Agora Volume 11
1: Agora Conference Proceedings
2: Student Writer Awards and Scholarship Winners

This volume of Agora, our eleventh, is the product of a great amount of determination on
the part of the contributors and editors. As the finishing touches are being put on this volume, we
are in partial lockdown because of COVID-19. The Black Lives Matter protests have affected
many of us here and, and we are wondering when, or even if, our world will return to something
familiar. The pandemic necessitated the cancellation of this year’s Agora conference for the first
time in its history, thus making the conference proceedings issue a simulation. It would have
been easy for everyone to pass on this year’s journal but the editorial team of Agora wanted the
journal to happen—for recognition of student work, for some form of consistency in these
uncertain times, for a belief that this journal matters to students, their families, and to their
academic community of instructors and classmates. The students who were not able to present at
a conference still got a chance to be able to publish their work. In ordinary circumstances, the
work of both the writers and the editors deserve congratulations. This year, a standing ovation is
in order.
We followed as best we could our standard procedure for editing. Our student editors
worked closely with authors represented in Issue 1 on making their work publication ready. They
ensured that citations were present and accurate, research was fact-checked, and all text was
copyedited. They also copyedited the essays in Issue 2. This was detailed, painstaking work that
they undertook for almost two months on their own time in order that the journal could be
published.
This is our first completely online journal, put together remotely and edited by the
talented student editors listed below. The journal will continue to be available in an open-access
format at the Red Deer College Library’s Online Repository for an indefinite period of time. We
on the editorial team thank the generosity of the library and of Teneil Vuori, the librarian who
worked patiently with us to be able to offer this journal publication wide access in a time when
print copies would have posed considerable difficulties. We also thank the Department of
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Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Red Deer College
CAT Fund for their various levels of support.
What follows is a list of the people who made this journal happen. It is in lieu of a proper
Table of Contents; you who are reading this are encouraged to read as many different papers as
you’d like to and see the diverse and rich intellectual inquiry that has come out of the
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences this year. In Issue 1, the conference proceedings,
there are essays analyzing English literature, applying sociological theory, presenting research in
psychology and explicating philosophical issues. In Issue 2, we present the essays and creative
work that won awards and scholarships from the department. Since we also have to forgo a
proper awards ceremony this year, this journal also stands as a congratulations to excellent work.
A disclaimer: posting online, unlike publishing a hard copy, can erase a sense of the past.
Everything looks like it has been written a day ago, even if it stays online for ten years. The
writers publishing in this venue are presenting ideas and research that are snapshots of this
moment in their lives and their intellectual journeys. Their ideas may change with the passage of
time, so they ask that future readers not assume that any ideas in these pages are being held in
perpetuity.
And our usual disclaimer: while we generally adhere to a consistent house style in our
editing, we also respect the disciplinary styles of the various papers.

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Agora Vol. 11 Editorial Board
Editors:
Riley Christopherson
Caitlin Clayton (vols 1 and 2)
Starla Fifield
Amanda Fitch
Brenan Fuiten
Andrew Hansen
Melissa Morris (vols 1 and 2)
Andrew Schultz
Tiffany Tunke

Dr. Heather Marcovitch (faculty editor)
Dr. Jacqueline Cowan (faculty editor)
Dr. Daniel Haas (faculty editor)

Cover Art: Janelle Wilson

We are grateful for the support of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as
the CAT Fund. We would also like to acknowledge all the faculty, students, and staff whose
stalwart commitment to student writing made this journal possible. Special thanks go to RDC’s
Library and librarians.

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