Incoming fellow Luke Miller, a history major from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, will spend the next academic year exploring, “How Government Policy Affects the Homeless Population In Maine: From Vietnam to Today.” Miller will study state and local policies and data on homelessness, and conduct interviews within the homeless population and those who serve them, to better understand how needs could be better addressed. While comparing data and policies from across the state, his research will focus on Bangor in particular. Miller will be advised by Dr. Brian Pitman from the Department of Sociology.

Sabrina Paetow, a Sociology major from Topsham, Maine, will spend her fellowship analyzing “Rhetoric in the Age of Trump: Presidential Discourse on the COVID-19 Pandemic,” which is tied to her Honors thesis of the same title. Paetow, who will be advised by Dr. Amy Fried from the Department of Political Science, hopes to understand how this particular public health crisis has been framed across the pandemic, and how Trump’s rhetoric affected public perception and discourse on the topic.

Also joining the new cohort will be Stephanie Tillotson from Cumberland Foreside, Maine, who is majoring in Spanish with a minor in Legal Studies. Tillotson is the first student from the Department of Modern Languages and Classics to be awarded a McGillicuddy Humanities Center Fellowship. For her proposed project, “Making Foreign Language Education Accessible through Spanish Animation,” she aims to create a plan and prototype for a mini series of animated, Spanish learning videos featuring the adventures of a dog named Moxie, inspired by her own dog. Tillotson’s research will be advised by Dr. Katie Quick from the Honors College.

Lastly, nursing student Heather Webb of Bangor, Maine, will be writing a series of interconnected personal reflective essays titled, “When Teacher Becomes Pupil: Writing My Way Through Career Transition.” Webb, who worked as an English teacher for many years, is making a career transition into the field of nursing. Her essays will explore the nature of teaching and learning through her experiences going back to school in an unfamiliar field. Nilda Cravens, MSN, RN, will be advising the project. Webb is the first nontraditional student, and first Nursing student, to be awarded a MHC student fellowship.

The MHC funds a rotating cohort of eight undergraduate fellows, providing $4,000 each per semester for two semesters to complete the research or creative projects of their choosing.  In addition to honing their research skills and building their academic networks, fellows serve as humanities ambassadors to their peers, the campus, and beyond. Many past MHC Fellows have stayed on at 91���� for graduate school.

Students interested in becoming a McGillicuddy Humanities Center undergraduate fellow have two deadlines to apply annually, on March 17 and October 17. Research and creative work of all types across the humanities will be considered, from academic papers and art gallery shows, to community workshops or films. More information, including application instructions, proposal guidelines, and a rubric, are all available at umaine.edu/mhc/research/for-students/undergraduate-fellowship/ or by contacting the MHC’s Humanities Specialist Karen Sieber at karen.sieber@maine.edu.

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The McGillicuddy Humanities Center is sponsoring a two-night research showcase event, “The Stories We Tell,” featuring the research and creative work of our four graduating undergraduate student fellows. While each student has been working independently, their collective research this past year all happened to center around stories that people tell from generation to generation. The showcase will take place on Wednesday, April 21, and Thursday, April 22, from 7-8:30 p.m. on both nights. . Passcode  899432 if prompted. Email questions to mhc@maine.edu.

PRESENTATION SCHEDULE

Wednesday, April 21, 7-8:30 PM, FELLOWS KATHERINE REARDON AND NOLA PREVOST

Katherine Reardon, “What It Was and What I Know: Attempts at Family History”

Senior English major Katherine Reardon will be reading her creative work discussing family histories and storytelling through the lens of her own Irish family. Reardon was inspired to do this work while studying abroad in her family’s native Ireland. Combining the oral histories and family lore she grew up with sometimes contradictory archival records, Reardon examines where the truth fits in with these stories, and whether or not it is important if a family story is true. She will also discuss her personal reflective process, and locating herself within these stories.

Nola Prevost, “All The Girls In The Woods: Feminist Fairy Tales for the Modern World”

Nola Prevost will present selections from her original collection of feminist fairy tales, All The Girls In The Woods. Prevost, a senior English major and a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minor, will explore the ability of the fairy tale genre to create and disseminate knowledge and values, and how this can be useful for social justice activism. She will also discuss the impact of inclusive and diverse representation in stories on women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Thursday, April 22, 7-8:30 PM, FELLOWS HAILEY CEDOR AND NOLAN ALTVATER

Hailey Cedor, “Local Involvement, Memory and Denial: the Complexities of the Holocaust in Lithuania”

Senior History major Hailey Cedor will present part of her Honors thesis research about local involvement and memory of Lithuanians in relation to the Holocaust. The complex relationship of current Lithuanians with past atrocities shows the difficulties of acknowledging and reconciling difficult history, and the dangers of that ignorance. In Lithuania, the country’s complicated past has left ample room for self-victimization and denial that favors the public memory of non-Jewish Lithuanians, leaving the small Jewish community that survived the Holocaust to be continually marginalized. Cedor has worked with Holocaust material since the fall of 2018, and this past experience sparked an interest in Lithuania’s relationship to the Holocaust.

