Fall 2022
CONWAY, Arkansas (November 28, 2022)—In
the Fall semester of 2022, the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation awarded $101,368 in
grants for six student cocurricular projects, two faculty-led campus projects,
and two faculty-led study-travel projects in literature and language. The following
student and faculty-led projects were approved for funding:
Student
Cocurricular Projects in Literature and Language
*Keeley
Ausburn
A Novel Idea: Learning about Others through Literature
Project
supervisor: Hope Coulter, English
Keeley will conduct
interviews at libraries in Central Arkansas and explore the question of what
can be learned about someone from their relationship with literature. She will
explore what makes a book resonate with someone, identify commonalities between
the interviewees’ stories, and analyze overlap in the data. Through this
research project, she hopes to explore the significance of literature in
people’s lives.
Grace
Capooth
+Language and Professional Development at the 2023 Animayo Animation
Festival
Project
supervisor: Ruth Yuste-Alonso, Languages, Murphy Fellow in Spanish
In April, Grace will attend
the 2023 Animayo Animation Festival in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain.
This interdisciplinary project will enhance Grace’s Spanish language skills
through total immersion, and she will also expand her cultural awareness and
language proficiency in relation to a conference and an industry that is marked
by its uniquely global community.
+Carries Odyssey SP (Special Project) credit
*Makenzie
Henderson
+Intensive Study of Work-Life Balance & Language through Cultural Immersion
Project
supervisor: Carmen Merrick, Psychology
Over
winter break Makenzie will travel to Genoa, Italy, where she will shadow
physicians for 20 hours a week via participation in the Atlantis Medical
Shadowing Program. Makenzie will take an intensive Italian course before her
trip, and immersion in the culture of Italy will allow her to practice Italian
and increase her proficiency in the language. Building on observations from her
Summer 2022 Atlantis shadowing experience in Spain, she will investigate
work-life balance in Italy, using methods such as talking to physicians and
observing the societal structure of Genoa.
+Carries Odyssey UR (Undergraduate Research) credit
Ashley
Nguyen, Jeremy Choh, Emma Chavez, and Hannah Stovall
+Life and Language in Kyoto, Japan
Project
supervisor: Wenjia Liu, Languages
Ashley, Jeremy, Emma, and
Hannah will travel to Kyoto, Japan, over spring break to gain a deeper
understanding of the Japanese language and culture. The group will participate
in a language course offered by the Kyoto City International Foundation, where
they will converse daily with native speakers and gain insight into everyday
Japanese life. Before traveling, the students will enroll in a remote,
four-month-long beginning Japanese course offered through WASEDA University
XSeries to acquire foundational language knowledge that will enhance their
immersion experience.
+Carries Odyssey GA (Global Awareness) credit
*Claire Segura
Curso Intensivo de Español in
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Project
supervisor: Ruth Yuste-Alonso, Languages, Murphy Fellow in Spanish
This spring Claire will
complete a language intensive in Argentina before her semester abroad in Buenos
Aires through ISEP (International Student Exchange Program). She will study
Spanish grammar and conversation along with Argentinian literature and art. Completing
this pre-semester program will allow Claire to achieve a higher level of
Spanish proficiency so that she can maximize her language immersion experience
at the Universidad del Salvador.
Oli
Steven-Assheuer
+Spanish Language Intensive in Medellín, Colombia
Project
supervisor: Ruth Yuste-Alonso, Languages, Murphy Fellow in Spanish
Oli will travel to Medellín,
Colombia, over winter break to enroll in a Spanish language intensive course.
Through this project, he will build on his conversational Spanish skills as
well as his intercultural knowledge of Hispanic cultures. Colombian Spanish is
an attractive form of Spanish for new learners as it is often spoken clearly,
slowly, and with a rhythmic pattern, and broadening his exposure to the
region’s unique Paisa dialect is a key component of Oli’s immersion experience.
+Carries Odyssey GA (Global Awareness) credit
*Murphy Scholar in
Literature and Language
Faculty-Led
Campus Projects
Julia
Kolchinsky Dasbach, English, Murphy Fellow in Poetry
Dear Ukraine: A Global Community Poem
“Dear
Ukraine: A Global Community Poem”
offers an inclusive, participatory, and empathetic way to bear witness from our
varying degrees of distance and relation to the war against Ukraine through the
imaginative language of poetry. Participants read the model poem by Dr. Dasbach
and then follow prompts to submit their own responses, which can be submitted
and translated into English, Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish in order to be read
by those in war-torn regions. Bringing a “Dear Ukraine” installation to Hendrix
and housing it in the Windgate Museum surrounded by an exhibit of art by poets
from Ukraine will engage Hendrix students to respond through language as well
as open this response to the wider community.
Margo Kolenda-Mason, English
Galatea Reading Group
John Lyly’s Galatea (1588)
is a play that features female homoeroticism, virgin sacrifices, sea monsters,
shipwrecks, alchemy, and more. While he is little studied today, Lyly was one
of the most popular playwrights of his time and was highly influential
(including for Shakespeare). Galatea stands out as one of the most
explicitly queer plays of the time, and one of the few to endorse same-sex
desire. It is a fascinating glimpse into literary history even as it shows us
the surprising ways that Renaissance theater engages with issues still
important to us today. This reading group will meet twice, reading the play
aloud together and discussing it in anticipation of this year’s Drake Lecture
on Transgender Natural Spaces in Renaissance Theater, to be delivered on campus
in April by Dr. Colby Gordon of Bryn Mawr College.
Faculty-Led
Study-Travel Projects
Julia
Kolchinsky Dasbach, English, Murphy Fellow in Poetry
+Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP)
Conference, Seattle
The Association of Writers &
Writing Programs (AWP) Conference & Bookfair is the largest literary
conference in North America and arguably the most important one for those
interested in literary careers related to writing, editing, publishing, or
teaching. In past years, more than 12,000 writers and readers have attended the
conference with over 650 exhibitors represented including small presses, large
publishing houses and university presses, literary journals, nonprofits, and
graduate writing programs, among others. During the three days of the
conference, students will have the opportunity to meet with industry experts;
connect with faculty from potential graduate programs; participate in a variety
of panels on writing, reading, publishing, and pedagogy; and attend readings by
established writers.
+Carries Odyssey AC (Artistic Creativity) credit
Hope Coulter, English; Tyrone Jaeger, English
+The Lore of the
Emerald Isle: Exploring Irish Literature in Context
Students who have taken
either the Murphy Scholar tutorial course Irish Short Stories or another
relevant literature or creative writing course will travel to Ireland to
investigate how the literary arts have shaped, and been shaped by Irish culture
and tradition. This overview of Irish literature will start in Dublin, where
the participants will see the Book of Kells, visit museums on Oscar Wilde,
James Joyce, and Irish literature, and see a play at the iconic Abbey Theatre,
home to the Irish Literary Revival. The group will then travel to Bantry, in
County Cork, to attend the West Cork Literary Festival. There students will
take creative writing workshops and hear readings and panels by contemporary
Irish writers, whose work they will have read at Hendrix.
+Carries Odyssey SP (Special Project) credit