Meta-Accuracy of Very First Impressions: A Mini Review

The meta-accuracy of first impressions (i.e., how accurately one understands others’ perception of oneself) can be conceptualized and measured in various ways. In order to reduce conceptual and methodological overwhelm, facilitate understanding of the topic, and stimulate future work in the field, we conducted a brief introductory literature review on the meta-accuracy of first impressions. Following a definitions-and-methodology-focused overview of the historical development of the topic, we present comparative synthesis and analysis of the key conceptualization and measurement methods used to study the meta-accuracy of first impressions. We also summarize the central research themes and types of stimuli that have been studied in relation to the meta-accuracy of first impressions. Finally, we make several suggestions for further research that could be beneficial to the future development and expansion of the field.

Seeing through Someone Else's “I”

The author interrogates creative-critical writing assignments from an introductory literature course (ENG 125: Literary Narrative) for concerns about “truth,” arguing that writing and reflection, especially when informed by a theoretical vocabulary, alter the way students construct and understand both their own stories and the stories of others.

Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: Towards a More Inclusive Approach to Islamic Bioethics

Islamic bioethics is an emerging phenomenon, with a recent proliferation of introductory literature seeking to describe the scope, parameters, and players of the field. However, this paper critically assesses the enterprise of Islamic bioethics as it stands today and argues that it lacks conceptual clarity. This leads to some very problematic assumptions made by Muslim and non-Muslim authors alike, which results in essentialist and reductionist discourses that privilege majoritarian, authoritarian, and conservative forms of religious and state authority at the expense of competing, dissenting, and reformist voices. I suggest using the principles of religious literacy (as endorsed by the American Academy of Religion) to bring much needed conceptual clarity to the field, to understand Islamic bioethics as a contested space of academic theology, and to promote a more inclusive discourse.

Beyond Victims & Villains: Teaching Cleland With Haywood & Behn

This essay explores strategies for teaching Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) in the introductory literature classroom, and why it might be especially valuable to do so at a time when issues surrounding sexual violence, rape culture, and the politics of consent continue to be prominent inside and outside the college classroom.

Staging Othello: Turning students into directors

The *Othello* staging project invites introductory literature students to imagine that they are directing a new production of *Othello*. Students create a production proposal and poster that illustrate their directorial choices, using their original interpretation of the play as a guiding philosophy. This assignment successfully addresses many of the challenges associated with teaching an introductory-level, required "core" course of non-English-majors, as well as the challenges of teaching drama in general and Shakespeare in particular. Creative response assignments like this prompt can foster student engagement, mitigate student writing anxiety, and deepen student understandings of plays as living documents open to artistic interpretation.

Locating Empathy

This article explores how to use science fiction, particularly texts centered on android protagonists, to open up discussions of marginalization, race, and oppression in the introductory literature classroom. In response to the hateful rhetoric directed toward asylum seekers, this author developed an entire course around personhood and rights. She first examines how, in particular sci-fi works, paranoia and prejudice compel citizens to delineate between kinds of personhood. She then illuminates how students were invited to make parallels between the othering that the androids endure and historical and present-day examples of human rights abuses. After a semester of examining and debating these issues, students selected an android or robot in a television show, film, or video game of their choice and first assessed how the android’s personhood was delimited by human and then articulated why humans placed these boundaries on the android. Throughout the article, the author explains the kinds of texts she used for the course, the assignment students were tasked with, and how the course broached other issues of power dynamics, such as consent and disability rights.