SECOND EDITION 2025 Interconnected
TABLE OF CONTENTS Daddy’s Girl 1 A Mother’s Smile 2 Sea Meets Flesh 3 Ink Figure Study 4 Pair of Converse 5 Color Still Life 6 Vanitas / Prey 7 Deer 8 Aneoasis 9 Floral Vision 10 Arthur Doyle: Spiritualism and Deductive Reasoning 11 Holding Life 15 Ode to Savannah 16 Bloom 17 Stealth Man’s Manifesto 19 Human Tone 21 The Mesozoic Archives: Queer Culture During the Harlem Renaissance 23 Perspective Presents: Peaceful Protest 24 America’s Heaven 25 A Poor Education 26 Blade Runner 27 Uncommon Passion 29 Student Organized Protest 31 Discarded Souls 32 Spectrum Presents 33 Green Glare 35 EDITOR IN CHIEF Steffani Pass CO-EDITOR Ella Musgrove COPY EDITOR Lauren Bachman GRAPHIC DESIGNER Celeste Tvrdik MARKETING & OUTREACH Sage Mitchell SOCIAL MEDIA LIAISON Katie Pontius TREASURER Rebecca Payne MAGAZINE STAFF Bailey Clements Bailey Davis Riley Hansen
1 2 A MOTHER’S SMILE Julie Kral Fine Arts Major Graphite on Paper DADDY’S GIRL Sarah Miller Biology Major Poetry Why do sunny days and highways— Listening to the kinds as their songs play On the radio with Hendrix and Vaughan Cause my soul to sing along To this kind of music— Why do I feel free? You’re the blues and the soul And the greatest hits of Rock ’n’ Roll You’re the rhythm and the beat Down to the pedals at the feet You’re the bass line that gets me dancing And the lyrics so romancing You’re the guitars electricity That brings the music to felicity And you are the reason that I think One day, we could all be free If only we would sing
3 4 INK FIGURE STUDY Esmeralda Figueroa Fine Arts Major Ink, Acrylic Paint, Yuppo Paper SEA MEETS FLESH William Contreras Maqueda Graphic Design Major Digital Art, Photography
5 6 PAIR OF CONVERSE Sage Mitchell Visual Arts Major Charcoal on Paper COLOR STILL LIFE Ansley King Fine Arts Major Acrylic on Canvas
7 8 VANITAS Charcoal, Chalk on Paper DEER Lily Oliver Digital Art Major Digital Painting PREY Graphite on Paper Hannah Sherman Visual Arts Major
9 10 ANEOASIS William Contreras Maqueda Graphic Design Major Digital Art, Photography FLORAL VISION Lily Oliver Digital Art Major Digital Painting, Photography
11 12 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, follows consulting detectives Holmes and his trusty assistant Watson as they investigate the mysterious and untimely death of Sir Charles Baskerville. After the death of his ancestor, Hugo Baskerville, who died a gruesome death supposedly by a demonic hound for his cruelty towards a woman that ultimately killed her, the Baskerville family has been said to be cursed. Since then, descendants of Hugo have died in peculiar fashions. Charles himself was ruled to have died of a heart attack, however, paw prints of a hound were uncovered near the scene of the crime, alluding to potential foul play. Sir Henry, the heir to Charles’ estate, is feared to be the next victim. Involvement of the supernatural was widely speculated. By the end, Holmes and Watson uncovered that a man named Stapleton, who had a stake in the Baskerville fortune, was behind the murder of Charles and attempted to murder Henry (to no success) with his massive hound. The hound was of this earth but made to look deceivingly supernatural to terrorize the Baskervilles. Stapleton dies, the day is saved, and the Baskerville family curse is symbolically broken. The Hound of the Baskervilles is notable for its chilling gothic imagery and allusion to the metaphysical. From the horrific accounts of the legend of the bloodthirsty hound’s wrath to the descriptive atmosphere of the dark, mysterious moors, Doyle does not hesitate to visualize and fixate on the supernatural aura commonplace among gothic, late Victorian Era writers. Many of whom, perhaps none a more prolific advocate than Doyle himself, were influenced by a wave of Spiritualism that swept the world during the 19th and 20th centuries. Spiritualism is the belief that one can communicate with the dead, a realm disassociated from the physical state of existence. A contemporary inspection of the characterization of Sherlock Holmes may infer him as a secular, logical figure driven purely by evidence grounded within the material world, not the metaphysical. However, as originally conceived, that is not the case. From the Victorian lens of what is considered intellectual and scientific, Holmes, from the mind of an author engulfed in the heat of a modern and prevalent countercultural movement (Spiritualism), embodies such a logical archetype (Chatterjee 96). At the time, Spiritualism was seen as a future avenue for logical reasoning. Doyle, like the Holmes character, implemented deductive reasoning and skepticism in his heavy research throughout his life, which drew him to the conclusion that Spiritualism was viable and had the answers. Logic and science, in Doyle’s view, were not sacrificed in favor of blind faith. Doyle’s inferences were perceived as unconventional and prompted counterarguments from various scientists and writers. A notable critic, Joseph McCabe, unsatisfied with the evidence in