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Undergraduate Fellows

Introducing Mellon DH Undergraduate Fellow: Matt Carl

We are thrilled to announce a new program in our DH initiative at W&L: the Mellon Digital Humanities Undergraduate Fellowship. We have two fellows for the Winter term who will be developing their own DH projects. They will be blogging regularly on their progress. Check out Matt’s first post below!


Hi, my name is Matt and I am a student of German, Economics, and Mathematics. My interest in the German culture originates from a holiday spent in Heidelberg in 2006, and has since been encouraged in my classes and discourses with professors and peers during my time in high school and college. Having been far from married to the idea of pursuing a degree in German prior to my membership in an Advanced German course during my first year, I now look back fondly on my eagerness to “see the world” during that year, which resulted in a 4-month stay at the Üniversität Bayreuth that summer. It was in these months I developed a formative and intimate understanding of German culture.

I am currently preparing for yet another stay in Germany, this time to conduct research on a topic that is likely familiar to you. The refugee crisis has undoubtedly been polarizing in the media, coined by some as a moral crisis, condemned by others as a catalyst of the rise of terrorism in the Middle East, and, for the receiving countries, a herculean challenge to integrate millions of refugees into their communities, thereby reconciling two opposing cultures. I am extraordinarily interested in how the influx of refugees could affect the German conception of its own identity given the structural and historical restrictiveness of citizenship and naturalization laws, which seem to encourage an unadulterated ethnocultural citizenry. Similarly, I hope to be the artistic voice of the refugees residing in Germany by telling their story.

This program is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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