Rising senior Ben Brissette has been named a Humanities Writ Large Summer Research Fellow. A native of Des Plaines, Illinois, Brissette is double majoring in Neuroscience and Spanish, with a minor in Russian. This fellowship, generously supported by the Humanities Writ Large initiative at Duke through a grant from the Mellon Foundation, is awarded to select Duke students to support research in the humanities.
Brissette’s research proposal involves traveling to the Spanish capital of Madrid and engaging in research at the National and Royal Libraries this summer. His work there will be an investigation of the development of literacy in Spain. His goal is to try and elucidate the link between literacy as a characteristic of the elite and literacy as a state-driven, mandated, universal characteristic of the 18th and 19th centuries: “Preliminary research suggests that my focus will be on the use of literacy in professional training, especially of the merchant class, and how literacy played a role in standardization of training.”
This will be Brissette’s first time visiting Spain and he notes how meaningful winning the award is, as it offers “the chance to live with a host family in an immersive environment, giving me a wonderful way to build my skills with the language in addition to the research that I will be doing.”
He credits the Romance Studies Department as a huge part of his life and development at Duke, pointing to a love of Spanish from a young age, nurtured by the courses and opportunities offered to him within the department. As for his future plans for his final year at Duke and beyond, Brissette commented that “the Romance Studies Department has helped me to realize that I really enjoy doing research in Spanish, as well, and to consider that as a serious academic pursuit that I am passionate about. I hope to pursue a Graduation with Distinction Thesis in Spanish, related to my above project, and depending on my experience, I may endeavor to remain involved with this sort of research throughout my life.”
Department of Romance Studies
