Converse Students Awarded Funding for Research

Some of the best undergraduate research projects have begun with statements like “I don’t really understand it but it sounds fascinating,” or “I’ve always wondered…”. In Dust Tracks on a Road, Zora Neale Hurston wrote, “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

Throughout the summer of 2002, four Converse College students will roll up their sleeves and dive headfirst into some pretty heady areas of research. The research projects are collaborative, with the students teaming with Converse faculty members. Representatives from South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU) selected projects for funding from a field of 64 proposals. In all, SCICU funded 34 research projects, including four from Converse. The students will present their findings at a February symposium in Greenville.

Kristin Arthur ’05
(Teaming with Dr. Joe P. Dunn, Chair of History & Politics)
“I am researching the Cambodian population in Spartanburg. After the Khmer Rouge, an extremely repressive government, fell from power in Cambodia in the late 1970s, many Cambodians immigrated to America. Surprisingly, there is a large Cambodian population in Spartanburg.”

“With my research, I hope to learn if and how the Cambodian population has assimilated into American society, and specifically the Upstate. I hope to see the cultural traditions that they have brought to America and find out what issues, politically, socially, and economically, most concern them. I will go out into different neighborhoods and interview Cambodian immigrants and later compile my results.”

Heather Barclay ’03
(Teaming with Dr. Corrie Norman, Assistant Professor of Religion)
“My grant research will explore the life of the late medieval saint Francesca Romana through an intensive study of artwork depicting her life. I am planning to conduct my research in Rome during Fall Term 2002.””It has only been in the last few decades that a significant amount of serious scholarship has been done into the lives of religious women. Francesca Romana lived in Rome during the early fifteenth-century– a very difficult time in Italy wrought with war, plague, famine, and Schism. From a young age Francesca desired to become a nun, but was forced to marry and later had three children, two of whom died in childhood. In her life, Francesca was very active in her community feeding the poor, working in hospitals, and eventually founding a community of religious lay women. In addition, she performed numerous miracles, and as a memorial to her a set of frescos depicting her miracles was commissioned by the community of lay women she founded on the walls of the Tor de’ Specchi (her convent) shortly after her death. In 1608, she was canonized by the Catholic Church.”

“The series of frescos in the Tor de’ Specchi act as a visual history of the time between Francesca Romana’s death and her canonization– a time in which the Church’s definition of sanctity was undergoing dramatic change as a result of the Reformations and other ideological shifts. My project will focus on comparing Francesca Romana’s image as she is portrayed in the frescos and in hagiographical texts written by her confessor. Although the frescos are not normally open to the public, I have special permission from the sisters living in the Tor de’ Specchi to visit the frescos and conduct my research.”