In terms of communicating my research, I’ve always found that conveying the purpose and significance of my work to be the most difficult. Even to colleagues in my field, many people do not understand the end goal of my work and what it will achieve. I believe this problem originally stems from the fact that not many people know of the author I am researching, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, nor the purpose of genetic criticism in general. 

In order to explain my research to someone who knows nothing about my field, I first start by giving some more context around Gómez de la Serna and why his work is meaningful in the first place. During the 20th century avant-garde movement in Latin America, Gómez de la Serna created his own genre of short poetry called greguerías. He was one of the most influential authors of the time and also collaborated with many other well-known writers and artists of the time. This shows the role of the author in Latin American literature to those not in the field.

I also find it most helpful to focus on the significance and purpose of my research when discussing it with those outside of my field. For example, I spoke at an interdisciplinary conference in early June and the significance of my work was one recurring question I was given that I was not expecting. This is because I always felt the purpose was quite clear to myself and others in my field. However, when discussing with others at the conference, I had to lay out much more clearly that the purpose is to evaluate and transcribe the manuscripts of Gómez de la Serna to shed more light on the author himself and his ideas, along with his creative writing process. Almost all of his manuscripts, papers, and documents found in the Archives and Special Collections of the Hillman Library have yet to be organized, transcribed, or analyzed. Similarly, some of the work in the archive was never published, therefore entirely new content will be explored. Overall, my research will analyze and explore his writing process with the purpose of understanding the deeper meaning of his work and why he chose to write what he did.

With my current professional goals, I will likely have to interact with many people outside of my field. I hope to pursue a career in international affairs and public relations. While majoring in Spanish, I know a great deal about communication, languages, and cross-cultural awareness. However, in this field, I will have to communicate with a large range of other fields, including politics, business, economics, and many more. Although all careers have a range of fields involved, I think international affairs specifically has a very large interdisciplinary aspect, because it has such a wide scope and also crosses cultural divides. However, my current research and my involvement in the Brackenridge fellowship has helped me cultivate and develop the skills to communicate across disciplines and fields of study.