Letter from the Editors

Abstract

This semester has been stressful for us all. Between the tornadoes that devastated our state and the pandemic that has devastated the world, we have all struggled with trying to find the resolve to make it from one day to the next with our sanity intact. For the editorial staff at Scientia, this journal has been our bright spot and safe place to land this semester. Through the papers we received, we were transported from our own very real and uncer-tain world to worlds unknown and incredible. Whether we were in a world grappling with pilot shortages or in the world of Doctor Who, our lives were enriched and made better by the hard work and research of the scholars who shared their worlds with us. Scientia has, since its first issue, strived to highlight both the highest quality of research at Middle Tennessee State University and the perseverance required of a scholar. Not only does this edition feature the high standards of scholarship from diverse disciplinary back-ground for which Scientia has become known, but it also shows the perseverance required of a scholar who lives both within a single discipline and within an uncertain world.

In the pages of this journal, we are able to look at ways to prevent a crisis while under-standing the very elements which create it in “Analysis of the Airline Pilot Shortage.” We take a step back in time to understand the ways in which slaves were silenced through advertisements in “Humanizing the Dehumanized: The Complex Connections between William Lloyd Garrison’s Preface and Fugitive Slave Advertisements” before taking a ride on the TARDIS and asking ourselves, “How has the portrayal of women on the television series Doctor Who evolved from 1963 to 2019?”. We fall into “The Authorial Sublime” and experience the trials of what it means to live by “The Soldierly Code.” We collect buttons while “Pinning Down the Historical Significance of Button Collecting” and search for “Rhyme and Revolution” in the works of William Wordsworth. Finally, we delve deeply into the metaphor of “Shin Gojira: Return of the Angry God” as a reflection of Japan before losing ourselves in conversation with Kant, Hegel, and Sellars unpacking “The Structure of Knowledge.”

The works in this edition, produced from backgrounds ranging in philosophy to aerospace, seem to reflect and acknowledge something uncertain and give it a concrete space. Each work reaches out to the reader and presents not uncertainty but a level of understanding and knowing. This edition would not have been possible without the hard work of the authors who took a leap of faith in sending us their work.

This edition also would not have been possible without the staff who worked through a sense of loss and constant transition and adap-tion because of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the hard work from both, the editorial staff can only say thank you.

Thank you to the administration at the Honors College. You all have been such a joy to work with, and we could not have done this work were in not for you.

We would also like to thank Marsha Powers, who believed in and supported us through-out this entire process. Without her, this edition would not be possible. She has cham-pioned this journal and led the editorial staff as our advisor through a very challenging semester. She has been an indispensable source of knowledge and comfort for us all.

We would like to thank Dr. John Vile and Dr. Philip Phillips from the Honors College, without whom we would be lost.

We would also like to thank you all, the readers. We hope you enjoy this edition of Sci-entia et Humanitas as much as we do. We hope you will see the scholarly vigor and rigor, and we hope you will be transported as we have.

Jenna Campbell Field

Editor in Chief

Gabriella Morin

Managing Editor

Jameson Baldwin

Section Editor