The College of Wooster offers a unique senior project called Independent Study. With the one-on-one support and guidance of a faculty mentor, students plan, develop, and complete a significant piece of original research, scholarship, or creative expression that pulls together everything learned and demonstrates the analytical, creative, and communication skills you have honed at the College of Wooster.
English majors have unique and creative approach to Wooster’s Independent Study. Students define their projects with the help of an adviser who meets weekly with each student during the course of the project. Projects range widely, reflecting the diversity and creative imagination of the department’s students and faculty.
For my Independent Study, I chose to look at women’s travel writing, a genre made popular in the nineteenth century, which helps writers and travelers understand the journey women took to achieve equality within a literary sphere. How are women’s travel writings different, what drove early women travel writers, and how this effects travel writing as a whole is what I aimed to discuss. Read my completed introduction (.pdf)
The content of this website comes from analyzing the travel journals of my great grandmother under the context of colonialism, influence, and history. I have also digitized all of Sybil’s journals and pictures for anyone to view.
In addition, thanks to funding from the College of Wooster’s Copeland Funding grant, I was able to make my own travel to Sybil’s first and last location: Rome, Italy. My travel produced then-and-now digitally altered pictures, my own travel journal, and a stronger connection to my great grandmother and her work.