Research paper co-winner: Alex Boutin-Johnson
Major: History major and Religion minor
Winning submission: “Social Movements and Prayer,” written for the class, “Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness,” taught by Dr. Yaniv Feller.
Alexander explains the paper:
“The Dreyfus Affair” was an incident at the turn of the 20th century involving allegations and imprisonment of a Jewish officer in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfus, on grounds of German espionage. France was broken into two sides, those supporting Dreyfus, the Dreyfusards, and the anti-Dreyfusards. The paper I wrote examined how caricatures at the time, and characters—with a particular focus on works of Marcel Proust—were used to illustrate alterity where it was otherwise unseen. These markers of alterity often tied the Jew and gay and Germanic together to declare the Dreyfusards as foreign and not French. This paper also examined the smaller extent to which the same was done to the anti-Dreyfusards.
Research paper co-winner: Megan Meese
Megan explains the paper:
When researching religions and examples of social change to find a topic, I noticed that a major wave of Ashkenazi immigration to the United States (U.S.) coincided with the resurgence and eventual success of the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Raised with the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), I was eager to explore the influence of Jewish values, teachings, and experiences in this capacity, and my findings were significant. This paper has been especially important to me as the latest in a long line of Jewish woman, including my maternal great-great grandmother who fled to the U.S. during this time.
Research paper co-winner: Graycen Silver Schwartz
Graycen explains the paper:
The week after October 7th, 2023, Dr Feller called me into his office to check on me as I had missed several classes. One of the first things he said to me was “I think you should change the topic of your project”. I had been working on a broadcast on a domestic violence agency that assisted women fleeing Mexico into southern states . As passionate as I was about the topic, life changed tremendously after October 7th and it became hard to think or work on anything at all. Dr Feller and I believed that writing about October 7ths’ impact on my personal life, particularly on college campuses, would help me reflect on the tragedy in a meaningful way and channel my grief into something tangible . I spent the next three months researching the roots of the Israel- Palestine war, interviewing students affected by Columbia’s anti-Israel protests, and speaking to Jewish students on my own campus about antisemitism. This report is deeply personal to me and I hope those that listened could feel how I created it to sort of heal from such life-altering tragedies.