URCAD Sneak Peek: Isabel Kendall

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 01:05:41 -0400

Special Exhibit, RAC Track, 1st Floor- all day

Missionary Position: Power and Cultural Mediation Through the Lens of 16th Century Missionaries and Postwar Sex Workers

Isabel Kendall

Mentor: Julie Oakes, Honors College, History, Asian Studies

What does it mean to be a cultural and linguistic mediator between two nations? How does a colonial power imbalance impact this relationship? This multi-disciplinary creative project seeks to start a conversation about these questions. In this project, I explore how language is shaped by asymmetrical power dynamics and how cultural contact zones create opportunities for linguistic creativity amid significant power imbalances. I analyze two extremely different historical moments to explore how dominated groups have enacted agency throughout history, despite differences in culture or profession. The two case studies are as follows: 16th-century missionary Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s creation of the Florentine Codex with Nahua scribes, and panpan women, a postwar phenomenon in American-occupied Japan, and their sex-work transactions with U.S. servicemen. This visual project plunges the viewer into the perspective of an intercultural communicator, informed by my research into these two case studies. The intention is for the audience to leave the exhibit with more questions to ask than answers. Further, one should leave with a greater understanding of the crucial and often misunderstood role of the linguistic interlocutor as well as its ubiquity in our past and present.

This work was funded, in part, through an Undergraduate Research Award (URA) from the UMBC Division of Undergraduate Academic Affairs.

URCAD is Wednesday, April 22 in the RAC: