Bowden Fellowships in the Humanities

List of 7 items.

• Ana Gonzalez '26 | From Sacred to Symbolic: The Transformation of Llamas and the Andean Identity

  Project Location: Cusco and Quishuarani, Peru
  Project Description: My project aims to explore the question: How do human-llama relationships in the communities of the Peruvian high Andes shape the self-identity of the Andean people? Through a post-humanist lens that focuses on the symbiotic relationship between the two species, I argue that llamas are more than a means of production; they actively structure how people understand their ancestry, culture, and religion. I carried out my research in two phases. In Cusco, the former Incan capital, I studied materials at the university library, visited museums, and interviewed professors to trace the role of llamas across centuries of Andean history. I then traveled to Quishuarani, a rural community of the high Andes, where I lived with a family of llama farmers and kept a daily journal. I observed the daily care of the llamas and spoke with herders and other community members about their relationship with the animals. Through this, I found that the presence of llamas keeps ancestral customs alive. Unlike other beasts of burden like horses or donkeys, llamas continue to be regarded with deep respect, and they remain central to rituals and celebrations that honor the Earth Mother. Yet, these connections are fragile. Modern pressures, such as the youth leaving to work in mines, the spread of Protestant churches seeking to eliminate “anti-Christian” rituals, and migration to larger towns with television and cell signal, threaten to erode cultural practices and weaken people’s ties to their Incan roots. In this context, llamas serve as a form of endurance. Tending to them is a demanding task that requires the continuity of Incan feeding practices, keeps families together, and reinforces syncretic religious traditions. Through my research, I show that llamas are the strongest antidote to cultural erosion in the Andes, ultimately demonstrating the animals’ large impact on the humans with which they interact.

• Sophia Linfield '26 | Survivors of Vukovar: Living with Memory After War

  Project Location:  Vukovar, Croatia
  Project Description: In 1991, the Croatian city of Vukovar endured an 87-day siege that left most of the city in ruins and culminated in atrocities such as the Ovčara massacre, where 260 prisoners of war and civilians were executed. More than thirty years later, Vukovar remains one of the most visible symbols of the Croatian War of Independence, with memorials and rebuilt streets carrying the weight of its past.
  
  My project investigates how survivors of this battle live with the memory of war and how that memory shapes the possibility of forgiveness. I began by studying both historical accounts of the siege and philosophical writings on forgiveness, which helped me frame it as at once a moral decision, a psychological process, and at times an impossible demand.
  
  In June, I travelled to Vukovar for field research. I visited the hospital, the water tower, the memorial cemetery, and the Ovčara Memorial, where the silence of the site made the history I had studied feel immediate and inescapable. I also interviewed survivors, working with my mother as translator and using digital tools to refine the transcripts. Their stories revealed very different ways of approaching forgiveness: some considered it necessary, others rejected it completely, and many continued to live with pain that has never fully healed.
  
  Memory emerged as the defining thread of these accounts. It is preserved in public memorials, carried within families, and felt in the emotional weight of everyday life in Vukovar. With my own Croatian family directly affected by the war, I was drawn to how survivors continue to live beside memories that do not fade. My final paper will bring together survivor interviews and site research to explore how people endure life after atrocity when the past is never fully gone.

• Alicia Medina '26 | The Dual Process of Peace: Reintegration and Connection in Colombia’s Post-Conflict Landscape

  Project Location: Bogotá, Colombia

  Project Description: My research explores the question: How do women in Colombia shape the dual processes of reintegration for ex-FARC combatants and healing for victims in the aftermath of armed conflict? For over fifty years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) waged a guerrilla war that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. Although a peace accord was signed in 2016, the process remains fragile, with ongoing violence and doubts about justice. Within this uncertainty, women have emerged as central actors in bridging the divide between victims and former combatants. I argue that reconciliation does not depend on forgiveness, but on recognition, accountability, and the creation of shared futures, processes in which women often take the lead.
  

   

  To explore this, I studied both institutional and grassroots initiatives. At the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, I spoke with practitioners about how truth-telling and justice mechanisms operate in dialogue with victims. I then visited projects such as La Trocha’s Manifiesta clothing store and the Union of Seamstresses where women use economic collaboration and storytelling to shape collective memory. I also documented public spaces like Fragmentos, the Botero Museum, and religious sites, observing how cultural memory and faith shape narratives of peace.
  
  

  Through this fieldwork, I found that women advance reconciliation by leading legal, artistic, and economic initiatives that bridge the divide between former combatants and communities. In this context, women’s leadership demonstrates that peace in Colombia is less about absolving the past than about sustaining coexistence in its most complex form, creating spaces where victims and former combatants live and work alongside one another, acknowledging the violence of FARC without personalizing blame, and maintaining social and economic bonds even as historical wounds remain unresolved and emotionally distant.

• Bridget Mestepey '26 | War and Memory: What do War Memorials Tell Us About Remembrance, Service, and Human Connection?