favor of Spiritualism and deducing it as “fraud,” hosted a lecture specifically to counteract the points made by Doyle (McCabe 15). Another advocate against Doyle was his rival and former friend, famous illusionist Harry Houdini. According to The Sir Arthur Doyle Centre, Houdini believed that mediums, in any capacity, were all scams (“Birth of Post-Materialism”). There is no exception to the rules, which is where Doyle and Houdini fought each other over. However vocal his critics were that he abandoned his scientific rationalities, Doyle broke down his logic and turn towards Spiritualism during a lecture at Connaught Hall, Worthing. This lecture was presented on July 11, 1919, to a packed crowd. Doyle had long been acquainted with Spiritualism at this point and had just spoken at Eastbourne Town Hall about the matter two days prior (Doyle 13). Doyle was touring the globe, speaking firmly about his convictions. The perception of Doyle’s speech at Connaught Hall was met with applause, a reporter from Doncaster reporting, “He spoke with the fire of the prophet, with the eloquence of the visionary, with the masterful assurance of a man who has convinced himself late in life that his earlier attitude was mistaken” (Doyle 16). At the time of the lecture, Doyle was dealing with the recent deaths of his brother, Innis Doyle, and his son, Arthur Alleyne Kingsley Doyle. Despite the troubling circumstances, Doyle’s confident demeanor in his philosophy and detailed accounts from various mediums prevailed in winning over his audience. Doyle was not always a spiritualist. Doyle starts his sermon by addressing his childhood and medical student days. Prior to his spiritualist turn, Arthur Doyle was raised Roman Catholic. Witnessing the effects of Darwinism—taking note of Charles Darwin’s revolutionary findings on the topic of evolution—as well as observing the decline of Christianity unfold within Victorian society, Doyle would then reject the religion and identify himself as an agnostic materialist (Chatterjee 103). A mystical truth to any religion, or the existence of a spiritual reality, left him unmoved. All that mattered to him were the tangible pleasantries of the unmysARTHUR DOYLE: SPIRITUALISM AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING Joshua Lann English Writing Major Formal Essay
13 14 terious and known; faith in a life after death was not a trait of a materialist. His short story, “Selecting a Ghost,” released in 1883, critiqued the gullibility of people to put their trust in mediums. Doyle assessed that the paranormal was used as an opportunity for psychics to profit off of the trusting and vulnerable. Doyle, a doctor and a man of science, considered himself a rational empiricist (Beck 6). He embodied this deductive form of reasoning in his occupation, as well as in his questioning of Spiritualism. Experimentation and judging the evidence in favor of or against the ideology of Spiritualism was key to formulating his opinion on the matter. In 1887, Doyle was invited by his patient to witness his first séance. There, he observed tables moving on their own; Doyle, baffled by this odd encounter and finding no logistical explanation for the haunting, published his peculiar experience in the newspaper, Light (“Birth of Post-Materialism”). This was the same year Doyle published his first entry in the Sherlock Holmes franchise, A Study in Scarlet. Doyle repeatedly stated that Spiritualism weighed heavily on his mind while writing that novel (“Arthur Conan Doyle”). His pursuit of knowledge rampant, Doyle proceeded to dive further into contemporary supernatural history and reports of ghostly happenstances. Doyle told his audience of his exposure to the works of the judge from the United States, George Edmunds, and the zoologist, Russell Wallace. He concluded that Wallace, author of the autobiographical Modern Miracles, was “a colossal liar or else he must have been made a dupe by somebody, because the things he wrote about were almost incredible” (Doyle 2). After assessing Wallace’s accounts of the supernatural, he “began to ask myself whether it was not I who had got a soft spot somewhere, and I began to approach this investigation in a more humble spirit” (Doyle 2). Doyle was a skeptic, but, honoring the nature of his empirical reasonings, he then approached Spiritualism with an open mind and careful consideration. Doyle uses an ethical appeal to back up his assessments. He looked to his scholarly peers and inspirations. Highly regarded figures in the scientific community, such as the chemist, Sir William Crookes, built credibility for Doyle for the plausible existence behind spiritual manifestations. Crookes approached Spiritualism with cynicism and conducted numerous experiments. His most notable experiment was getting a pendulum, which was balanced downwards with heavy weights, to swing (Doyle 2-3). This was reported as a success. The study was surrounded by numerous eyewitnesses, including a doctor and an electrician, who verified the results of the test. The pivotal