Undergraduate Alum Achievements, Ella Sperling and Clara Lee

Both Ella Sperling and Clara Lee, graduates of the Department of History undergrdatuate program, earned prestigious awards for their respective graduate programs at Oxford University and George Washington University. Ella won the Clarendon Scholarship, Clara the Provost Diversity Fellowship. I asked them both about their experiences at UChicago and their plans for graduate study going forward. Here are their responses.

Ella double majored in History and English and submitted her BA Thesis, “Play's the Thing: Objects and Empire in E. Nesbit's Edwardian Fantasy,” to both the History and English department as her work integrated literature, history, and material culture.

She writes, “My BA thesis examined interactions between objects, imagination, and empire in E. Nesbit’s children’s novels. I looked at places where Nesbit’s characters decontextualize and redefine the contents of their Edwardian homes through magic and play, and argued that readers can use the material ecosystems of children’s novels to address the presence of imperialism within the domestic spaces of the metropole.”

As an applicant to an Oxford graduate program, Ella was automatically entered into the competition for the Clarendon Scholarship. The Clarendon Fund has been instrumental in facilitating graduate study at Oxford since 2001. In 2023-2024, 210 scholarships were awarded to applicants “for their outstanding academic merit and potential.”  The scholarship covers all course fees and provides a grant for living expenses. Ella was delighted to receive the offer for the Clarendon, which is supporting her one-year Master of Studies programme in English Literature (1830-1914).

She had this to say about her preparation and goals. “I am so, so honored and excited, and immensely grateful to my UChicago professors and advisors for their support! The opportunity to study English literature at Oxford is a dream come true. I cannot wait to explore the city, learn alongside other passionate students, and engage with the novels, documents, art objects, ephemera, and other materials housed in Oxford's incredible collections.”

“I’m excited to continue investigating the role that objects and materiality play in 19th and early 20th century literature, with a focus on the interrelated constructions of domestic life and nationhood. I want to bring background furnishings to the foreground, using the materials consolidated in the period’s thing-laden novels to locate the homemakers, laborers, and artisans behind their creation, curation, and upkeep.”

Clara’s undergraduate project, "‘No war is a movie’: Media, Memory, and Race as Gender in the U.S., 1972-1983," was under the supervision of Professor Briones. She explored racial identity formation and race relations in popular American film and media in the Cold War—roughly the 1960s to 1980s. Her key questions were: “How did the media play a role in shaping American perception of Asia and Asian America (which are terms I use rather loosely)? And how, in turn, was the media shaped by American discourse at the time?”

She found that, “on the one hand, the U.S. was fighting wars ostensibly for Asian people abroad and attempting to assimilate its growing Asian population at home. On the other, those wars that the U.S. was fighting were against Asian ‘enemies’. Only a few decades prior, similar conditions led to discrimination and being Othered (i.e. Japanese-American internment in World War II). This problem likely would have been worse for men of color, as they are unable to be sexually assimilated as women are. I thought that popular culture, particularly the T.V. series M*A*S*H (1972-1983) and Apocalypse Now (1979), would provide an interesting and unique perspective to these questions. 

Ultimately, I argued that M*A*S*H attempted to lessen American fears about Asian enemies through its paternalistic and often emasculating treatment of its male Asian characters.”

Clara’s decision to apply to the PhD program at George Washington was influenced by multiple factors. Inspired by the immersive process of writing her undergraduate thesis, Clara knew she wanted to pursue graduate school. The faculty at George Washington were a significant draw for her, too.  She “was looking for programs that would cater to [interdisciplinary] interests—which makes the American Studies PhD at GW a pretty perfect fit! For a project concerned with American politics and political culture and history, it also makes a lot of sense to be in the nation’s capital.”

Her outstanding application to George Washington, a reflection of her equally notable work at UChicago, led the faculty to nominate her for the Provost Diversity Fellowship. It is the most prestigious award in the humanities at GW and Clara feels “incredible about the recognition of my potential as a scholar, and I’m so excited to start the program at GW next year! I feel confident that the faculty at GW are excited about my work and will be very supportive.” She thanks her mentors, Dr. Matthew Briones, Dr. Peggy Heffington, and Dr. Michelle Fuentes “for their guidance and support throughout this whole process.” 

While at George Washington, Clara proposes to take “a similar vein to my undergraduate work, in studying the Cold War and race through the lens of popular culture and film. However, in graduate school I plan to expand my work to include a study of politics and the interaction between politics, media, and race.”

The department is immensely proud of Ella and Clara’s achievements and has every confidence in their success in graduate school and beyond. Congratulations, Ella and Clara!