Session D: 3:30PM – 5PM
Humanities. Session D – Poster Presentations, Ballroom, Union
SESSION D (3:20-5:00PM)
Location: Ballroom, A. Ray Olpin University Union
The Reality of Fictional Power: Students’ Use of Fiction as a Coping Mechanism
Miranda Judson, Utah State University
Faculty Mentor: Joyce Kinkead, Utah State University
SESSION D (3:30-5:00PM)
POSTER D46
This research explores the benefits of leisure and assigned reading as a coping mechanism. In this research I demonstrate that fiction is a powerful coping mechanism. While research has been done on Bibliotherapy, the guided use of literature for patients, clients, or students, and similar fields, no research has been done specifically on fiction or the self-guided use of fiction as a coping mechanism. I surveyed and interviewed university English students who responded that they find fiction to be soothing and that they find insight to problems they’re facing when they read. I demonstrate that students find more insight and find reading to be more beneficial as a coping mechanism when they are reading for pleasure as opposed to assigned reading in school. The books these students choose as a coping mechanism are varied, including Gods and Monsters by Shelby Mahurin, Merlin’s Keep by Madeleine Brent, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Little Men and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, to name a few. Perhaps this is because students also choose the books they read for pleasure with their emotional and psychological benefit in mind.
Worship of Women in Ancient Greek Myth and Culture
Bridget Kelly, University of Utah
Faculty Mentor: Alexis Christensen, University of Utah
SESSION D (3:30-5:00PM)
POSTER D47
Mortal or semi-mortal heroes play a major role in the mythology of the Ancient Greeks, and many heroes are worshiped as gods. Some, like Heracles, become divine in the myths and in religious practice during the Bronze Age, while others, like Theseus, become deified much later. This does not only happen to the male heroes, however, as female heroes experience similar deification and worship. The worship of these heroes-and particularly the females-was distinct from other deities, but they still served an important role in the society. The Greek historian, Pausanias, writes about periods of Greece prior to his own and what remains of those periods, and much of the remains include how various mortal women were worshipped, both those who became divine in their myths and those who were deified by the Ancient Greeks themselves. Using archaeology and examining the claims Pausanias makes compared to earlier sources can reveal the significance of mortal women to the Ancient Greeks and how those women fit into the religion not only as extensions of the more known hero cults, but also as their own independent cults. Understanding that role can reveal much about the interactions between society, myth, and religion, and it can