Eight Ph.D. students have been named Versatile Humanists at Duke (VH@Duke) Interns for 2018.
The internships provide Duke doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences exposure to work experiences, organizations, and professions relevant to their scholarly interests. Students can apply for internships at pre-identified partner organizations or propose opportunities of their own.
Launched in fall 2016, VH@Duke is supported by a three-year Next Generation PhD implementation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as funding from The Graduate School and the Duke Provost’s Office. The initiative provides resources, such as the internships, to help future Ph.D.s in the humanities and humanistic social sciences flourish in graduate school, and in professional paths both within and beyond academia.
The 2018 recipients are:
Meggan Farrish Cashwell
History
Cashwell will join the Durham Museum of History to develop a new exhibition presenting the story of a World War II infantry training camp (Camp Butner) built in Durham, Person, and Granville counties. She will oversee all stages of development, from gaining initial community input and conducting oral interviews, to designing and overseeing the final product.
Achille Castaldo
Romance Studies
Castaldo will work for the Association Il Chiostro dei Celestini in Bologna, Italy, a nonprofit association dedicated to the preservation of the State Archive of Bologna. His duties will range from leading guided tours and teaching seminars to editing a monograph in the archive’s series on Dante’s presence in Bologna.
Meredith Graham
Music
Graham will work at the National Humanities Center on a new project, Scholarly Work Re-Examined. The goal of this project is to collect and curate the scholarly projects that NHC Fellows have developed at the Center, and effectively communicate the benefits and relevance of humanistic scholarly inquiry to a diverse audience.
Laura Jaramillo
Literature
Jaramillo’s internship will take place at the Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Arts Center in Buffalo, New York. She will assist the head curator in overseeing the center’s residency program and help convert the center’s film and media zine to an online publication.
Jacqueline Kellish
English
Kellish will contribute to the national Humanities Moments campaign at the National Humanities Center. She will provide curation and editorial oversight of a crowdsourced digital collection of stories, images and videos illuminating how the humanities shape and transform our everyday experiences.
Ofelia Lopez Madrigal
Romance Studies
Madrigal’s host will be the Alejo Carpentier Foundation in Havana, Cuba, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Carpentier’s writings. Her duties will include digitizing bibliographic resources, planning and teaching workshops, and helping to prepare new special editions of Carpentier’s works.
Ben Richardson
English
Richardson will work at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, within its Community Engagement Section. He will have wide-ranging duties in supporting museum programming and events, and he will also produce written pieces for online and museum publications.
Rebecca Uliasz
Computational Media, Arts and Culture
Uliasz’s internship is with at Harvestworks, a New York City-based nonprofit that supports the work of artists using technology. She will focus on a project to develop performative instruments for musicians and artists in residence, using highly specialized software.