moment of Doyle’s lecture was when he spoke of Daniel Home, the man whose abilities as a medium officially convinced him to convert to Spiritualism. Doyle claims Home is someone who wanted to “break down the materialism which was the curse of the age” by “going to prove it by the exercise of powers” (Doyle 3). Day or night, Home would display his powers to those who were truthfully interested in the paranormal. Reportedly, there were hundreds of witnesses of Home’s mediumship throughout his lifetime. Unlike the countless frauds who were mediums (Doyle does not deny that most mediums were fakes driven by money and other worldly pursuits), Home chose to live in poverty and hold not onto material things, despite his acclaimed talents. According to Doyle’s research, Home did not try to capitalize on his endeavors. From this moment on, Doyle threw away his preconceptions of the paranormal and veered away from his materialist perspective. Since then, Doyle performed numerous experiments regarding the supernatural with a minimum of half a dozen witnesses always present, all often eliciting similar responses, according to Doyle (“Arthur Conan Doyle”). Wanting to gather sufficient data rather than leaving the metaphysical unquestioned, he viewed the séance procedure as scientific with the intent to study the results. Doyle announced his conversion in 1916 and would spread the word of Spiritualism across the world as he did in Connaught Hall. He argues religion must not be put “back two thousand years,” but should be used to embrace the concerns of the day: “The human race has probably never experienced such a time of stress as during the past few years and Spiritualism is a sign which is being sent to meet this great emergency” (Doyle 11). Following an era of intense industrialization in England, the ideals of Spiritualism that reject the material and look toward apparitions for answers (while not denouncing but encouraging scientific reasoning) was what many needed. This longing escalated after the devastation of World War I. Science and the spiritual do not have to be separate entities; Doyle suggests the supernatural should be studied and analyzed utilizing the latest technological innovations. Whether or not Spiritualism was a hoax or a philosophy that reigned popular among the scientific community by the 21st century, Arthur Doyle came to his conclusions based on the research and personal experiences he reflected deeply upon over the years. Logic rooted in deductive reasoning, Doyle never abandoned his early days as a doctor and a surgeon with methodical breakdowns. The complexity of Doyle’s evidence and detailed reports extend from the confines of this paper, and other notable figures of education (such as the previously aforementioned William Cookes) have examined the topic immensely as well. Spiritualism steadily grew out of popularity after Doyle died in 1930, but it is a path worth investigating, no matter how odd it sounds.
15 16 ODE TO SAVANNAH Greg Bowman History Major Still Life Photography HOLDING LIFE Julie Kral Fine Arts Major Oil on Panel
17 18 BLOOM William Contreras Maqueda Graphic Design Major Digital Art, Photography
19 20 STEALTH MAN’S MANIFESTO Theodore Lopata English Major Poetry ignorance is written in two scars beneath my chest; cowardice is dripping from my lips which have shamefully forgotten the taste of salt and ash how lucky I am to deal covert references behind easy eyes and assumptions each word a forceful fist to any number of my friends’ aching guts I hide. I watch them crumbling around my knuckles. I watch them bisected by burning stakes and scaffolds and paint thinner while I laugh, because how funny it was, that the woman at the hospital thought I had changed the other direction and we laughed and laughed and my boyfriend lay dead in the first room on the right. the woman was relieved that I was not trying so hard. riots erupt on the doorstep of my city; revolution is a shotgun through my chest which roars in surgical lines to run from the action. how disgustingly lucky I am to choose in a day when and when not I exist when and when not I belong in official reality on official websites. I think, therefore I am purgeable. therefore, I look the other way. my sister flees north and my roommate courts a passport and my stepmom is still empty over lunch: I stare into these eyes of other sacred deer, scared at different distances that indefinitely distinguish us. I could speak. my soul is cowardly. the deer explode. “I care so much I’m sick” and paralyzed and turning my back and closing everything I ignore newsletters and masterdocs and eulogies; I know about the war, but shut my eyes which have seen so complacently little I weep over my boyfriend and I cannot help him the planes will not connect us anymore and now I cannot say anything to make it safe What could I have said? Tell me. I want to know what I was too afraid to do. Is it still worth it to be brave? I don’t know if I want to know which swallows me in confusion every hour but I am too grown for my sister’s bedtime stories. neither of us can say it will be fine and this is the crux of my transformation “this is part of [my] becoming a man”: trying to convince myself that guilt is harder to swallow than shame If pride is resistance, I cannot let myself be charged with inaction, but goddamn it is hard with this gun in my mouth
