Introduction

W

ith this issue, The Sextant marks its fifth year of publication. It has gone through many changes since that first issue in 2003. Our department was looking for some way to assess how our students were doing and showcase their work in our capstone senior seminars. I had some experience as an editor and decided to take up the challenge. The first issue looks fairly primitive compared to the next four, but it was a start. I have learned a lot about electronic publishing since them and, after some tentative experimentation, I think I can say I’m really pleased with how The Sextant now looks.

That first issue had only four articles, and this one has twelve. That in itself sufficiently demonstrates how the number of quality students our department has as majors has improved over the last five years. Our department has seen the total of history majors rise, too, in that period, and all those majors show a passion for the topic that they share with just a dedicated handful we had only a few years ago. Now it’s almost an embarrassment of riches.

As usual, we feature the two winners of the department’s Robert Usry Award, but this year we can also note that both articles are two-time award winners.

Lindsey Newman’s “Lost in Translation: Nahua-Christian Interaction in Sixteenth Century Mexico,” took second place honors for Best Undergraduate Paper in World History at the Virginia Regional Conference of Phi Alpha Theta, held in March at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. This was only the second time that CNU has taken students to a regional PAT conference. Lindsey—an outstanding student who has been accepted into the graduate program in history at Virginia Tech—wrote the paper for Dr. William Connell’s Fall 2006 senior seminar on Latin America. Here Lindsey examines the difficulties Catholic missionaries had in transmitting the Bible to the Nahua (Aztec) peoples, but also how the Nahua took Christianity and “nahuatized” into something more familiar to them. It not only impressed Bill (and the rest of the department), it clearly impressed the outside judges for the conference as well.

Similarly, Brad Kraft—another one of our top majors who frequently ends up on the Dean's List—uses extensive primary and secondary sources, especially declassified government documents, memoirs and, news accounts, to explore America's delicate relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. Many scholars focus on relations with individual nations, but too few look at how the United States balances its competing interests in a region. Brad has handled a most complex topic with skill and has written a very clear, concise narrative. He also presented his findings at CNU’s annual Paideia Conference on Undergraduate Research where he took top honors. Brad, who is completing a Master of Arts in Teaching in CNU, also intends to apply to doctoral programs in history. Brad wrote the paper for a Spring 2006 seminar with Dr. Andrew Falk that focused on American diplomacy. Brad also has the distinction of being the first student with two papers in The Sextant with an excellent military analysis of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The paper was written for Dr. Anthony Santoro’s course on Byzantine history and so impressed Tony that he insisted it be included in The Sextant. I happily agreed, as I think it also demonstrates Brad’s ability to explain complex issues in an accessible and interesting manner.

Bill Connell’s seminar provides us with the remainder of the Fall 2006 papers. Chris Glover excellent examines abolition sentiments in nineteenth century Brazil, while Breanne Burke discusses the Virgin of Guadalupe as a role model for Mexican women. In a well-done and mature essay, Souphansa Ortiz discussed the sordid history, and shocking present, of “white slavery” and sexual trafficking in Argentina, and Rachel Middleton provides an overview of soccer in Brazil.

Three sources provided the material for the Spring 2007 section. First was Andrew Falk’s seminar, from which we have Will Blackwell’s article on baseball in Cuba, Amanda Hanson’s analysis of Mormon missions in former Communist countries in Eastern Europe and Russia, and Sara Higgins’ fascinating discourse on Elvis Presley as a cultural import and American icon in other countries. Xaoquin Xu’s seminar on modern China and the world provides us with Jared Kreiner’s superb discussion of how American missionaries kept American diplomats appraised of the growing Boxer Rebellion in 1900. Finally, we have Jeremy Hanes’ discussion of how some writers dealt with Stalin and how that shaped the aesthetic of “socialist realism.” Jeremy wrote his paper for a lower-division writing course taught by Dr. Eric Duskin, the department’s Russian specialist. Eric also thought Jeremy’s word deserved wider dissemination than good student papers normally get.

Next fall we come full circle, of a sort. I first developed this journal when I taught the senior seminar in Spring 2003. That seminar focused on American popular culture and history and produced three of the four articles in that first issue. I will again teach the senior seminar in Fall 2007. If the past five years are any indication, it should produce some great papers. When I first began this journal, I almost had to scramble to find enough worthy papers. Now I have the more preferable, but no less difficult, task of deciding which articles are not quite good enough for publication. It’s something to which I now I look forward when the month of May arrives. In the near future, we hope you will also see a collection of articles, Readings from the Sextant, that will feature all the Usry Award winners of the past five years and a few more pieces as well, just as soon as we can find a publisher or raise the money.

—Nigel Anthony Sellars

Associate Professor of History

Christopher Newport University

July 2007

Acknowledgements: All of the other photos and images used in this issue are, to the best of our knowledge, either in the public domain or fall under the fair use provisions of current copyright law regarding use for educational purposes. Other images, such as those specifically identified as from Wikipedia Commons, are identified with the artist's name, if known, clearly included, as per Wikipedia's requirements.

If any images used in this publication are still under copyright, are not in the public domain, or do not fall under Fair Use, please let the editor know so those images can be removed and replaced in a timely manner.

For the convenience of those who might wish to cite any of the material in this issue for their own research, we have also included material on the proper methods of citation for Web-based material.

table of contents | How to Cite