Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences had four students participate in the Graduate Research Salon on Wednesday, May 2 and we are pleased to announce that Danika Hazen (MFA Creative Writing/MA English) won second place in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Congrats to all the presenters and winners.

Erika Gibson’s (MA War and Society) 3MT competition presentation, “We Heard Tell”: Rumors as News in Civil War Letter Writing, examines how rumors were a vital part of news sharing during the Civil War through close study of Private Joseph Coryell’s letters to his wife. The almost constant request for news from both parties and the sharing of rumors in place of hard facts suggest that rumors, in and of themselves, were meaningful forms of information for the families of soldiers.

Danika Hazen’s (MFA Creative Writing/MA English) 3MT competition presentation, “Reimagining the World to Include People like Me”: Reframing the Canon through Young Adult, examines how women can use the space of the young adult genre to take texts like Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, and the Cinderella tale; that do not reflect a diverse femininity or feminine sexual experience; and retell them in a light that reflects their lives as diverse, sexual women.

Ross Johnson’s (MA War and Society) 3MT competition presentation, The Gypsy Holocaust (1939-1945): Why Its Lessons Retain Meaning & Purpose Today, focuses on the murder of about one million Gypsy (Romani) people during the Holocaust from 1939 to 1945. His study addresses what the Gypsy tragedy can teach us about ourselves, and how our society today can learn to be more tolerant and accepting of those who are different.

 Peggy Wood (MA English) competed in the Grad Salon’s poster session. Peggy’s poster and paper, The Female Novelist’s Anxiety of Authorship, examines the feminist theory of the “anxiety of authorship” in relation to Maki Kashimida’s short story “The Female Novelist” and Charlotte Gilma’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and shows how “The Female Novelist” appears to depict the theory in modern terms, from a Japanese perspective.

Please view the Graduate Research Salon Program for full abstracts of each presentation.