The four fellows’ presentations will be split into two nights to allow for sufficient time. On April 21, Katherine Reardon will be presenting her research titled “What is Was and What I Know: Attempts at Family History”. Nola Prevost will also be presenting that evening and her project is called “All the Girls In The Woods: Feminist Fairy Tales for the Modern World”. The following evening, April 22, Hailey Cedor will be presenting “Local Involvement, Memory and Denial: The Complexities of the Holocaust in Lithuania”. Nolan Alvater will be sharing his project that night as well called “Wabanaki Tools of Diplomacy: Storying Protocols as Political Will”. Those who are interested in attending this event can use to access the presentations on both nights. Passcode  899432 if needed. 

These creative projects have been in the works for about a year, and each student has remained vigilantly dedicated to their chosen topic despite COVID restrictions which disrupted each of their research plans. While each student has been working independently, their research happened to all center around the idea of inter-generational storytelling including: the power of Wabanaki storytelling in education, Irish American family lore, local memory and Holocaust denial in Lithuania, and updated fairy tales for the modern world.

Alvater is a Wabanaki student who is majoring in secondary education. He is concentrating in English and hopes to use his degree to become a tribal educator. Alvater hails from both Sipayik and Island Falls, Maine and with his project he hopes to create a writing camp for people that would focus on the history of Native Maine and native culture. Alvater also wants to draw attention to the lack of resources given to the implementation of the Wabanaki studies law.

Cedor is a graduating history student with a minor in environmental horticulture who is passionate about bringing the stories of the past to life in the modern era. After working with Professor Anne Knowles’ Holocaust Ghettos Project, Cedor became interested in Lithuanians involvement in the Holocaust and how that shapes national discourse and identity surrounding the events today. Unfortunately, Holocaust denial remains on the rise in both Europe and the U.S. which is one of the aspects that makes Cedor’s project relevant in today’s world.

Prevost, of Brewer, Maine, is a graduating English major who is concentrating in creative writing and minoring in women’s, gender and sexuality studies. She is rewriting classic fairytales to have a more feminist message in a combination of both poetry and prose. She will focus on bringing to light the issues marginalized groups face in the U.S. through these reworked fairytales to make a collection of modernized fables.

After a trip to her family’s native Ireland, Reardon who is an English major with a political science minor, became interested in testing the validity of the stories her family members had been passing down to her over the years. Through the use of non-fictional creative writing, oral history and examining historical documentation, Reardon is hoping to differentiate truth from fiction, and examine how the stories have impacted herself and her family throughout the years.

The McGillicuddy Humanities Center chooses four students per semester to participate in its fellowship program, or eight at any given time, at various stages in their research. Participating students earn $4000 per semester to work on the research or creative project of their choice that is rooted in the scope of the arts and humanities. Any student of any major is welcome to apply to hold fellowships during their junior or senior years. There are two annual deadlines to submit proposals, which are October 17 and March 17. Fellowships are highly competitive, but the position is earned based upon the strength of an applicant’s proposal as opposed to their GPA. Each student must apply with a faculty advisor who works closely with the student throughout the duration of their project. All students are required to make their project accessible to the public through a medium such as a talk, gallery show, or journal article.

For more information on these events please contact mch@maine.edu or visit /mhc/.

Thank you to our undergraduate assistant Megan Ashe for this piece.

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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. . 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.

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The Fall 2020-Spring 2021 McGillicuddy Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellows are, from left to right, Hailey Cedor, Nola Prevost, Nolan Altvater, and Katherine Reardon. 

Joining the Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center (MHC) as Fall 2020 through Spring 2021 Fellows are Nolan Altvater, Hailey Cedor, Nola Prevost and Katherine Reardon. The new cohort joins returning Fellows Ivy Flessen, Bria Lamonica, and Leela Stockley, who will be completing their research this semester. Fellows receive $4000 each semester for two consecutive semesters, to work on a humanities project of their own devising. They serve as humanities ambassadors to their peers, the campus, and beyond. The MHC currently supports seven undergraduate Fellows, and will be expanding to eight next semester.

Nolan Altvater, of Sipayik and Island Falls, Maine, is a Wabanaki student majoring in Secondary Education with a concentration in English. He will be doing his fellowship research on “Decolonizing Maine Education: Creating an Educational Resource to Improve the Implementation of The Wabanaki Studies Law.”  As a future tribal educator, Altvater hopes to address the poor implementation and lack of resources related to LD-291, also known as the Wabanaki Studies Law. At the culmination of his MHC Fellowship he plans to create a writing camp centered around Maine’s Native history, culture, and epistemologies.

History major Hailey Cedor, of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, was selected as a MHC Fellow to complete research related to local involvement of Lithuanians in the Holocaust and how that currently informs national views and identity in relation to that event. Cedor, a History major minoring in Environmental Horticulture, became interested in the topic after working the past year on Professor Anne Knowles’ Holocaust Ghettos Project, which involves GIS mapping. With Holocaust denial on the rise in Europe and here in the U.S., Cedor believes that bringing stories like this to light are as important now as ever.

Fellow Nola Prevost of Brewer, Maine, is an English Major concentrating in Creative Writing and minoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is interested in the historic use of fairy tales to represent societal issues or moral messages, and is curious how this genre could be used to engage with current socio-political discourse. Her fellowship project, “Feminist Fairy Tales,” will use modern fairy tale conventions and feminist scholarship to create her own collection of fables in hybrid prose poetry form. This collection will address feminist issues, writing especially for marginalized groups within American society.

Katherine Reardon, an English major with a minor in political science, hails from Westwood, Massachusetts. Reardon will be spending her fellowship working on her project, “Family Stories, The Truth, and How It Shape Us.” After a trip to Ireland where her ancestors are from, Reardon became curious about the validity of certain family stories, particularly those told by her late grandfather. Her research will combine oral history, historic documentation and nonfiction creative writing to examine the sometimes-fictional stories families pass down, and how they can shape us.

Students interested in becoming a McGillicuddy Humanities Center Undergraduate Fellowship have two deadlines to apply annually in October and March. The deadline to become a Spring 2021 through Fall 2021 Fellow has been extended until Wednesday, October 28. More information, including application instructions, proposal guidelines, and a rubric, are all available at umaine.edu/mhc/research/for-students/undergraduate-fellowship/ or by contacting the MHC’s Humanities Specialist Karen Sieber at karen.sieber@maine.edu.

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