Eastern Student Emily Komornik of Shelton Gives Oral Presentation at CREATE Conference

2016 May 5

More than 250 talented students at Eastern Connecticut State University presented research and creative work at the university's second annual CREATE conference this past April. CREATE stands for Celebrating Research Excellence and Artistic Talent at Eastern, and is the university's premier, academic year-end showcase. At the culminating event, students of all majors presented professional posters, live music, dance performances, artwork, photography, documentaries and panel discussions.

Emily Komornik '16 of Shelton, who majors in History and English, gave an oral presentation at the event. Her two presentations were titled "The Rhetoric of Rebellion: A Comparison of the Great Awakening and American Revolution, 1737-1783" and "Divine Intervention: Images of the Christian Ghost in Shakespearean Tragedy."

"In the summer of 1741, Calvinist minister Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon to a crowd of thousands in Enfield, CT," said Komornik. "Records show that he never finished the sermon due to fainting spells and screams of horror from the audience. Forty years later, patriot Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense reached over one hundred thousand copies sold in its first year alone. Scholars claim it to be America's first best-seller, outshone only by The Bible itself. At first glance, these two phenomena may not seem to have any relevant connection. Jonathan Edwards was a minister of the Great Awakening, a social and religious movement which changed not only the way in which men connected with God, but the scope of colonial history. Power and influence resided with the people, and not in the hands of clergymen. Along with George Whitefield, Edwards spearheaded a short and radical religious movement which altered colonial interpretations of their relationship with the divine, drastically changing understandings of Calvinism in the American colonies. Thomas Paine, most well-known for his political pamphlet, represented colonial resistance to British rule in America. He and Benjamin Franklin led the resistance through rallies, propaganda, and newspaper articles urging colonists to take action against their British oppressors. Though the Great Awakening and American Revolution encompassed different goals, similarities lie in the fact that rhetorical strategies such as religious allusion, appeal to emotion, and graphic imagery were all utilized in order to inspire change in the masses. This paper illustrates and analyzes these similar rhetorical strategies, finally illuminating how effective the power of language is in persuasion, motivation, and ultimately, rebellion. Rhetoric, though employed for a multitude of different reasons, holds the power to spark significant change. Identifying which strategies are most successful is vital to understanding how and why rebellion begins."

Of her second presentation, Komornik wrote: "Residents of sixteenth and seventeenth century England faced social, political, and religious upheaval unparalleled by any other European country of the time. At the center of this conflict lay the controversial Anglican Reformation and the stirrings of Catholic resistance to such change. By the time the Catholic King James I took the throne in 1603 and power shifted back to Catholicism, tensions within Christianity were not only high, but also publicly visible. At this time, William Shakespeare penned dozens of his most famous tragedies, which displayed his own beliefs along with popular opinion regarding current events. Three of his most famous, however, illustrated the differences between conflicting factions of Christianity in ways never before presented. Within the pages of Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear, Shakespeare acknowledged and commented on Catholic-Protestant tensions. He used otherworldly apparitions and their interactions with main characters to illustrate these conflicts through a lens that a seventeenth-century audience would understand. Ghosts, angels, and witches in the three tragedies help to illuminate points of contention for Catholics, Protestants, and the undecided. Biblical allusions, as well as references to James' own Daemonologie, helped prove the existence of demonic, ill-intending characters, and Shakespeare utilized them in his tragedies in ways that served as warnings regarding the state of a fragmented, religiously divided England. In order to fully grasp why these tragedies were so popular, it is vital to understand them as an audience member would have four hundred years ago. As the ghostly characters in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are heavily symbolic of religious tensions in seventeenth century England, their historical context is of extreme importance."

Remarking on the variety of presentations, Professor Dickson Cunningham, conference co-chair, said, "CREATE encapsulates the essence of the liberal arts in one afternoon. It is an intellectual smorgasbord."

Speaking to the value of CREATE, Eastern President Elsa Nunez said, "It takes a very strong and dedicated student to produce this quality of work, and it's important for other students to see this output." Praising the faculty, she added, "It takes a committed and skillful mentor to guide students to the work that is on display. Mentorship is such an integral part of undergraduate research."

During the one-day conference, the Student Center crawled with artistic and scholarly activity. Students in professional attire addressed their peers, faculty and family. In the cafe, ensembles performed; in the theatre, student-produced documentaries were shown; in the Betty R. Tipton Room, aisles of posters depicting scientific research were displayed; across the hall, a gallery-worth of paintings lined the walls; and on the ground floor, panel discussions and oral presentations about the humanities took place.