October 15, 1999: Volume 47, Number 6

'I Can Hang With These People,' Student Finds

Jeremy Newell '00 will likely be the only presenter under 21 at the Western Literature Association's annual conference in Sacramento this week, but that doesn't intimidate him. Newell is becoming very comfortable at professional conferences: this is his second, excluding NCUR and Steinmetz.

Newell, an English major, will present his paper on "The West as Nation Proper," which stems from Schiff-funded summer research he conducted this summer with Bonney MacDonald, associate professor of English. Last June, Newell presented a different paper at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment's annual conference, joining MacDonald on a panel of faculty discussing the use of metaphor in nature.

"It was absolutely amazing," Newell says. "At first I had assumed it would be very intimidating, but everybody was just great. They really just wanted to hear what I thought and to swap ideas. It was definitely a boost to my academic confidence. I began to get a feeling that I could hang with these people, so to speak. I felt very comfortable."

Newell's interest in English stems from a long-time love of reading – one which he finds well-fulfilled through the three summer research positions he has held at the College since his freshman year. "I love to read, so the opportunity to read all summer and get paid for it was tremendous," he says. Newell worked with Andreas Kriefall for two summers before joining MacDonald in her research this June. "Those first two summers taught me so much about critical thinking," he explains.

Newell began to develop his own research during his junior year when he took a course on nature and environmental writing from MacDonald. "It was a great experience. It was the first time that I had seen a class totally bond as an academic group. We knew each other's mind when it came to nature and environmental writing."

He became interested in anthropomorphism (representing animals with human characteristics), and expanded a paper for class into a proposal for NCUR. He tweaked the paper a bit more for Steinmetz, and then again for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment's annual conference.

Given Newell's significant involvement in substantial research before he even began his senior thesis, he predicts that his thesis will become a culmination of his diverse work at Union. Instead of concentrating on a narrow topic, he hopes to collect several critical essays on different topics, each of which is intended for a different conference or publication. For the remainder of his time at Union, he already has his eyes on a presentation at the Institute for Twentieth Century Studies, a submission for the Mississippi Quarterly, and an essay on Jean Crevecoeur, a French author from the late eighteen century, for an anthology – that's in addition to applying for a Marshall Fellowship, taking classes, and working part-time at the Sports Information Office.

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