Nolan Altvater, “Wabanaki Tools of Diplomacy: Storying Protocols as Political Will”

Using Indigenous research methodologies, senior fellow Nolan Altvater’s project aims to center the needs and voices of Wabanaki communities to inform education policy in the State of Maine. Altvater, a Passamaquoddy citizen and future Tribal educator, addresses the current barriers of implementation of the Wabanaki Studies Law (LD 291) and presents how Wabanaki diplomacy can lead the way to address these issues and serve as political will toward decolonization and antiracist conviction in Maine education. In addition, it explores the concepts and protocols of wampum and its later form of Indigenous writing and how Wabanaki people have used traditional intellect to use these tools for empowerment to resist colonialism. Altvater is also a board member of Wabanaki Reach.

Click here for more information on the McGillicuddy Humanities Center fellowship program, or email mhc@maine.edu with questions.

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Four University of Maine students have joined the McGillicuddy Humanities Center (MHC) this semester as research fellows: Delaney Burns, Elizabeth Dalton, Grace Royle, and Haley Santerre. This new cohort joins existing fellows Nolan Altvater, Hailey Cedor, Nola Prevost and Katherine Reardon, who will finish their research at the MHC in Spring, 2021.

Incoming fellow Delaney Burns is exploring the intersection of art and science.  Burns, a fourth-year student from Gorham, Maine, is double-majoring in Studio Art and Marketing with minors in Art History and Graphic Design. For her fellowship, Burns will create a series of large-scale wood block prints titled, “Pinus Iongaeva: Discovering Form and Value through Ancient Bristlecone Pine Trees.” She hopes to learn and share new printmaking techniques, understand more about Ancient Bristlecone Pine Trees, and their importance to the ecosystem, and explore their personal connection to her father, a 91���� Forestry graduate.

Elizabeth Dalton has begun her research into, “Analyzing the Harmful Effects of Historical Inaccuracies in Medieval History as Seen in Popular Culture.”  A third year History major from Lamoine, Maine, Dalton is minoring in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.  While recognizing the potential that binge-worthy shows and popular movies have to engage the public with history, Dalton’s project will investigate and describe the problematic ways in which accuracy is overlooked for the sake of entertainment. Her fellowship research will focus on depictions of the Medieval Age, as in Netflix’s The King.

Grace Royle is a third year Communication major and Legal Studies minor from Minot, Maine. Royle has begun work on a scholarly paper tentatively titled, “From Self-Help to Self-Harm: An Analysis of the Dangers that Fester in the Self-Help Industry.” She is particularly interested in exploring the hidden dangers of the industry, with self-proclaimed gurus practicing without certification, or sufficient qualifications or regulation. Her research will also look into the complicated psychology that comes into play, where people are being promised self-help but instead partaking in dangerous, self-harming activities.

Incoming fellow Haley Santerre asks, “Are the Gods to Blame?” Santerre is a third year Studio Art major and Art History minor from Portland, Maine. She is creating a series of six paintings that examine recent catastrophic events, such as the Coronavirus pandemic or Australian wildfires, through an historical and theological lens. By examining how ancient cultures, particularly those in Greece, would have responded, she hopes in turn to learn more about people’s beliefs today.  Haley is the inaugural Richard and Karin Anderson Undergraduate Fellow, whose generous donation funds the research of one fellow per year.

More information will be announced soon about a two-part showcase event in April featuring the research of the four fellows completing their research this spring. Future tribal educator Nolan Altvater has been doing his fellowship research on “Decolonizing Maine Education: Creating an Educational Resource to Improve the Implementation of The Wabanaki Studies Law.”  Fellow Hailey Cedor is completing research related to local involvement of Lithuanians in the Holocaust and how that currently informs national views and identity in relation to that horrific moment in time. Like many, Fellow Nola Prevost is interested in the historic use of fairy tales to represent societal issues or moral messages. She has been using fairy tale conventions and feminist scholarship to create her own modernized collection of fables. Lastly, Katherine Reardon is putting final edits on her work on, “Family Stories, The Truth, and How It Shape Us,” which examines family lore and storytelling within her own Irish family.

The MHC funds a rotating cohort of eight undergraduate fellows, providing $4,000 each per semester for two semesters to complete the research or creative projects of their choosing.  In addition to honing their research skills and building their academic networks, fellows serve as humanities ambassadors to their peers, the campus, and beyond. Many past MHC Fellows have stayed on at 91���� for graduate school.

Students interested in becoming a McGillicuddy Humanities Center undergraduate fellow have two deadlines to apply annually. Proposals to become a fall 2021 through spring 2022 fellow should be submitted by March 17, 2021. Research and creative work of all types across the humanities will be considered, from academic papers to art gallery shows, community workshops to educational video series. While the project has to be centered in the humanities, students from other disciplines are welcome to submit proposals for humanities-based projects. Students must be in their junior and/or senior year during the length of the two-semester fellowship term.

More information, including application instructions, proposal guidelines, and a rubric, are all available at umaine.edu/mhc/research/for-students/undergraduate-fellowship/ or by contacting the MHC’s Humanities Specialist Karen Sieber at karen.sieber@maine.edu.

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“The Resistance to Reason: An Enduring Problem”

March 12, 2 pm.

We are surrounded by those who refuse to accept what science tells us. Yet in many ways, the question remains to be answered: how are we to think of these people? How do we to get them to listen? Can we? McGillicuddy Humanities Center Fellow Ivy Flessen will be presenting her research related to these questions. Her talk will center around �ʱ����ٴ�’s Myth of Er to answer these questions, and illuminate the irrationality, hatred, and anger that seems to overwhelm our political society. Free and open to the public.

Email mhc@maine.edu with any questions.

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