As a little girl, I often lived in worlds not of my making to escape the reality around me. While others might have been content with dolls or playground games, I sought solace in the pages of books where I could shape my adventures. I soared alongside Harry Potter, catching the elusive golden snitch high above the Quidditch pitch. I stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia, where I met a noble lion, a kind faun, and battled an evil witch. I marched shoulder to shoulder with Frodo through the treacherous landscapes of Middle-earth, enduring countless trials to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mordor. Books weren’t just stories; they were portals to safety, allowing me to hide, heal, and dream. As I grew older, literature remained central to my life, but its role evolved. What once served as an escape transformed into a sanctuary for rest and reflection.
You could always find me with a book or headphones, embarking on my next great adventure. The stories I loved became less about avoidance and more about exploration. I cherished assignments in school that allowed me to research and dig deeper into the worlds behind the words and delighted in uncovering the layers hidden beneath the surface. My curiosity often led me down what others might call rabbit holes, but to me, they were voyages of discovery akin to Alice’s journey in Wonderland.
This sense of wonder and adventure eventually led me beyond the pages of a book into the real world. In 2014, I became a missionary, immersing myself in cultures far removed from my own. I lived in Amsterdam and Istanbul for three months each and embarked on short-term missions in Greece, Ireland, Israel, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, and Belgium. These experiences introduced me to a kaleidoscope of traditions, beliefs, and ways of life.
Every encounter and every conversation reinforced for me the importance of our journeys. From bustling markets in Istanbul to quiet moments of reflection in an Irish countryside chapel, I learned to appreciate the beauty of shared humanity and the stories that bind us. have always been my compass, guiding me through the chaos of life and inspiring me to seek meaning and connection. Whether through the pages of a book, the whispered tales of a foreign land, or the lived experiences of those around me.
My working Humanities contract, titled “Living Legends: The Convergence of Myth, History, and Folklore and How We Preserve Them,” will investigate how myth and folkloric narratives function as living documents, focusing on transmission, transformation, and institutional preservation. Central to this project is a focused study of a medieval primary source together with its oral tradition; I will trace how early ethnographic practices and recorder bias shaped the written record and how those distortions persist in modern interpretation.
My academic plan pairs close literary analysis with ethnographic theory and material-culture study so I can read manuscripts critically while also understanding the social processes that produce them. To develop textual and paleographic skills I will take Literature of the Middle Ages in Translation (E326K) and related medieval literature courses; museum- and object-focused classes such as Objects of Devotion in the Middle Ages (ARH 363) will ground my reading in material contexts; and Cultural Heritage on Display (ANT 325F) will help me analyze how institutions curate and present contested pasts. Folklore and Literature (LAH 350) and archival-methods courses will train me to collect, compare, and critically edit oral and manuscript witnesses so I can identify where field notes, collector agendas, and archival classification introduce bias into the historical record.
Two Summer study abroad programs are an essential component of this plan. At Oxford, I would take classes like Oxford and the Rise of Fantasy Literature, and The Secret Lives of Books: Parchment, Printing-Presses, and Paperback, which offers a concentrated literary-historical environment where I can situate medieval narratives within long transmission histories and consult specialist resources that may illuminate textual lineages relevant to my primary source project. Studying at Oxford will let me engage with faculty and libraries whose long-standing collections and methodological traditions are particularly useful for understanding how medieval narratives were interpreted and reimagined over time.
The Edinburgh/Celtic Summer 2027 options, particularly the Medieval Celtic Literature track (E 326K + E 229S) and Scottish Studies offerings, will complement Oxford by immersing me in the geographic and cultural contexts that produced many oral traditions and regional variants relevant to my research. Direct engagement with Celtic material culture and scholarship will help me trace comparative oral forms, regional performance practices, and local archival holdings that reveal how collector perspectives and national frameworks shaped the preservation of legends. Together, the Oxford and Edinburgh summers create a paired itinerary: Oxford sharpens textual-historical and manuscript-focused skills while Edinburgh deepens regional, oral-tradition, and comparative perspectives.
At UT Austin, Coursework in anthropology, Theories of Culture and Society (ANT 330C) and Expressive Culture (ANT 305), will act as tools for analyzing performance, transmission, and recorder bias so that literary readings do not remain purely formal but are informed by social and ethnographic contexts. I will also pursue a Museum Studies certificate and related heritage coursework, which will give practical archival and curatorial training crucial to understanding how display choices and institutional narratives shape public history. These interdisciplinary elements are organized to satisfy the Humanities contract structure while ensuring depth within a core department and breadth across related fields.
My future goal is to earn a PhD in History, English, or Medieval Studies and to become a professor and active researcher, teaching courses in medieval literature, folklore studies, and public history while continuing to investigate the politics of preservation and representation. By combining medieval textual study, ethnographic theory, museum and archival practice, and targeted summer research experiences, this contract will position me to apply successfully to doctoral programs and to pursue an academic career dedicated to recovering and responsibly representing the voices embedded in the past.