Graduate Student Spotlight - Kerri Clement, History

Q: What do you like about being an humanities grad student?

A: There are many aspects I truly enjoy, it is difficult to select just one. But to me, the arts and the humanities provide such generative and compelling opportunities to examine what it means to be human in this world, that it keeps me coming back to research and writing every day. The promise of being able to use that work for some change, however small, is exciting.

Q: What are you currently working on?

A: I am currently writing my dissertation on twentieth-century Yellowstone and Montana borderlands, Indigenous peoples, zoonotic disease, and animals.

Q: What in your field most excites you?

A: There is so much exciting work out there! In particular, I find decolonizing digital humanities projects to be the work that inspires ideas for new projects and research for my own work.

Q: If you rubbed a lamp and a genie appeared to grant a wish, what would it be?

A: More funding and support for the humanities and arts on a societal level – it has been quite something to see calls for more humanities-based education on the national stage while at the same time, humanities funding and jobs are being reduced or even eliminated.