Author: Amanda Jeanne Swain

Caitlin Segundo, Undergraduate Intern

caitlin_fall2016_intern_webCaitlin Segundo, a UCI English major, interned with the Sawyer Seminar project during Fall quarter 2016 through the History Department undergraduate internship program.  Caitlin’s reflections on two events––Japanese Internment and War Diaries, as well as interviews with our graduate student fellows and  visiting assistant professor––are featured on the Documenting War website.  In this post, Caitlin tells us more about herself.

Why did you choose to major in English?

I chose to be an English major because my favorite thing to do has always been to read––all throughout my childhood, I was always found with a book in my hand. I also really enjoy creative writing, so I thought I would put my hobbies to work and decided to choose English as a career path in college.

 

What is a book you read recently that you really liked and why?

I just recently finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; I really enjoyed reading this novel because of the supernatural and paranormal aspects Bronte intertwines into the storyline, making it a very interesting read.

 

What interested you in an internship with the Documenting War project?

I was of the undergrads at UCI who loved the Humanities Core Course, so when I was introduced to the Documenting War project I became immediately interested because a lot of the work done within the project overlaps with what I studied as a first year student in the Humanities Core lectures and seminars. I also think the goal of the project––advocacy of the experiences of soldiers, civilians, and journalists alike––is important.

 

What do you like best about being an undergraduate at UCI?

What I love most about being an undergraduate at UCI is the environment and the vibes; even during midterms and finals, the atmosphere remains calm and relaxed––especially in Aldrich Park, where I usually study. So while college itself is extremely stressful, UCI’s atmosphere plays a vital role in keeping me calm. Everyone here is also very friendly––from the professors to the students; everyone just enjoys helping each other out and it makes UCI that much better.

 

What would you like to do after you graduate?

After I graduate from UCI, I’d like to attend Law School and establish a career in either criminal law or immigration law depending on how the next couple of years go for me.

Mellon Foundation Awards School of Humanities $175,000 for Sawyer Seminar

Starting in 2016, the Sawyer Seminar will create a temporary research center for cross-disciplinary, intensive study of how war is represented

The UC Irvine School of Humanities has received a $175,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to produce Documenting War, a year-long Sawyer Seminar that will explore the genres, rhetoric, and real effects of wartime documentation and postwar reflection, as carried out by journalists, soldiers, civilians, and artists in verbal, visual and mixed media forms. The seminar will begin in fall 2016 and will be led by project co-directors Carol Burke, professor of English, and Cecile Whiting, Chancellor’s Professor of art history. UCI is one of 11 universities to receive this prestigious grant in 2015.

The Mellon Foundation established Sawyer Seminars grants in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments. The grant will support a series of open lectures and workshops during the academic year, a post-doctoral position, and two graduate student pre-doctoral fellowships.

Documenting War builds upon the UCI School of Humanities’ strong foundation of war studies: Humanities Core, a year-long cross-disciplinary humanities course taken by students across the UCI campus, has taken war as its triennial theme; beginning last fall, the school sponsored a year-long faculty research group on war; and the school has recently held two large conferences on war. The Sawyer Seminar will expand the number of UCI faculty and graduate students participating in conversations on the representation of war and will take the discussion to the next level of regional, national, and international visibility and impact by including prominent visitors to share in research exchange.

“Under the leadership of Carol Burke and Cecile Whiting, our Sawyer Seminar will bring scholars into conversation with journalists and military personnel for what we expect to be lively, bilateral conversations in which prejudices can be exposed and new resources for understanding conflict, narration, and memory can be tested,” said Georges Van Den Abbeele, dean of the School of Humanities. “This seminar couldn’t come at a more important time as we commemorate the significant anniversaries of various wars— World Wars One and Two and the end of the Vietnam War.”

Read the full press release.