In Corcoran’s memoir, she explores the connection between the physical and the mental, examining her personal journey as a long-distance runner and academic. 

A Catalyst for a Career

The Virgin Mary, as a saint and an icon, acted as a catalyst both for Corcoran’s academic career and her personal journey. Corcoran’s fascination with Mary led her to Washington, D.C., where she began a master’s program in history at The Catholic University of America. Her Ph.D. dissertation, also completed at Catholic University, analyzed representations of Mary in the late Middle Ages, highlighting the ways in which the ensuing years softened Mary’s persona and power. 

“The quiet, obedient and maternal version of Mary is one with which many Catholics are familiar,” says Corcoran. “But in the Middle Ages there was a different representation of her as an incredibly powerful intercessor who saved people from disease, overturned ships in the middle of war and sparred, both verbally and physically, with the devil. My work seeks to reconcile how that Mary fits within a culture that often silences women’s voices.”  

Alongside her academic endeavors, Corcoran took up running, at first jogging just a few miles. Later Corcoran expanded her commitment and found a community of runners. The act of running strengthened Corcoran physically while simultaneously alleviating academic pressures. 

“You get very confident when you’re running because you feel like you can do anything,” Corcoran says. “I ran my first marathon my first year of graduate school and I was instantly hooked. It was a life-changing experience, not just physically, but putting the time in on something difficult and achieving it.”

Corcoran recalls that the time away from her books allowed her to process and synthesize her research, rehearsing the oral defense of her dissertation, making mental tweaks to her argument and even pausing her run to pull out her phone and jot down new ideas.

It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint expands upon the various roles that she has taken on since completing her Ph.D. in 2017: medieval historian, professor, advisor, distance runner, wife, mother and author. 

“I’ve found in my advising that it helps to share with students about your failures and struggles so they learn that other people have gone through these obstacles as well and there is a path forward,” reflects Corcoran.

She also shared that the mental struggles of being a graduate student were very real: Corcoran often observed others in the classroom who seemed more confident or assured of themselves. If she had only shared what she was feeling with her dissertation advisor, Corcoran notes, they would have openly supported and assisted her through the insecurities she was facing.

Inspiring and Encouraging Women

The drive to honor women and the strength which Corcoran has drawn from other women’s stories is what drove her to publish her memoir on International Women’s Day. Through her research, she wanted to offer her voice and perspective to others. 

“I wanted to let my voice be heard when a lot of graduate students complete their program in silence,” reflects Corcoran. “This is the story, not only of my voice, but of the women who influenced mine.” 

Her advice to graduate students right now: keep showing up. It may be “hard to see on any particular day how your work is going to pay off in the long run, but it’s the cumulative mileage of writing and reading” that is the ultimate prize. Show up to class, show up to workshops and create a community around you that’s supportive of what you’re doing both within your school life and home life.

“I strongly believe that the College and the Beeck Center are valuable environments to cultivate my diverse interests,” says Ras-Work. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know I’m well-equipped to meet it after my time at the Beeck Center.”

Ethan Fan (C’24)

Major: Biology of Global Health and Economics

Hometown: Columbia, Maryland

What inspired you to apply to the Beeck Center?

I was inspired to apply to the Beeck Center because of its mission centered around social impact through technology. I believe the field of data has a lot of potential and can be used to help underserved communities. I am also interested in connecting technology to modernize policy work and research. 

What research are you working on while there?

I am a student analyst part of the State Chief Data Officers Network Project. For my role, I research different fundamental state open data sets, create assessment criteria for those data sets and analyze them based on those criteria. I will be researching these 11 foundational datasets highlighted in a previous Beeck publication, Open Data for Economic Recovery, for all fifty states and compiling an aggregated way to display the research I have done.

What career development skills do you hope to gain while there? How does the Beeck Center help you achieve your career goals?

I hope to learn more about what makes data so important, why governments are behind in modernizing their platforms and how I can apply data to any research I do on a daily basis. At the Beeck Center, I have learned how to access and find any level of state spatial map data or numerical datasets that are published for transparency purposes. I have also learned common skills used in Airtable and Tableau platforms. I have learned more about my interested career field of health care, its increasing costs and common issues underserved communities face regarding healthcare. 

How does this help you with your work for the Beeck Center?

The Beeck Center has been very helpful in helping guide me toward the right field of work and the impact I hope to create with my major. A part of the student analyst program involves career development and workshops. In these events, we are asked to research more about what interests us in social impact and for me it is health care. Some assignments have asked me to keep up with the news in the healthcare field, some of the major problems arising in the field and finding data that could help address those problems. I think the skills learned from these assignments will help me in any field related to my major, whether that be research, non-profit work, or healthcare insurance. 

Katie Hawkinson (C’23)

Major: History, minor in Global Medieval Studies

Hometown: Spokane, Washington

What inspired you to apply to the Beeck Center?

I applied to the Beeck Center because I am passionate about making innovative thinking accessible to the public. As a Storytelling and Editorial Content Analyst, I will get the chance to learn more about the amazing work Beeck Center researchers are doing to evoke social change while making their findings digestible and interesting for the world.

What research are you working on while there?

I have a slightly different role than other students, as I am focused on communications rather than research. That means I take the amazing research that my coworkers have done and boil it down into parts that we can present to the public. I write blog posts for our website, craft Twitter and LinkedIn posts and I am even helping with the layout and design of reports. My job is really special to me because I get to engage with all the work done here at the Beeck Center.

