Contract Projects
Kuyper Scholars contracts are means of easing students into the rigor of independent studies. Students partner with their professor for a course they're currently taking and design a curriculum that delves into material being touched on, but not explored fully in the course. Thus, contracts enable students to gain a broader understanding of the courses's given topic.
As is fitting with my storytelling theme, I used my contracts to further develop my own style of telling my stories and the stories of those often overlooked.
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Shedding Light on the Red Light District
Summer 2016
I spent part of Summer 2016 in Europe with a small group from Dordt. We primarily spent time in the Netherlands studying Dutch culture and Reformed worldview, but we also took some shorter ventures to Belgium, England, and France. While perusing Amsterdam one day, we passed through the Red Light District on the way to a canal tour. My heart broke. I hurt for the girls in those windows, I hurt for the johns driven to purchase people, and I hurt for those who have permeated in the cultural mindset that condones such a dehumanizing industry. Those few minutes of empathetic heartbreak spurred this semester long project.
Through this contract, I explored the history of Amsterdam’s Red Light District, primarily using past occurrences to understand the District’s current functioning. Because prostitution has always been legal in the Netherlands, and because brothels and pimping have been legal since 2000, Dutch prostitution is a different phenomenon than human trafficking. Many girls choose a prostitute’s lifestyle for themselves – possibly due to psychological coercion, possibly to pull oneself out of desperate poverty, or possibly because of the security afforded to a workingwoman with a reputation and a union supporting her. If Christians hope to impact the District, they need to listen to individual stories and fully understand the complexity of Amsterdam’s specific situation.
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Poetry: Without Employing Cliches
Spring 2015
I completed my first contract in conjunction with Professor Howard Schaap's English303: Reading and Writing Poetry. For this project, I choose two of my favorite poets, read full collections of their work, analyzed a few poems by each in depth, and then wrote a few poems of my own in mimicry of the published poets, consequently coalescing bits of their signature styles into my own.
I first read Tyler Knott Gregson's Chasers of the Light, a collection of unrevised works inked by a typewriter onto whatever paper happened to be available in the moment of inspiration. Thus, for my mimicry, I took a $2 garage sale devotional and collected all my mimicry poems, unrevised and inked onto envelopes, checks, sticky notes, etc., within it. Photos of my introductory pages can be seen above (as it is truly impossible to separate the medium from the message, in this case), but the same poems and images of specific poems are accessible in a more readable format below, as is an essay and analysis on Tyler Knott Gregson and his poetic methods
I then read a selection of ee cummings' poems, mimicking them and piecing them into my book just as I did with Gregson's pieces. Again, images can be seen above while readable formats of the poems and my essay are accessible below.
Ultimately, this was a project in self reflection. “Without Employing Clichés,” this projects title, choose itself – as all titles should. I began this contract intending to mimic, and although I’ve finished the project with the same intentions, my vantage point has shifted slightly. I realized that I easily could mimic cummings and Gregson, but should I? Isn’t my obligation, as an aspiring poet, to contribute something original? something from my own mind?
In trying, I resonated with the writer of Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the Sun” (1:9). Similarly, in the words of JRR Tolkein, I am a “subcreator,” only able to form from what the true Creator, who had no preexisting forms, has already formed. To a certain extent, everything I will ever write is mimicry of sorts, based on knowledge I’ve gleaned from others. I’m unavoidably prone to cliché, sprinkled with bits of originality. However, a lack of complete originality does not lessen my work’s value. In fact, more meaning in manufactured in the struggle to express common concepts refreshingly. Thus, my aim was to mimic, for this is all I’m capable of, without employing clichés. This is my definition of poetry, developed alongside my own poetic style in this project.