Who was Lauren Slater?

Lauren Slater (b. 1963) is a writer and psychotherapist who has published nine books; she has degrees from Harvard University and Boston University. She currently practices in Concord, Massachusetts. Her most well-known work is Prozac Diary (1998), a key contribution to the literature about American psychiatry and medication. In Blue Dreams (2018), she has also written about the pharmaceutical industry’s development of drugs like Prozac. Other works concerned with psychology and psychiatry include Inside Skinner’s Box (2004), which traces the history and ethics of psychological experiments. Love Works Like This (2002) is a more personal work relating her own experience of pregnancy and her early years of motherhood. In Lying (2000), she addresses questions of truth, fiction, and responsibility in writing the memoir.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/lauren-j-slater-concord-ma/451115

Who benefits the most from mercantilism?

First, a working definition of mercantilism: under mercantilism, a nation strives to export more than it imports and it hopes to hoard gold and silver as a result. In the case of the colonists under the leadership of Great Britain, they were to export their raw materials to the mother country and the mother country was to sell them finished products. In order to further streamline the process, Britain barred the colonists from trading certain goods with other countries and all British goods had to be shipped on British ships.
This led to a monopoly that favored the British government over the colonists. The colonists, capable of creating their own industries, were impeded by being told that all raw materials must be shipped to Great Britain. The colonists also had to take whatever Britain was willing to pay while Britain had access to the world's markets. All of this would lead to colonial resentment after the period of salutary neglect ended in 1763 with the ending of the Seven Years' War.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mercantilism.asp

Imagine that you were an American voter, living in the year 1828 in the election between Andrew Jackson of the Democratic Party and John Quincy Adams of the National Republican party. Which candidate would you have voted for, and why? Be certain and discuss, for the candidate for whom you choose to vote, the policy positions he held, and explain why those positions led you to vote for him.

When you are asked to imagine yourself as a voter in the United States in 1828, there are several restrictions you must acknowledge and several decisions you must make about your identity. First, at that time, only white men were allowed to vote: at the federal level, African American men’s right to vote was recognized only in 1868, and the voting rights of all women, regardless of race, only in 1920. Other restrictions and requirements were also in place, depending on the state, such as property ownership. In addition, consider your experience in relationship to your opinion of the candidates: Are you satisfied with President Adams’s performance in office, or do you think the country is ready for a change?
Another important factor is the state and part of the country in which you reside, as sub-national loyalties significantly affect voters’ perception of the issues and the relative merits of the candidates. If you live in the north, perhaps you will view J. Q. Adams as the better option: having served in the Senate from Massachusetts, he understands the northern people’s needs. Adams’s ticket further supports the north, as his vice presidential candidate, Richard Rush, is from Pennsylvania. If you live in the south, you might identify with Andrew Jackson, a former Senator from Tennessee and former Governor of Florida. And you will note that his ticket is more regionally balanced, as his running mate, Martin Van Buren, hails from New York.
President Adams had been raised in national politics, as his father had not only served as president but was also one of the Founding Fathers. J. Q. Adams was a federalist as much as the senior Adams, but he recognized the need to change with the times. You would likely consider whether the reforms of the National Republican party still uphold the values of traditional federalism or have adapted far enough to the kind of Republican vision a larger, and ever-growing, nation requires today.
Indeed, the domestic concerns of the nation, especially in light of the rapid westward expansion, need to address issues such as transportation but balance the costs with reasonable taxes. Both candidates favor additional taxation, but the allocation of the resources and the states’ ability to administer their own budgets (in contrast to federal oversight) are places where their platforms differ. Jackson and Van Buren have crafted a platform that favors states’ rights, including the controversial issue of slavery. As western states are added to the Union, should slavery be allowed there? Is this a federal government decision, or should each state decide for itself?
In evaluating President Adams’s contributions so far, you can evaluate what he delivered based on his earlier promises, and what he did not achieve. Although protection of American industry through tariffs was a point of agreement in 1824, the tariffs that were subsequently enacted may have done more harm than good. Do you favor expanding this system to guarantee further protection? Or do you think that the financial burden outweighs any competitive advantage?
You may also notice that in this electoral campaign, much more than in 1824, the Jackson side in particular is actively seeking your vote with many novelty items. If you decide to support him, you might attend one of his rallies wearing an “Old Hickory” campaign button.
https://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/campaigns-and-elections

https://web.archive.org/web/20160706144856/http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html

Who is the main character of "The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant?

