Tutor profile: Lauren C.

Create an original thesis discussing the major theological, cultural and political themes in fourteenth century writer Dante Alighieri's Inferno

In Inferno, Dante underscores themes including salvation, knowledge, and loyalty to one’s country and king, revealing that these ideas were not only significant to him, but reflect the dominant ideals in fourteenth century Europe on a theological, cultural, and political level.

What is neural plasticity?

Neural plasticity refers to the idea that our brains can change based on our experience with the environment. Essentially, as young infants, everyone has a multitude of neural and synaptic connections and through experience, our brains will judge and decide which neural connections are necessary for our functioning and which are not necessary. Based on our experiences, some neural connections that are deemed to be useful will be strengthened. However, through the process of synaptic pruning, the neural connections that are deemed to be unnecessary are “pruned” or removed. In other words “use it or lose it.”

What did W.E.B Du Bois believe was the "problem of the 20th century?"

According to Du Bois, the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color line, describing the racial segregation that persisted in U.S society. Du Bois further stressed that the creation of the color line had its roots in materialistic and economic processes where African Americans were converted into what the larger society needed them to be in order to profit from their labor, suggesting that race was not so much a biological concept but a socioeconomic construction.