Sierra Stark Stevens, an #MGA English major in the Honors Program, recently received the Sloane Prize for Undergraduate Research in Arts and Humanities at the annual conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council in Orlando. The national honors conference is highly selective when it comes to liberal arts research presentations, so simply having a proposal accepted is impressive; winning a "best of" award at NCHC is truly exceptional.

Stevens’s poster presentation, "She Dwells in Possibility: Emily Dickinson as Intermedia Artist," argues that Dickinson's poems are visual and material in addition to literary art. Stevens created accurate replicas of the poet's manuscripts, which were written on envelopes or carefully torn scraps of paper and arranged spatially in ways that were meaning-defining. Conference attendees were able to hold these replicas in their hands in order to encounter the poems the way Dickinson did, as an intermedia experience. Steven’s research, which is also the focus of her honors thesis, makes a meaningful contribution to Dickinson scholarship.

Learn more about the MGA Honors Program at www.mga.edu/honors or contact Dr. Clay Morton, program director, at clay.morton@mga.edu.