THHP Student Justin Miranda Paz's Internship with the American Museum of Natural History

THHP student Justin Miranda Paz interned with the MEEP (Museum Education Experience Program) at the American Museum of Natural History, from January 18th, 2024 to May 4, 2024.

Justin's responsibilities included facilitating enriching, educational conversations with museum visitors in a variety of assigned halls, including the collection core. The work entailed open ended questions from both interns and visitors regarding an exhibit or hall, or theme in general, to better understand the subject material while acknowledging the visitors’ presence at the museum. This was done through exploring personal connections with the exhibit, such as whether they’ve studied archaeology, seen a cool crystal in Central Park’s caverns, or was a professor or teacher at a school.

The interns, including Justin, were involved in public outreach activities, known as Discovery Day, held for families and children on Saturdays who are mostly from underserved communities, such as NYCHA communities. The tables that the interns set up were based around dinosaur fossils, live insects and reptiles, coloring and sketching activities for kids, games, and even experiments tried out by us interns to convey a scientific lesson.

Justin, who is multilingual, used his language skills in Spanish, French, and basic Italian to talk to as many people as possible.

We congratulate Justin on successfully completing the internship and wish him the best for his future endeavors. 

THHP Student Amanda Frey's Acceptance Into an Internship Program

We would like to congratulate Amanda Frey on being accepted into an internship program with the Center for Canine Behavior Studies as a Research Assistant. As part of the internship, Amanda will be assisting in designing a research project mostly based on surveying dog owners about a variety of canine behaviors and running data. She hopes to eventually co-author a journal article with the findings.

Amanda hopes to go on for a PhD in anthrozoology. We wish her the best for her future endeavors.

THHP Student Ariana Rivera's Latest Achievements

THHP student Ariana Rivera (Classical Archaeology major with a minor in Psychology) has recently been awarded the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and has also been accepted into the Bluhm Scholars Program.

As a Mellon Mays Fellow, Ariana is planning to conduct research on mid to late classical period iconography in Ancient Greek art. The program will prepare Ariana to apply for PhD programs.

The Bluhm Scholars Program is a program that is awarded by the Department of Classical and Oriental Studies. As part of the program, Ariana will be attending cultural events throughout the semester. The accepted scholars will also be going on a trip to Greece in the winter.

We congratulate Ariana on her stellar achievements.

THHP Student Phill M. Campbell Wins the Beinecke Scholarship

We congratulate Phill M. Campbell on winning the Beinecke Scholarship. Phill is a rising senior at Hunter College majoring in Media & Journalism. He is also a Blues poet and activist.

As a Mellon Mays Fellow, his research explores Harlem's 135^th Street Library and the connection between its revolutionary Black orators and the blues singers of the 1920s. Specifically, he asks what their relationship can teach us about self-definition, debate, and democracy. He looks a century into the past, to those who used their voices to challenge oppression, to reconsider what may be a contemporary rise in fascism.    

We contacted Phill and asked him to tell us a little more about his latest achievement. "The Beinecke Scholarship is an opportunity for me to honor all of the everyday-intellectuals whose voices have been lost to a white-washed history," he wrote to us. "I am beyond thankful to my mentorship team, my peers, and my community for setting me on this path."

We wish Phill success in his academic endeavors and other pursuits.

THHP Student Steven McCafferty's project for the Stanford/Hunter Summer Research Program

Steven McCafferty, a senior in the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, is one of three Thomas Hunter Honors students who have been accepted into the prestigious Stanford/Hunter Summer Research Program in the Humanities for Summer 2024. Steven is a History major with minors in Religion and Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies. His academic interests focus on the medieval, especially medieval intellectual and social history related to education and pre-education.

At Stanford, Steven will be finalizing his senior thesis which is an analysis of the intellectual and institutional history of the University of Strasbourg from 1872 to 1938. He will be mentored by Dr. Paula Findlen, a noted historian.

We congratulate Steven on his achievement and wish him continued success in his endeavors. 

THHP Student Isabella Shalumov's Summer Achievements

Isabella Shalumov has been accepted into the New York Law School Pre-Law Pipeline Program. She will be part of the program throughout June 2024.

In addition, Isabella has been accepted for an internship with the New York City Law Department. She will be interning there from June to August 2024.

We congratulate Isabella on her summer achievements and wish her the best.

THHP Students Win English Departmental Prizes

The annual Spring 2024 celebration, hosted by the English department, took place on May 22, 2024. The following Thomas Hunter Honors students won English departmental prizes:

Morrigan Byalin won the Trudy Smoke Award in Linguistics and Rhetoric for “The Politics and Phonetics of the Staten Island Dialect,” the Marcia M. Blacker Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Essay in Shakespeare Studies (second place) for “‘Sympathy for the Jew: How The Merchant of Venice Subverts Antisemitic Stereotypes and Makes Villains out of Christian Heroes,” the Audre Lorde Prize (joint first place) for "A Portrait of the Woman as a Young Artist." Morrigan was also an Honorable Mention for The Bernard Cohen Short Story Prize (for "The Painting").

Samantha Carter won the Blanche Colton William Fellowship for Graduate Study in English for “‘That magical frontier’: The Strategy of Performance within Emily Dickinson’s Masochistic Voice.”

