Essay paper winner: Alexa Jaudon
Major: Public Relations with a Minor in French & Francophone Studies
Winning submission: “The Antisemitic Question in a Christianized France & Interactions with Clandestine Jewish Identity” from Professor Gayle Zachmann’s class, “Studies in Antisemitism.”
Alexa on writing this essay:
“I felt it was important, especially as a public relations major, to become more familiar with the complications that antisemitism presents in society. Even with a specialized look at French Judaism, Professor Zachmann’s course presented a whole new idea that puts antisemitism into perspective – it’s worth being framed differently so as to instead consider the antisemitic question rather than the Jewish one.”
Research paper winner: Kristin Soulliere
Major: English and French Literature
Winning submission: “Activating Jewish Women’s Bodies with Eugenie Foa and Helene Cixous” from a Unversity Scholars research project with Professor Gayle Zachmann
Kristin explains her paper:
“The concept for the paper was developed in Dr. Zachmann’s class on Children of the Revolution, a course centered on the writings of French Romantic authors of the nineteenth-century in the years following the French Revolution. Under her mentorship, the paper was expanded into a larger project as part of my USP research. The scope was widened to include the writings of Hélène Cixous and narrowed to focus on the ways their shared French-Jewish identities influence the way they discuss and utilize Jewish women’s bodies in their texts, each in their own manner achieving some form of literary activism. The fecundity of this topic has opened up numerous pathways to continue with in the future, and I look forward to exploring it further as part of my Senior Honors Thesis.”
Creative category winner: Alejandro Aguirre
Major: English and History
Winning submission: A New Stonehenge, compiled in LIT4483 (WWII from the Margins) with Instructor Min Ji Kang, although the work is equally indebted to Professors William Logan and Ange Mlinko and their poetry workshops
Alejandro explains his project:
“The poems in A New Stonehenge—more so than Alejandro’s other works—often act as ars poeticas, questioning the authority of poetry to interpolate the Holocaust into the modern and personal. Like Plath’s, the father in “The Mudroom” emulates the German soldier: “One twilight, we walked barefoot in the snow/ as punishment. ‘Your shoes got to be in rows,’/ my father had yelled, calling to mind/ the Ars moriendi; but I was too proud/ to die.” Working within this tradition, the collection displays a sense of urgency. How should one remember, as Celan called them, the drowned?
Alejandro says, ‘Commemorating Celan’s ‘drowned’ [those who lost their lives to the Holocaust] may seem like a tango with the abstract, especially as eye-witnesses, including the Romanian poet, pass. Trauma and empathy, though, are innately human. We may never fully understand the extent of Jewish trauma, but personalizing that trauma further extends our empathy into the modern context, which was my goal with A New Stonehenge.’
Alejandro serves as president of Tea Literary & Arts Magazine and intends to pursue his MFA in poetry. His work has been published under the alias Alex Manuel in I-70 Review and Hawai`i Pacific Review.”
For guidelines on the Shorstein Awards please visit Student Writing Awards