Fall 2019 saw the inception of the Obermann Humanities 3MT. Christie Vogler (Archaeology, CLAS) won the overall UI Three-Minute Thesis competition for her talk, “The Women of Gangivecchio: Investigating Gender, Wealth, and Work in the Agricultural Economy of Roman Sicily,” about finding evidence of a female physician working at a Roman villa. She and two other humanities graduate students advanced to the finals from Obermann’s first-ever Humanities Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Watch Vogler’s presentation.
The competition provides students an opportunity to articulate their research to audiences beyond their immediate disciplinary colleagues. Via the Graduate College’s support, the UI’s 3MT has grown since its inception five years ago; however, participation by humanities students remained low. Vogler won the Obermann Center’s inaugural humanities competition and automatically advanced to the campus finals, while other participants had the opportunity to move into the all-campus cycle.
Along with Vogler, Enrico Bruno (English, CLAS) and Hadley Galbraith (French & Italian, CLAS) competed in the finals.
Watch Enrico Bruno’s presentation
Watch Hadley Galbraith’s presentation
When asked about her topic, Vogler said, “Getting to tell the story of Roman women that has otherwise been ignored by the historical record really excites me. It’s the same reason why I love the field of archaeology. The old sentiment ‘history is written by the victors’ is accurate to the extent that a very few privileged individuals were able to write their own stories. Yet anyone who has ever lived had a chance to leave behind a material record, and through archaeology we can learn of their stories. Archaeologists get to read between the lines of history.”