Mia Schatz 13C (History) says being part of the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory gave her a strong feeling of community, which was important to her as a transfer student.
2012-2013 Undergraduate Honors Fellow Zach Domach 13C 13G (Classics/History and Music, with a BA/MA in History) talks about his undergraduate fellowship experience at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry.
by Mia Schatz
My story is hardly one of an obvious trajectory from infancy to the academy. Amidst the mass of largely uncaring students and under-qualified teachers at my high school, it was difficult to see beyond the functional value of education because every topic I encountered at school seemed to point towards a dead end; questions took the form of demands with preordained (and often quite antiquated) responses. Yet, for me, education’s utility, though monotonous, was nevertheless quite real. So, breaking rank with most of my high school friends, I dutifully enrolled in college with the intention of pursuing a rewarding and “fulfilling” degree in business. But my four-year plan towards “insert business title” was quickly thrown into disarray as I became privy to the ostensibly secret world of intellectual discussion within the humanities. Since jumping out of the proverbial rat race, my sights have been set on a subtler, yet increasingly rigorous race for positions within higher academia. The challenges presented by this quite different and perhaps less familiar struggle have forced me to face trying questions: Is this a “practical” career path given the job market’s current climate? Am I intellectually capable of following through with a life of thinking and inviting others to evaluate, analyze, and criticize my thoughts? Is an academic really what I want to “be?” My experience as a fellow at the Fox Center has unexpectedly aided me in answering each.
When I applied for a fellows’ position at the Fox Center, I imagined that it would be convenient to have a space to house my books and free printing is a luxury that any student can easily appreciate. Yet, as much assistance as these generous conveniences of Fox fellowship provided me, it turns out that the best part of being an undergraduate honors fellow at the Fox Center is participating in the Center itself. Attending events such as the annual Faculty Response Forum or weekly fellows’ lunches, as well as becoming acquainted with faculty, post-grads, and grad students in a uniquely informal and friendly environment has shaped my sense of academia and the experience of intellectual life within the professional world.
The beautiful thing about life as an academic, to my mind, is the fact that it is not about “me.” Certainly, our personal experiences inform individual research interests and motivate projects, but intellectual discourse transcends all boundaries – physical and imagined, self-inflicted and super-imposed. Simply put, the sense that I got during each discussion I participated in as a Fox fellow was that each person brought his or her own perception of various topics to the table, but did so in order to advance something larger, something more important than a subjective interest. The sense of academic community I derived from my time at the Fox Center profoundly informed the way in which I conceived of broader societal questions as I wrote my thesis this past semester and, importantly, solidified my desire to sacrifice the certainty of a “9 to 5” in order to pursue my academic passions. As my time at Emory comes to a close and I begin to prepare for graduate school, I have no doubt that I will carry the intellectual experience with which the fellows and staff at the Fox Center have provided me throughout the rest of my academic career – whatever direction it might be headed.
by Hyeok Hweon (Kevin) Kang
As a double major in History and Music, I have had the privilege of exploring the intersections between these two distinct majors and reap the benefits of interdisciplinary learning. The beauty of studying in a liberal arts institution like Emory is that willing students can introduce fresh perspectives to their academic career through cross-disciplinary understanding and synergy. I found that the combination of my majors enabled me to recontextualize the significance of each subject. Many limit the scope of history to the past and that of music to the present, with the assumption that history is a fixed narrative of bygone events and the understanding that music exists in the present catering to current society’s needs for entertainment. However, concentrating in ethnomusicology – an anthropological study of musical traditions – inspired me to realize that music not only embodies the cultural and ethnic identity of musicians but also reveals insight into their creative energy to reconstruct and revise their ethnic past. In this context, the cultural history of an ethnic group breathes in the present through the musical culture, undergoing constant reinterpretation and revision with variances in musical performance style and other extra-musical elements associated with the performance. I realized history is not a fossil of the past, but that it lives in the present and dictates the future. It is a powerful, dynamic narrative of human societies that demands constant interpretation and re-examination of the old in new contexts to achieve truthful representations of the past.
I have pursued various research projects that reflect such interdisciplinary. One of my most recent presentations was about the historical origins of p’ansori, a genre of Korean narrative singing, in the San Diego Association for Asian Studies Conference. Employing both historical and ethnomusicological research methodologies, I proposed a new theory that p’ansori singing intersected with recitation of military manuals in Korean armies of the Choson dynasty (1392-1910). Through textual evidence from military manuals, p’ansori songbooks and institutional records, I argued that shaman musicians who served in the military band interacted with reciters of manuals and gave rise to early p’ansori singing. My presentation was successful and it attracted much curiosity and tentative approval from the attending scholars. An expanded article on the topic will be included in the forthcoming issue of the Rutledge Handbook on Asian Music.
I would like to extend my gratitude towards the liberal arts education that Emory University has provided thus far and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry for fostering my interdisciplinary interests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HczaPh6ct0&list=PL64A0D1356A43518E
2012-2013 Undergraduate Honors Fellow Deborah Schlein 13C (Middle Eastern Studies) talks about her undergraduate fellowship experience at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry.
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