Students present research on George Eliot at European Studies Conference

Three University of Nebraska–Lincoln students present papers at the 43rd Annual European Studies Conference, hosted October 4-6 by the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Undergraduate students Megan Ekstrom, Rachel Gordon, and Riley Jhi, all UCARE grant recipients, presented papers at the 43nd annual European Studies Conference, which was hosted by the University of Nebraska-Omaha last Thursday, October 4 through Saturday, October 6. Along with their advisor, Dr. Beverley Rilett, Assistant Research Professor in English, the students gave talks as part of a panel entitled “George Eliot’s Relationships: Biographical and Data Visualization Implications.”

Each student researched and spoke on a different aspect of George Eliot’s relationships. Riley Jhi’s talk focused on the mapping techniques she has been developing to represent Eliot's circle of family members and friends as part of her work with the George Eliot Archive digital project, directed by Dr. Rilett. Riley's talk was titled, “Visualizing Relationship Data on the George Eliot Archive.”

Megan Ekstrom explored Eliot’s intimate relationships in her talk “George Eliot’s Girlfriends: Contextualizing Lesbian-Coded Friendships in the Victorian Era” and Rachel Gordon’s reexamined Eliot’s transatlantic friendships in her talk, “George Eliot’s Transatlantic Friendships: Stowe, Fields, and Phelps.”

The European Studies Conference, an interdisciplinary and international gathering of scholars, has annually facilitated an active exchange of ideas, insights, and reflections for forty-three years. Each year the conference offers academics a stimulating and productive series of sessions that focus upon multifaceted perspectives on the present, past, and future of the European continent. This conference provides professionalization opportunities for researchers at all levels of their scholarship; while it is extremely rare for undergraduate students to participate in this academic conference, Dr. Rilett's UCARE-supported undergraduate research assistants have been invited back every year for five years. The experience of working as team members on a long-term research project and presenting their research formally to other academics has proven to be a unique professionalization opportunity that enhances their competitiveness, especially for those applying to graduate schools.