Sharpened Notes Year 11 Applications

[Orestes Hardy]

TheSummer Humanities and Arts Research Program (SHARP) was launched in summer 2013 with the support of the Dean of Arts and Humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Dean of Harvard College. SHARP provides students with diverse research opportunities across the arts and humanities in an exciting range of research settings. SHARP fellows contribute to the rich, interdisciplinary intellectual, social, and residential environment in activities that include roundtable lunch talks with distinguished faculty speakers, pre-professional seminars, and opportunities to explore Harvard and the New England region more broadly.

Program benefits and financial support are meant to enable SHARP fellows to form a close-knit residential community. Therefore, SHARP Fellows are expected to participate and contribute to the community of scholars in evening enrichment activities throughout the term of the Program. While many activities are voluntary, other SHARP activities, especially those associated with Harvard faculty, are required for all Fellows.

A primary purpose of the program is to build and foster a strong and diverse community of arts and humanities scholars. Selection will be based on applicant responses to the essay questions and comments in the letter of reference indicating that the applicant is strongly suited for a successful summer enrichment experience. While students in any concentration may apply, preference will be given to strong candidates in humanities and arts disciplines.

We are seeking Harvard undergraduates who are creative and motivated to help us prepare these materials to be maximally useful to native speakers from these communities and their families. Among other things, we will be creating a website and videos with subtitles and animations in these languages. As a part of the project, we will also be seeking new ideas from students about materials that might connect with younger generations of speakers, which we will then implement. Toward the beginning of the summer, students will read papers with Prof. Franich and lab members to learn about the issue of language endangerment and the goals of language documentation. During this period, the student will also learn about the languages they will be working on and receive training (if necessary) in video editing and web design software used to create materials for the project. They will then work on preparing various text and video materials to be archived and presented to the language community later in the summer. Here is a sample timeline:

Preference will be given to students with at least some level of linguistics training (even just a single course, such as Ling 83 or Ling 101). Ideal candidates will also have experience with video editing software and/or website design, but these are not requirements.

This public humanities project explores gospel music since the 1990s and develops ideas connected to the book project The Platinum Age of Gospel, which both surveys the American national gospel music scene from 1993 to 2013 and points to contemporary trends in the gospel music industry. This summer research project is deeply rooted in ethnomusicology, the study of religion, and the study of African American culture and history. The project seeks to engage in and present research for gospel scholars, practitioners, and fans alike through a podcast series and interactive website. The project will involve podcast series design and developing content for an interactive website on gospel music of the platinum age and beyond. The podcast will discuss current trends in gospel music as well as interview contemporary artists about their experiences in the platinum age and beyond.

The SHARP fellow will develop research skills using primary and secondary sources and strengthen project planning skills. The fellow will develop understanding of contemporary gospel music and the music industry. Further, the fellow will gain hands-on experience implementing a public humanities project, including development of online content for both scholarly and general audiences.

The SHARP fellow should be self-motivated, detail-oriented, and interested in gospel music. The fellow should also have proficiency in using computers and the ability to learn new technical skills quickly. Experience with or ability to learn graphic design, audio editing, and/or video editing is very helpful. Experience with Keynote, OBS, HTML, WordPress, or Python is also helpful but not at all required.

The Binary Decoder Initiative proposes an insightful summer research project exploring alternative grammar structures in Spanish to represent non-binary genders. The project aims to identify and categorize articles and academic materials that offer cognizance into alternatives to the traditional binary gendered structures in Spanish and analyze their social use and potential impact on the language and its speakers.

The Binary Decoder is a start-up project that aims to review, curate and share materials addressing non-binary genders in romance languages. The project received a finalist mention from the Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund (2021), and the team is still working to make it happen. A first version of the collaboration is already online through this link:

The student fellow will actively participate in the research project, conducting research, categorizing articles, analyzing linguistic data, and providing weekly progress reports on their findings. The fellow will acquire valuable research skills such as information literacy, critical thinking, and data analysis throughout the summer of 2024. They will also be encouraged to contribute creatively to the project by proposing educational materials to divulge in the future about alternative grammar structures for Spanish language students or suggesting new research avenues for future academic articles. All their contributions will be presently and futurely recognized as part of the research team and authorship.

Overall, the Binary Decoder Initiative offers a unique opportunity for a student fellow to contribute to a significant research project while gaining valuable research skills, language exposition and experience. This initiative represents a small step towards creating a more equitable scholarly society where all individuals can express their gendered identities fully and authentically.

The project supervisor will actively train and oversee the student fellow throughout the summer, providing guidance on research methods, assisting with data analysis, and offering feedback on their progress. The student will collaborate with the RLL Department and benefit from the computer lab on the 4th floor of Boylston Hall. Weekly meetings with the fellow will be scheduled to discuss their progress, provide feedback, and offer mentorship.

To be eligible for this fellowship, the student should have a strong interest in the power of language and its impact on culture and society. They should have a basic understanding of Spanish grammar, read and comprehend academic articles in Spanish, and report back in English. Advanced research skills are not required, but the student should be willing to learn and have a strong work ethic.

The student will assist with scanning and cataloging original archival documents. In addition to building the digital archive, the student will also help develop the user interface, including curation of collections, timelines, and/or narrative presentations through which the public can access and explore the materials. The student will gain skills working with archival documents, with the Omeka platform, and with public-facing historical scholarship. The fellow may also help expand the Walpole 1973 to include other prison history documents from Massachusetts in the 1970s, including the prisoner-led organizing in MCI-Concord and MCI-Norfolk. The student may also assist in expanding the oral history component of the archive, identifying and interviewing participants in these historical events to supplement the documents with personal narratives. The day-to-day of the position will involve both hands-on work with archival sources to create digital images and records, choosing materials to highlight in the collection, and developing ways to share the story of the NPRA with the public through the website through narrative and visual forms.

There are no prerequisites for this position. The ideal student will be enthusiastic about working with original sources, patient and attentive to detail, and curious about the historical events this archive documents. Experience with website design is helpful, but not required. Interest in or experience of any kind with the prison system is also a plus.

This project relies on a truly interdisciplinary approach, highlighting the interdependencies of hard sciences and the liberal arts. Without archaeological and historical studies, we would be unable to select individuals for testing and contextualizing the results. Without archaeoscience, it would be impossible to identify with certainty the pathogen(s) responsible for these events. By bringing the scientific advances of archaeology, history and archaeoscience together, the digital mapping of the First Pandemic pushes these disciplines beyond their traditional boundaries, enriching and expanding them all. This opportunity is for one student. All work can be conducted remotely.

You will learn about ancient coins, the art market, practical uses for web scraping, and automation. You will explore natural language processing (NLP) and image feature detection techniques for building correlations between datasets.

To facilitate their independent and collaborative work, the Fellows will have access to a spacious workspace in the Harvard Art Museums building at 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge. They will have regular (approximately weekly) check-ins with their supervisors and a sequence of orientation events specially designed to familiarize them with relevant staff and resources at the Harvard Art Museums.

3a8082e126