As with our first two issues, the third volume of Proto: An Undergraduate Humanities Journal features some of the finest writing and scholarship among undergraduate students in the Maryland and mid-Atlantic region. This year, as in the past, about half of the issue is devoted to the top papers from the annual Undergraduate Conference held at Stevenson University. Unfortunately, Stevenson University has decided to put the conference on indefinite hiatus. The journal will carry on despite this setback; we hope this disappointing news will not deter Proto's efforts to publish the insights and ideas of today's emerging scholars. As a sign of the journal's continuing development, we now have a website At www.protojournal.org, visitors can browse essays from previous years, download submission guidelines, contact members of the advisory board, find out more about our publisher-Loyola University's student-run Apprentice House Publishing-and link to ordering information for both current and back issues. We encourage you to visit the site. In this issue, readers should again be surprised and pleased with the style and erudition with which students engage a variety of themes. This year's Undergraduate Conference topic was "Realities-Discovered, Created, Envisioned." One of the most compelling presentations was by Tim Powling, whose essay describes the kind of friendship possible between a dog and a soldier at war. Callie Ingram artfully examines the complexities of communication in David Foster Wallace's labyrinthine novel Infinite Jest. Then we turn to Megan Franey, who argues that the dynamics of the possible realities of family and self are often best told through the stories we tell one another. Do we discover or create minds? How we answer this, writes Amanda Brenner in her lucid essay, points to contrasting approaches to the idea of artificial intelligence. In the Open Submissions section, Nathan Dennies focuses on two major writers, Wallace Stevens and Ernest Hemingway, in order to account for the significance of shifts in our consciousness. Edward Lasher presents an imaginative and fragmented reflection about a perplexing figure named Briley. And Christina Murphy concludes this issue with a scholarly analysis-in French-of the Spanish film La Vida Perra de Juanita Narboni. Each accepted admission is reviewed by at least two members on the editorial board, which consists of humanities professors from mid-Atlantic colleges and universities. Guidelines for submission are provided at the end of this issue as well as on the website. We hope you enjoy this issue, and we look forward to hearing from you. The Editors: Jean Lee Cole, Department of English, Loyola University Maryland; Alex Hooke, Department of Philosophy, Stevenson University

This year's theme is "Men and Women in the Medieval Era." Katherine Pierpont leads off Volume 4 with a scholarly analysis of the subtle ways prostitution was condoned and regulated in medieval Europe. In the subsequent essay, Kathryn Brossa explains how competing notions of the male and female artist are represented in Tennyson's medievalesque poem, "The Lady of Shalott." That men cry is hardly a modern phenomenon, as Colleen Mitchell insightfully discusses in the context of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. We also include five additional thoughtful and erudite essays in this volume. David Gyllenhaal investigates the functions and symbolic significance of the modern-day shaman. Using the conceptual tools of French philosopher Michel Foucault, Madeline Collins examines the discourse underlying the rhetoric and narrative of the IRA Green Book. While the "Lolita phenomenon" has been widely addressed, Rosemary Clark offers new insights through her careful accounts of Nabokov and his anti-hero, Humbert Humbert. Casey Dunn presents a fresh perspective on the so-called American Dream by looking at two writers who were deeply concerned with it: Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. Finally, Ben Tarr completes this volume with personal reflections and meditations on the scope of art and is relation to human spirituality. Each published essay is reviewed by at least two members of the editorial board, which consists of humanities professors from mid-Atlantic colleges and universities. Guidelines for submissions are provided at the end of this issue as well as on the website. We continue to be inspired by the number of undergraduate students who research and write about such a variety of topics and perspectives. Enjoy the contributions; we look forward to hearing from you.

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Proto, an annual, humanities-centered journal that will disseminate undergraduate scholarship from institutions in the mid-Atlantic region. The journal's title expresses its ethos. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the prefix proto- connotes something that is the "earliest, original; at an early stage of development, primitive; incipient, potential." At its best, undergraduate scholarship embodies all of these qualities. While it almost certainly constitutes scholarship at an early stage of development, it also has the potential to be original and innovative; the seeds of future thought often take root during the undergraduate years. We see this journal as a site for this process of germination and growth.

Included in this issue: Shift Happens: The Discourse Shift and Its Implications for Society Sara Mohler, Ursinus College (Collegeville, Pennsylvania) What the Hack?: Communication Dysfunction in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 Jacqueline Boualavong, Honors College, Towson University (Towson, Maryland) Disobedience, Generational Gaps, and Warren's Court in Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips Nathan Dize, University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland) Grimm Lessons: Animals and a Child's Vicarious Landscape Christina Elaine Miles, Stevenson University (Stevenson, Maryland) The Shifting Gaze in Stephen Crane's "The Monster" Abigail Wagner, Loyola University Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland) Nausica, Miyazaki's Great Heroine Kelly Thompson, Howard Community College (Columbia, Maryland) Les Morceaux de ma M re (Bits and Pieces of My Mother) Sophia Laurenne Altenor, Goucher College (Towson, Maryland) Tolstoy: An Incomplete Conversion Diana Walsh, University of Baltimore (Baltimore, Maryland)