A “constructive and formative experience” while he was an undergrad at UC Irvine inspired Comparative Literature M.A./Ph.D. student Earl Foust to initiate a similar effort at UCSB – an interdisciplinary conference that will showcase undergraduate research.
The new initiative, called “Critical Intersections,” will provide undergraduates an opportunity to present their work in a conference setting; receive mentorship from graduate students; improve their public speaking skills; and add a valuable experience to their resumes or grad school applications.
Earlier this year, a call was made to undergraduates for papers and projects from all disciplines on the topic of “Identities in a Global Age.” Eighteen undergraduates were selected to present their papers at the Critical Intersections conference, to be held May 18 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Lobero Room at the UCen. The undergrad presenters come from a variety of diverse disciplines, such as Sociology, Italian, History, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, English, Chicana(o) Studies, Psychology, and Political Science.
“I feel that developing a paper for a conference, for public presentation and feedback, is an invaluable skill which we as scholars should be training our students more to do. Not only will it help them if they're deciding to pursue graduate education, but it is also a completely new way to relate to your ideas.”
– Earl Foust, M.A./Ph.D. student, Comparative Literature
Earl Foust, M.A./Ph.D. student in Comparative Literature at UCSBEarl explained that presenters’ development will include pre-conference workshops facilitated by grad student mentors to help the undergrads prepare for their conference research presentations.
“We solicited for graduate student volunteers to mentor the presenters,” Earl said. “Once we had a list of participating graduate students, we supplied them with the abstracts and they told us which students they would like to mentor.” The Critical Intersections Participants page gives a complete list of undergraduate presenters and their mentors.
The undergrads’ projects “describe ways in which identities are constructed and how we can understand these processes in an increasingly ‘global’ institution,” Earl said. “The paper topics are quite diverse, ranging from literary topics to more social science oriented projects. Some papers are on geographically focused areas like the American South, Chiapas, or even here in Santa Barbara. Others are more abstract in concept but still focused on the very concrete position of ‘identity’ today.”
Critical Intersections is the work of a seven-member organizing committee of Comparative Literature graduate students. Serving on that committee along with Earl are: Ph.D. student Lauran Elam; Ph.D. student Michael Grafals; M.A./Ph.D. student Alexandra Magearu; Ph.D. student Shari Sanders; Ph.D. candidate Meaghan Skahan; and M.A./Ph.D. student Becky Stewart.
Earl explained why the organizing committee decided to have pre-conference workshops. “The conference will have about five panels,” he said. “Each panel will be given the opportunity to present their papers to one another a few weeks before the conference along with the panel respondent. This is in order to give the students an exposure to the research of their fellow panelists prior to the conference. They will then have an opportunity to do some final revisions before the actual conference. Our motivation for having pre-conference workshops comes out of our own frustrations with participating in conferences without any prior opportunity to know more about our fellow panelists. We want the panels to have a cohesive, conversational quality, and we think these workshops may facilitate precisely that.”
It was Earl’s past positive experiences rather than the frustrating ones that led him to propose the conference. He explained that he entered UC Irvine as an undergrad majoring in History and later declared Comparative Literature as his double major. “The Comparative Literature Department there hosts an annual Undergraduate Critical Theory Conference. I participated in this conference twice. This was a constructive and formative experience,” Earl said. When he discovered that UCSB’s program did not have such a conference here, “I wanted to contribute something to the academic community that could similarly have such a transformative impact on our students,” he added.
“I feel that developing a paper for a conference, for public presentation and feedback, is an invaluable skill which we as scholars should be training our students more to do,” said Earl. “Not only will it help them if they're deciding to pursue graduate education, but it is also a completely new way to relate to your ideas. I wanted to work toward providing this same opportunity to the undergraduates at UCSB.”
The conference day will include a talk by keynote speaker Dr. Carrie J. Noland from UC Irvine. Dr. Noland, who received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, is Professor and Director of French in UCI’s Department of French and Italian; as well as an Affiliate Faculty member of the Comparative Literature and Anthropology departments.
Dr. Catherine Nesci, Chair, UCSB Comparative Literature ProgramDr. Catherine Nesci, Chair of UCSB’s Comparative Literature Program & Professor of French Studies, and Affiliate in Feminist Studies, has served as a consultant on the Critical Intersections project, but said that the graduate students have been doing all the work on their own – from website development, advertising, and panelist selections to distribution of mentoring activities and the recruitment of the mentors.
Critical Intersections, Dr. Nesci said, is “a superb way of connecting undergraduate and graduate students on research projects and developing mentoring relations. Graduate students are used to doing such work in their teaching in Comparative Literature, the Writing Program, Feminist Studies, Black Studies, and other units in which they teach. Now they will develop their mentoring abilities outside of the classroom.”
“What I also find remarkable,” Dr. Nesci added, “is that the undergraduate student panelists come from all areas of social sciences and the humanities, so dialogues are being generated across divisions and disciplines at the two levels of mentors and student panelists. As a result, the Critical Intersections Undergraduate Conference will incorporate a wide range of voices and perspectives, and will help create and reinforce communities of learning.”
Dr. Nesci touted the benefits to all students of participation in this program. “It is an excellent model of pedagogical and intellectual initiatives that will enrich graduate and undergraduate students alike, and will strengthen our contributions to extracurricular learning models on campus,” she said. “I am extremely proud of our students and really honored to work with, and for, them and I support them in this effort.”
For more information on the initiative, visit the Critical Intersections Web page.