Issue 6 - Borders and Borderlands

	EDITORIAL Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello is a publicly-engaged interdisciplinary scholar/social-justice activist with nearly twenty years of experience linking the higher education, museum, social service, K-12, service-learning and cultural sectors in both the US and Europe. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Coordinator of American Studies and an affiliated Faculty with the Center for Economic Development and Sustainability (CEDS) at Salem State University (Salem, MA (USA)) where she was founding University Fellow for Service-Learning from 2011-2015 and served as the World Cultures campus Faculty Liaison for two years. Since 2010 she has been involved in helping reimagine how Salem State can best serve its student population and has been tapped to lead numerous university-wide change initiatives related to General Education revision, Civic Engagement, Service-Learning, Strategic Planning and Comprehensive Internationalization. Her scholarly work—much of it public-facing—relates to the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, immigration, religion, place-making and the cultural construction of community. Recent publications and grant-funded work explore the history of Salem, MA through the lens of immigration, Catholic women’s activism, the use of documentary film to explore the boundaries of the social contract, the concept of shared authority in community-based museum work, and the construction of Franco-American gender identity in contemporary drama. She is currently completing a book titled Bonds of Fellowship: Redefining Community in Modernizing America and an edited collection of essays on teaching American Studies. She regularly bogs and offers public testimony on the value of the humanities for civil society and the humanities’ role in social justice work. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Northshore Community Development Coalition, sits on the Board of Directors of Mass Humanities, is a two-time Fulbright Grantee (Luxembourg, 2010 and Greece, 2016) and recipient of a Whiting Fellowship (Cote D’Ivoire, 2015). Between 2010-2014 she served on and chaired the American Studies Association’s Committee on Departments, Programs and Centers and chaired the ASA’s Taskforce on American Studies in Higher Education which she has Chaired since 2014.
ON LINGUISTIC BORDERS AND CULTURAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
	I am Vivian Pavlopoulou. Since my first years in the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, Cognitive Linguistics has been a domain that I knew nothing about but came to find out more about it through courses on Metaphors Ever since, I have changed my point of view on different aspects of everyday life such as the expression of feelings and how language can be perhaps the most powerful of tools. However, while this comes on a theoretical basis, it could also shift the way education works and how languages are taught. Perhaps a more cognitive approach to language would be much more efficient in language learning than it is now. Therefore, I have been working on incorporating a cognitive view into the current EFL educational system hoping that this will be followed by others and eventually become the norm. I have focused my interest on the language of emotions and will try to pass this focus on to as many students as I can.
CHOOSING PEOPLE AND UNITY OVER BORDERS AND LIMITS – BRIDGE AND DOOR
	My name is Christina Galliou and I’m in my final year of studies in the School of English at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. For long as I can remember I’ve had a strong interest in global affairs and that is why I have been a part of the European Youth Parliament and have advocated for human rights in many Model United Nation conferences. When I was given the opportunity to write for Echoes, I was very delighted as I felt that I could combine my two hearted interests, Global Affairs, and American Studies to impact people and raise their awareness on the Syrian crisis and the massive migration waves in Europe; one of the biggest challenges the world is currently facing.
NULLIFYING TOPOGRAPHICAL, ARTISTIC AND TEXTUAL BORDERS IN EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL’S STATION ELEVEN
	I am Isavella Vouza, a graduate student in English at McGill University, Canada. I recently graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, with a BA Honors in English language and literature. I love experimenting with new ideas—especially when I engage with them physically and having them embodied. Since I constantly find myself grappling with the concept of seriousness that apparently is synonymous with adulthood, I try to make life for me and those around me a little bit more colorful, a little bit more playful. My ally so far has been the combination of the oral medium and my extravagant gesticulation. That’s not my fault essentially; a beautiful discussion always gives me a fervent sensation, a weird passion. Only recently did I find out the written medium as an alternative, calmer and more intimate means of expression. My personal bet is to try and make the world just slightly different each day. In case I make it, I wave my wand and utter “mischief managed.”
BORN NEUTRAL
	My name is Maria Giannouli and I am currently an undergraduate student of English at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. I would like to share this passion I have for music and literature with people. Writing was, until now, an experience I didn’t share with others, and here is my first attempt to communicate my “world” with you.