The unnamed narrator is the story's main character, or protagonist. He is a boy of fourteen who lives (at least for the summer) next to the Mant family, who have rented the cottage nearest his family's. He quickly develops feelings of a romantic, infatuate nature for Sheila, the middle daughter, and he works up the nerve to ask her out, only at the very end of August. She is three years his senior and seems mostly unaware of his existence. However, she agrees to go to a little festival that has live music with him one night, in his canoe, and when he learns that she finds fishing to be "boring" and "dumb," he is anxious to prevent her from realizing that he has actually hooked a massive bass while they've been making their way down the river. In the end, he cuts the line and sets the bass free and Sheila goes home with someone else anyway; he says that he never made that same mistake—of choosing a girl over a fish—again.

From the movie Hugo, what​ ​is​ ​the​ ​role​ ​films​ ​play​ ​in​ ​perpetuating​ ​stereotypes​ ​in​ ​contemporary​ ​society?

Hugo is a 2011 film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese. The film is based on Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Perhaps the most important stereotype presented in the film has to do with lack of identity due to the loss of a parent. Viewers see the typical fears associated with the loss of a parent and the uncertainty of what comes after this loss. Hugo, after his father's death, fears that he will be placed in an orphanage. The stereotype of the lost child is prevalent here. Hugo, as a lost child, should amount to nothing. This stereotype is perpetuated through the character of his uncle, Claude. Claude is an alcoholic and does not want to take care of his nephew. Yet, in the end, Hugo proves to be far more than a lost child. He successfully fixes the animatronic (which his father was unable to complete), and he finds a home and family who loves and appreciates him.
True to typical film endings, the hero (Hugo) is able to overcome all obstacles and prove that he is more than an orphaned son. The stereotype of the underdog's success may be, for some, the most prevalent stereotype of the film. As with most films, the "down-and-out" protagonist, after facing numerous seemingly insurmountable challenges, succeeds. Unfortunately, in the real world, this is not always the case.

What are some types of irony in "EPICAC"?

There are three kinds of irony: verbal, dramatic, and situational. The story "EPICAC" by Kurt Vonnegut is built on dramatic irony: certain information is revealed to us as readers but not to the characters of the story.
The irony of "EPICAC" is that the computer is actually the one who made Pat fall in love. Though the narrator tells EPICAC that a human can never love a machine, in reality, Pat has only fallen in love because of the machine.
There is also a little bit of situational irony in the poems. Though the narrator convinces Pat to marry him and promises her a poem for every anniversary, he has no reason to believe that he will actually be able to compose a new poem every year. He doesn't want to think about it; after all, has a year until the next poem needs to be written.
The truth is, he shouldn't be able to give her a new poem for each anniversary, especially after EPICAC has died. However, there is situational irony in the fact that EPICAC's parting gift was a huge collection of poems, giving the narrator exactly what he needs to continue making Pat happy—something he couldn't do without the computer, but the computer also couldn't do without him.
http://typesofirony.com/the-3-types-of-irony/

Discuss the formal aspects of 'mask of anarchy' in terms of voice, diction, rhyme scheme, meter and figurative language. What are some of the Romantic characteristics of the poem?

Shelley's poem is an allegorical commentary on political events in England, particularly the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819. Written in 91 stanzas, the poem is written in trochaic tetrameter with an AABB rhyme scheme, although many of the lines contain only seven syllables and end on a stress.
The poem describes the coming of the figure of Anarchy to London. The allegorical nature of the poem allows Shelley to describe the political situation in England using heightened language:

Last came Anarchy; he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips,Like Death in the Apocalypse

Anarchy is, of course, the British government ("And he wore a kingly crown / And in his grasp a sceptre shown"), which had brutally put down a protest for democratic reform at Peterloo. The specter of Anarchy is opposed by the figure of Hope ("a maniac maid, / And her name was Hope, she said: / But she looked more like Despair;").
The Romantic elements of the poem include, of course, the championing of the common people over aristocrats, the use of supernatural or mythic figures to represent current events, and the reliance on emotion and emotionally charged imagery to make his point. While many had died at Peterloo asking for electoral reform, in Shelley's poem the forces of Anarchy are defeated by the "mist" of freedom:

As flowers beneath the footstep waken, As stars from night's loose hair are shaken, As waves arise when loud winds call, Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.And the prostrate multitudeLooked—and ankle deep in blood,Hope, that maiden most serene,Was walking with a quiet mien:And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, Lay dead earth upon the earth;

Shelley's poem was meant to be a kind of emotional call to arms on behalf of democracy, but it did not appear in print until 1832, due to government censorship of political dissent.