Julia Matlak won the Mary McElligott Gloster Prize for “Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: Examining the Relationship Between Gothic Imagery in Dracula and Soap Advertisements in the Context of the British Empire.”

Fahima Miajee won the Wendell Stacy Johnson Award for Scholarship in post-1800 English Literature for “Whose God and Whose Earth: The Religious and Epistemological Crises in British Imperial Literature.”

Tatum Norvez won the Irene G. Dash Prize for the Best Essay on Women in Shakespeare (joint first place) for “Chastity Tarnished: Exploring Resentment for Women in Othello and Titus Andronicus.”

Shounak Reza won the David Stevenson Prize for Essays on English Language and Literature (undergraduate) for "“Tracing the Transformation of New York City Due to Gentrification and the AIDS Epidemic in Two Sets of Novels.”

Renee Ricevuto won the Barbara J. Webb Prize for an Essay on African-American, Carribean, or African Literature for “The Moon Will Turn to Blood: Nature Within African Spirituals and Beloved” and the Mary M. Fay Award in Poetry (second place) for "Grendel's Mother."

Valeria Suprunova won the Hudson Bruce Prize for Outstanding Essay on American Literature for "Four Case Studies on the Native American Witchcraft Tradition," Irene G. Dash Prize for the Best Essay on Women in Shakespeare (joint first place) for “The Heroic Defense of Virtue in Much Ado About Nothing,” the Nancy Dean Medieval Prize (first place, undergraduate) for "“Demonic Possession in Medieval and Early Modern England,” and the Helen Gray Cone Fellowship for Graduate Study in English for "“Creating an Author: The Printing of Shakespeare’s First Folio.” Valeria was also an Honorable Mention for Marcia M. Blacker Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Essay in Shakespeare Studies for “Shifting the Narrative: Female Voice and the Defense of Honor in The Winter’s Tale.”

Professor Hennessy's Talk at "Women Medievalists on Medieval Women"

Dr. Marlene Hennessy, an advisor for the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, gave a talk on her recent book, Scottish Manuscripts & English Manuscripts in Scotland. Fascicle I: National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh (Turnhout: Brepols/Harvey Miller Publishers, 2022), part of An Index of Images in English and Scottish Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer of Henry VIII, c. 1380-1509, edited by Kathleen L. Scott, at the "Women Medievalists on Medieval Women" Symposium on March 20, 2024. The symposium took place at the Grolier Club in New York City. 

Dr. Hennessy, a Professor in the English department, is a medievalist and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on medieval literature, including classes on Chaucer and Medieval Death. She can be contacted at mhenness@hunter.cuny.edu.

For more information on the Symposium, please visit https://atbl.us/women-medievalists-on-medieval-women. 

THHP Student Isabella Shalumov's Internship at the New York Supreme Court

THHP student and Athena Scholar Isabella Shalumov (a Sociology major with minors in Legal Studies and Art History) interned with Judge Ruth Pickholz at the New York Supreme Court in Spring 2024. As part of the internship, Isabella observed, among others, a murder trial, an attempted murder trial, and a fraud case involving bitcoins.

We congratulate Isabella on her internship and wish her success in her future endeavors. 

Professor Coppola's Presentation at the April 2024 ASECS Conference

The Chair of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, Dr. Catherine Coppola, was selected to present at the April 2024 Conference of the American Society for 18th Century Studies (ASECS) in Toronto, Canada. The ASECS (https://asecs.org) is a learned society based in the United States focused on interdisciplinary study of the late seventeenth through the early nineteenth century. The members of the society include, among others, literary scholars, musicologists, art historians, and historians. 

At the conference, Professor Coppola spoke on "Beaumont, Beaumarchais, and Mozart: 18th-Century Intersectionalists."  

Abstract for "Beaumont, Beaumarchais, and Mozart: 18th-Century Intersectionalists"

Intersectionality is not a 20th to 21st-century invention. Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s La Nouvelle Clarice (1767) argued that work on gender equity was directly related to work on the social ills caused by poverty (Alexandrova 2017). And the goals of wealthy female philanthropists in the 1780s who sought to help widows and orphans are nuanced by what Caryl Clark (2004) has called ‘class colonialism,’ as their views expressed in the Moralische Wochenschriften seemed to dominate the lower class—perhaps not unrelated to aid organizations that today make mistaken assumptions about what marginalized people need. Both Beaumont and the Moral Weeklies provide context for the feminist speech that Beaumarchais gives Marceline in Le mariage de Figaro (1778), where she excoriates upper-class men who take advantage of working-class girls and doom them to poverty. Heavily censored in the play, Marceline’s view did not make it into Mozart’s opera (1786). However, in 1793, Beaumarchais was invited to insert his cut dialogues into the Parisian premiere of the opera, and I will consider a 2020 production by Boston Opera Collaborative that used the full text in performing Mozart’s opera, as well as other productions that engage social issues by incorporating unhoused performers (St. Matthew Passion, Streetwise Opera, London) and those with mental health issues (The Magic Flute, Opera Montreal) (Renihan 2021). I will consider the fraught path of engaging directly with populations that are not typically part of the conversation (Hall-Tompkins 2022), and conclude with practical ways to bring relevance into the classroom study of eighteenth-century opera.

Dr. Coppola can be contacted at ccoppola@hunter.cuny.edu.