21 22 Kiki Reyes H U M A N T O N E Digital Arts Major Adobe Photoshop
23 24 THE MESOZOIC ARCHIVES: QUEER CULTURE DURING THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE Angelina Marcos Tomas Film and Media Major Film Watch Video Here PERSPECTIVE PRESENTS: PEACEFUL PROTEST Sr. Turpin Interdisciplinary Studies Major Digital Art, Animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBipcvjdMCY
25 26 AMERICA’S HEAVEN William Contreras Maqueda Graphic Design Major Digital Art, Photography A POOR EDUCATION Brighton Gore English Major with Teaching Certification Poetry Born on the wrong side of the county line I write with dull lead Read ripped pages in outdated books Color with broken crayons And live a life Suited for a poor, Useless, Stupid child like me born on the wrong side of the county line. I’ll work the same Dead End job my father worked, staying on the wrong side of the poverty line With children who Color with broken crayons Read ripped pages in outdated books Write with dull lead That never make it across The wrong side Of the county line.
27 28 BLADE RUNNER William Contreras Maqueda Graphic Design Major Digital Art, Photography INTERCONNECTED STUDENT COMMUNITY The following pages showcase the passion and dedication of UNG students who create, organize, and lead their own initiatives—both on and off campus. These events and projects aren’t just expressions of creativity; they are acts of building community, driven entirely by students without institutional funding or oversight. Whether through art, activism, or scholarship, these students make space for one another, amplify each other’s voices, and inspire change on their own terms. Interconnected Magazine exists to recognize and celebrate these efforts, proving that student-led initiatives have the power to shape culture, promote belonging, and leave a lasting impact.
29 30 When many hear about what I want to do in the future, they often respond with “well that takes a heart” or “you must have a lot of patience.” I desire to work in special education in the future, specifically with behaviors. Some students may struggle to regulate their emotions which may end up in chairs, lamps, or desks being tossed around the room. Students who struggle to regulate their emotions and need someone who is patient, calm, and caring. It is not very common for students to go into education with the purpose to provide specifically for such students. My goal is to make an impact on these students. Throughout student teaching, I have had an amazing opportunity to intern in both special and general education classes. There were many hearts that I was able to touch. You will truly never know how much a little act can help a student through a hard time. The question I have been asked many times after stating what I want to work in is “why?” For me, this is a silly question and I answer with “why not?” Growing up, I lived with both of my parents and my aunt. My aunt qualifies for special needs under many different categories. While she did not struggle with behaviors, she did teach me how to have patience. My eyes were opened to the difference a little patience and love can make in anyone’s life. With this, my eyes were opened to the students who struggle with behaviors. These students are children who are in need of love and patience. They need someone who will listen to them when everyone else wants to tell them to “calm down” or “control your actions.” One person can make a huge difference with a little bit of learned patience and a tender heart. However, even if teachers are not in a special education class, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t students with special needs in a classroom. When you enter any classroom, you are entering a room of wonder and opportunities, but with that comes bumps in the road of behaviors. These behaviors may be both mental or physical. My purpose is to make a difference in students’ lives and through student teaching, I have been reassured that I can make an impact that is meaningful and worthwhile. UNCOMMON PASSION Alli Gaddy Elementary Education, Special Education Major Personal Essay, Photography
31 32 Meeting with a Holocaust survivor DISCARDED SOULS Michael Herron Studio Art Major Acrylic on Canvas, Inspired by Shoes Photos from a protest in Gainesville Square organized by Kiaya Reddicks
33 34 Photography from events hosted by the Spectrum Alliance Student Organization: Student Pride Prom Student Drag Show
35 GREEN GLARE Angelina Marcos Tomas Film and Media Major Photography Cover Artist: Esmeralda Figueroa Cover Title: Unified Dancers Acrylic Paint, Watercolor, Ink, Plaster on Plexiglass
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