Diane Owen Hughes Scholarship

Lorraine Abagatnan

My solo research travel and archaeological fieldwork in Sicily was one of the most productive and important summers that I have had as a graduate student at U-M. When I started my dissertation on Late Roman (284–641 AD) domestic spaces last fall, it became increasingly clear to me that I needed to travel to Sicily, and soon. Although many ancient Greek sites in Sicily have been well-researched and well-published, many of the Late Roman sites that pertain to my research were partially published several decades ago, except for the Villa del Casale at Piazza Armerina. Some sites only have one or two accessible articles that describe archaeological findings. Other sites are no longer accessible to archaeologists for study, and thus the process of publishing has come to a total stop. In addition, many objects are not accessible online through museum catalogues and thus are only accessible in-person. Thus, when I was proposing my dissertation prospectus, I knew I would need to do extensive research in Sicily myself to begin my dissertation on a firm foundation and promptly began to plan my summer trip.

I began my combined solo research and archaeological fieldwork summer work in Giardini-Naxos, a small coastal town under the shadow of touristy Taormina on the eastern side of the island; coincidentally, this was also the first site colonized by the ancient Greeks in the 8th century. With this city as my base, I explored its archaeological site and areas around the coast of Messina, such as Taormina (ancient Taormenium) and Tindari, and Patti, one of my three main villas in my dissertation. I then went south towards the Baroque town of Noto, which is near the Villa Romana del Caddeddi on the Tellaro River, another villa I am researching, and stayed there for a week. Towards the end, based in the coastal town of Trabia, I explored the northwestern area of the island, including the capital city of Palermo and its hinterland. In the middle of my trip, I took a long trip from Noto to the town of Piazza Armerina, buried deep within the island’s interior region of Enna. There, I joined the Archaeological Heritage of Late Antique and Byzantine Sicily (ARCHLabs) Project, run primarily by the University of Bologna.

For two weeks, I worked with other students from Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and the United States, and learned valuable lessons about the villa’s marble program, architecture, lamps, and more from professors from around the world, many of whom are considered leading experts in Sicilian archaeology. Most importantly, I was able to meet and talk with Professor Carla Sfameni, whose research has inspired much of my own, and who kindly agreed to offer feedback on my current progress. Working directly with Professor Sfameni has helped me reconsider the data which will make up my dissertation. In sum, ARCHLabs proved to be not only invaluable for my own research, but wholly enjoyable.

The greatest yet most unexpected “gift” of my summer research was the chance to learn not only about Late Roman Sicily, but about Sicily throughout different eras, spanning from the Neolithic to the modern day. The core of my thesis focuses on how elite individuals navigated through different “worlds” within Late Antiquity, worlds that are comprised of different landscapes and temporalities. Nothing could have prepared me for the physical experience of seeing this phenomenon of “worlds” play out on the island in real time during my visit. Staying in smaller towns gave me the chance to explore with greater ease and to experience a slower pace of travel and research, which is fundamental to appreciating the island. As a foodie, I was also delighted to try many dishes that blend different culinary traditions, especially those dishes in Western Sicily that retain a distinct North African and Arab-inspired palette; here, I may sing the praises of the simple but delightful arancina, as Palermitans call them, blended with saffron and spices that have remained in good taste since the 10th century Islamic period.

Chelsea Parsons

With the help of the Diane Owen Hughes Scholarship, I was able to spend three months learning French in Paris, France this summer. The grant specifically funded my flight and the cost of the cultural opportunities that Paris and the surrounding region offered. In my language training program, I benefited from daily lectures on the culture and literary history of France, guided visits to local museums, and I learned about places of interest in and around Paris to visit independently over the weekends. Learning about medieval France by seeing it firsthand is an experience that will continue to be useful through every stage of my future scholarship. Over the course of the summer, I visited the following places that are relevant to my study of the late medieval period: Musee de Cluny (Paris), Notre-Dame de Paris, Jardin de Luxembourg (Paris), Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris), Saint Chapelle and the Concierge (Paris), Chartres Cathedral (Chartres), Place de Vosges (Paris), Saint Germain de Pres (Paris), Freiburg (Germany), Chevreuse (France), Musée de Carnavalet (Paris), Basilica of Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis) and Dublin.

With my final week in Paris, I plan to see the medieval site of Les Halles, which I have been learning about in the language program’s lectures this month, visit the Arènes de Lutèce, and visit the ancient and medieval collection of art and artifacts at the Louvre. The opportunity to study for an extended period overseas has been a very enriching one. In addition to French culture, I have learned about the cultures, histories, and languages of many other countries from my international classmates. With this immersion in the French language, academic sources in the language are now accessible to me, and I am very grateful to the MEMS program for its support of this important linguistic and cultural step in my long-term research goals.

Katherine Tapia

As a Comparative Literature doctoral student in the final stages of my dissertation writing, receiving the Diane Owen Hughes Scholarship was critical to the advancement towards completion of my dissertation since it helped me refine my research, verify information, and provide me with a nurturing and adequate working space since it allowed me to travel this summer to Madrid to directly work on the completion of one of my chapters and to consult the archives of the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) and to also visit other relevant archives, such as El Escorial. It was invaluable both to my writing process as well as to my professional development.

Being able to do research at the Biblioteca Nacional provided me with a space in which I could work productively and with the advantage of having crucial materials physically and readily available, not just in a digitized form, which sped up my writing process and also helped me confirm details that sometimes are lost or unperceivable in digitization. During this summer, I was also given the opportunity to present at the Leeds International Medieval Conference on a topic on translation, which is closely related to my dissertation. Therefore, I am thankful that, in preparation for my presentation on Alfonso X’s scientific texts at the Leeds Conference, I was able to dive deeper into Alfonso X’s astrological works and other texts at the Biblioteca Nacional, which was a central part of my conference presentation. In turn, doing research on Alfonso X’s works was also very helpful as I began working on my chapter on Don Juan Manuel since his work is deeply influenced by the translation legacy of Alfonso X.

While Alfonso X’s Lapidario manuscript at the Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, and Don Juan Manuel’s manuscripts, which are held at the Biblioteca Nacional, are digitized, I benefited from the time that I had in Madrid to be able to do direct research on the physical texts, since the materials were more accessible. In fact, it also helped me continue honing my paleography skills. I had the opportunity to closely examine a late 13th century manuscript of the Lapidario from El Escorial (H.1.15) and to compare it to Sagrario Rodriguez Montalvo’s 1981 transcription of the same text, which I was also able to consult during my stay in Madrid. Doing this allowed me to continue familiarizing myself with the peculiarities of 13th century Castilian spelling and writing styles as well as to verify the accuracy of the primary source materials that I needed to cite in my presentation at Leeds.