  Project Location: Adirondacks, N.Y., and Washington D.C.

  Project Description: War is an integral part of human society and development. How a war is chosen to be remembered in history is reflective of its impact and its relevance to a nation or people. The importance of war remembrance cannot be understated, in order to understand human evolution. My research investigates how small town and national memorials are used as forms of storytelling and commemoration for collective memory. I researched and visited six different war memorials, two that were small town memorials and four that were national memorials. In the Adirondacks, N.Y., I visited the Schroon Lake Veterans and the Bolton Landing Veterans Memorials. I then visited Washington D.C. and went to the National Mall. There I viewed the World War I, World War II, Korean War Veterans, and Vietnam Veterans Memorials. I conducted research at the Library of Congress along with interviews. From this research I have found that war memorials serve as forms of storytelling and opportunities for active memory. They allow humans to understand and connect with a past we often turn away from.

• Alexandra Russoniello '26 | Legitimacy in Times of Terror: The French Revolution

  Project Location: Paris, France, and Stanford, California 

  Project Description: For my project I researched the era of the French Revolution (specifically the Reign of Terror), to understand what makes a government legitimate in times of chaos, and how that translates to the use of violence. In June, I traveled to France for research in Paris. I spent around a week visiting various museums, monuments and historical artifacts to better understand the historical context around my project. Additionally, I tried to connect with the day-to-day life of the revolutionary period by taking tours and meeting museum representatives at multiple jails as well as two of the royal palaces of the time. 

  
  

  In July, I participated in a three-week course at Stanford titled "Revolutions." In the mornings I was part of a three-hour lecture and in the afternoon we were split into small discussion groups. Here I was able to look at my project from more of a theological viewpoint. Studying Marx, Locke, Rousseau, etc., let me further my research. Returning from my trip, I realized that the point of my project had to be outside of just studying the use of violence. Violence does not exist without a government or a group of people behind it. To study violence, you must study government and their legitimacy.

• Christopher Tsialas '26 | Grief and Growth: A Philosophical Exploration of Adolescent Healing

  Project Location: Boulder, Denver and Red Lakes, Colorado. 
  Project Description: My research explores the question: How can philosophical frameworks, especially Stoicism, existentialism, and Buddhist mindfulness, help adolescents process grief and rediscover meaning after the loss of a loved one? Resources for grieving teens are often limited, especially those that approach grief not just as an emotional challenge but as a deeply human confrontation with mortality. Inspired by the loss of my brother, I sought out traditions that view suffering not as something to be eliminated, but as a catalyst for growth, self-inquiry, and meaning-making. Over the summer, I participated in weekly two-hour bereavement groups at the Children’s Bereavement Center, where I observed how adolescents navigate pain that often feels both isolating and ineffable. Alongside this, I read the works of Marcus Aurelius, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Pema Chödrön some of the many philosophers, spiritual teachers, and writers I studied, whose texts wrestle with impermanence, suffering, and human resilience. I then traveled to Colorado, visiting Judi’s House in Denver, studying at Naropa University’s Shambhala Buddhist Center in Boulder, and spending four days on a Buddhist retreat, immersed in mindful practices and discussions about how to live meaningfully amid chaos. I also interviewed contemporary authors and philosophers who have written about grief, meaning, and the human condition. Across traditions and voices, I found a shared understanding: that grief, when met with reflection and presence, can deepen our relationship to life. For adolescents, who may be overwhelmed by both emotional pain and the complexity of philosophical texts, these frameworks when made more accessible can offer profound clarity. In that clarity, grief becomes not the end of meaning but the beginning of it. To grieve is not merely to survive loss, but to engage with one of the most universal and essential experiences of being human.

• Jacob Zide '26 | Adirondack Roots: Retracing the Adirondack-Florida School Experience 

  Project Location: Franklin County, N.Y.

  Project Description: I investigated the relationship between the Adirondack-Florida School (AFS) and its unique migratory experience. Through the close replication of their journey from Miami, Fla., to the Adirondacks in New York, I am working to understand which aspects of the trip gave such an advantageous experience of self-reliance for the students. I found by recreating their activities (hiking, canoeing, fishing, etc.)  that the fact that they were so connected with the nature surrounding them gave them the skills to be reliant on themselves. It is not just one environment that these boys were in tune with, they migrated to a complete different one twice a year to get the most out of the two surroundings. This migration can be connected back to nature. They closely followed birds travelling North and South. The boys influenced the towns they lived in at both campuses. Memory of the school is still felt in the town of Onchiota. I was lucky to interview a resident of the town who had lived there since 1940, and he had described to me what living there enabled him with. Roland told me, "It was altogether a different way of living," pointing around the room to furniture that he built himself. We can learn what makes us human by studying the AFS because humans are so influenced by their surroundings and the way they interact with nature. The way that the students of the AFS interacted with nature was so unique that they dedicated energy, much like wildlife, to migrate for the advantages of two campuses. One lost in history.