The Brackenridge Fellowship provides the unique experience of being able to talk with and connect with various students across many different disciplines. With this opportunity to learn from all the other Brackenridge recipients, I hope to obtain not only research tips and new ideas, but also to find ways in which an audience, who may not otherwise know much about my subject, will take better interest in it. I also hope to find ways to connect other peoples projects to my own and do my best to help other people in the same way they help me, connecting them to any resources I know. This allows me to open my mind to the various possibilities and pathways my project can take by talking to all the talented individuals in this fellowship that have their own assets and knowledge to bring to the table. 

In relation to specific projects I’ve taken interest in, there are a few which I definitely could connect directly to my own project, and others which, because I know nothing about them, are incredibly fascinating to me. For example, Hannah Kirsch’s research on Gender Cues and the Non-Binary They directly correlates to my own study of non-binary representation in Egypt during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. As I gather historical evidence, I hope to be able to draw some modern connections and understand my own project from a broader perspective. Sam Esser’s project looking at the development of the modern, standard Italian language also is interesting as I personally am proficient in Latin and Italian is one of the various languages which derive from it and which I hope to learn. But outside of my own expertise, Emily Rothermel’s Investigation of Environmental Waste and Illness in her hometown is very interesting as pollution is a growing issue and I’m excited to read more and more research hopefully leading to some solutions to this issue. Dionna Dash’s research is exciting too as she is taking a different approach and using creative writing as her medium to distribute her research on language discrimination. Everyone’s projects contain a sense of purpose and originality which inspire me to work harder as I look forward to everyone’s accomplishment’s.

There are many benefits to working across disciplines as people can see various sides of the research I am doing. And vice versa, I can see the research they do and see the things that work and don’t work. In particular, I hope to see how to grab people’s attention with my research, even if the field I’m in is not the same. However, some obstacles do come from this as ignorance within a field can be unhelpful as well. Still, the importance is to broaden perspectives and to understand it is important to do the best we can.