer, a distinguished philosopher, a key difference between humans and animals is our unique ability to apply symbolism behind words and objects (106). She states, “Animals think, but they think of and at things; men think primarily about things,” (106). This is the basis for our human need to categorize and define our surroundings and experiences. Without defining our surroundings, we would not be able to think about them at a later time. In order to do this, we need names. Langer says, “Names are the essence of language; for the name is what abstracts the conception of the [object] from the [object] itself,” (108). Humans need to categorize, categorizing requires using language, and using language requires names. Needing names to categorize, unlike animals, is why humans are