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. Join the events via Zoom here. 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.
