One of the most exciting things about research is sharing it with others, to engage in academic discourse not only with other scholars, but also with students.
Being recognized by the Joseph Conrad Society of America is very humbling, but perhaps an equally exciting award for my engagement with Conrad and Joyce is my students’ fresh interest in these authors, their curiosity about the worlds they portray, and willingness to tackle some very difficult issues related to their texts.
During finals week this semester, my heart filled with joy and pride when I read one of my senior students’ essays that could easily pass for a graduate students’ work, an essay grappling with complicated questions of national and gender identities.
Seeing a student catch the bug is certainly very rewarding.
—Agata Szczeszak-Brewer, after learning (via emails received one hour apart on December 4) she’d been named the Bruce Harkness Young Conrad Scholar by the Joseph Conrad Society, and that her book, Profane Pilgrimage: Colonial Cosmologies in Conrad and Joyce, will be published as part of the James Joyce Series by the University of Florida Press.