English Department Undergraduates Awarded CIGSR Grants

English Department undergraduate students, Ella Stott and Eden Marroquín, were awarded travel grants from the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research to conduct individual research projects over the summer. 

 Ella’s project, working with her mentor, Professor Jennifer Sinor, involves participating in a writing workshop in Europe to refine and practice craft technique as she completes her full-length memoir. “Last summer, I wrote the first half of my memoir that examines sexuality, relationship to body, religion, and how all of these culminated to form my idea of romance, affecting a relationship I was in in high school,” Ella comments. “As I travel this summer and learn from new professors and peers, as well as read other memoirs to study the craft of trauma, I will be researching the intersection between memory, narrative, and identity. I’m incredibly grateful to the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research in helping fund this project and seeing the importance in writing-based research.”

This summer, Eden will be working on a research project with Professor Shane Graham on Langston Hughes, his relationship with the State Department, and his role in American diplomacy during the Cold War. “I’m really grateful for the Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research for helping fund mine and Dr. Graham’s research project,” Eden says. “Their assistance has been invaluable, and I’m so thankful that they recognize a need for scholarship and research on Black Americans, particularly ones that shaped the literary scene and had such a big hand in the Civil Rights Movement. It’s such an important aspect of American history.”