What career development skills do you hope to gain while there? How does the Beeck Center help you achieve your career goals?

While working on communications at the Beeck Center, I hope to learn how to be a human-centered, ethical storyteller. No matter where I end up after graduation, being a strong writer with experience in storytelling will serve me well.

How does your major help you with your work for the Beeck Center?

As a humanities major, the bulk of my coursework and assessments are writing-based. Specifically, as a historian, I find myself studying the stories of civilizations, institutions and communities, trying to make sense of how each component of society worked together to create the historical record. In a way, I’m doing something very similar here at the Beeck Center — I take these amazing, technical reports written by our phenomenal staff and try to piece together how each step of their project matters to the larger picture, as well as how we can help the general public understand the significance of this work. In both my role as a student and as an analyst, I have the opportunity to find the most important pieces of complex processes and convey them clearly to others in an effort to spread knowledge and understanding.

Zega Ras- Work (C’23)

Major: Political Economy, minor Environmental Studies

Hometown: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

What inspired you to apply to the Beeck Center?

I often find that data and technology enthusiasts overlook the importance of public policy for achieving innovation, and public policy people underrate the importance of data and technology for achieving broader societal goals. The Beeck Center lies right at the intersection of these worlds. I applied to Beeck to get involved with the emerging field of public interest technology, and I now see that the potential for innovation to address public needs including disease, food systems, poverty and inequality, and more is limitless.

What research are you working on while there?

At the Beeck Center, I work on the Data Labs project, which focuses on helping state governments leverage data for economic recovery from the pandemic. On that project I do qualitative research, identifying and sharing best practices on how states have already addressed key policy issues through data-informed decision-making. I am also starting to do quantitative work on our Chief Data Officers Network, normalizing program data and presenting it through forms of visualization. As a technical assistant, I also do smaller, issue-specific research assignments to support our program managers.

What career development skills do you hope to gain while there? How does the Beeck Center help you achieve your career goals?

I’m gaining some hard skills that involve working with data, as well as hopefully soon getting experience with some legal aspects of our work including contract-making, data sharing, and inter-organizational collaboration. I hope to also build on my teamwork skills as well as grow as a leader and communicator. The Center offers student analysts abundant mentorship opportunities with our supervisors and the Fellows, in addition to regular career development workshops that nurture skill building. I am also creating a valuable network here.

How has your major helped you with your work for the Beeck Center?

My economics major has been useful in a lot of my research pertaining to analyzing government interventions in different policy areas and some of the quantitative work I’m doing. I’m fortunate that the College has a top-tier economics department, where a lot of the courses I’ve taken have shaped my way of thinking in one way or another. I find that I’m frequently able to draw from theoretical frameworks and concepts that I’ve learned in class and apply them to the work I do now.

In my time at Georgetown, through academics, extracurriculars, and some of my work experience, I’ve developed a passion for environmental issues, especially energy systems sustainability and climate change. My work at Beeck has really piqued my interest in applications of data in the global clean energy transition, particularly in relation to energy resource data and geographic information systems. I’m curious about how high-quality data can be used with analytical methods and models to inform investment decisions and power sector planning in a way that is just and equitable.

Women in Poetry

Davis has perfected the art of translating Persian poetry. As noted during her introductory remarks, he strikes a difficult balance between flowery lines and scholarly translations. Davis has not only contributed greatly to the translation of Persian poetry but also sheds light on the underrepresented female authors of these works. 

Prior to the 20th century, most Persian poets were male. If poetry was written by a woman, she tended to be of a higher social standing, such as a princess or a member of the court. Even up to the modern day, many poems with female authors have not been studied with the veracity of their male counterparts. Davis has helped bring awareness to these poets by translating their work for the first time. 

Mirror of My Heart contains work by 83 female poets from the 10th to 20th centuries. While at Georgetown, Davis shared poems by three of these poets, the contents of which varied widely from the romantic to the philosophical. 

Davis was quick to mention that many of these female poets broke convention by writing poems that were seen as unladylike. He spoke of them with admiration for their wit and skill, but also of the timelessness of their writing on subjects like love, religion, and death. The awareness that Davis has brought to these poets reminds us that there is much about our past that we can learn from and apply to today, and that by engaging with poets like these, we gain a deeper understanding of our shared humanity. 

Lifelong Passion

Davis has made his career studying medieval Persian culture and poetry, which has helped him to glean the deeper meaning behind the poems he translates from centuries long past. He holds a masters degree from Kings College, Cambridge, and a Ph.D from the University of Manchester. Davis has translated volumes of Persian poetry with the help of his wife Afkham Darbandi. He has also written and published his own poetry such as Belonging, and A Trick of Sunlight.

Collaboration Across Departments

The co-sponsored this event with the , the , the , the , and the Jalinous Endowed Fund for Persian Studies, as part of the , directed by .

This semester, the Medieval Studies Program at Georgetown College is changing its name to the  in order to reflect a greater emphasis on the study of civilizations outside western Europe.

“The name change indicates a new direction for the program. We will be thinking more incisively about what the term ‘global’ means when applied to the Middle Ages,” said , Director of the Medieval Studies Program. “What about interconnections, travel, cultural exchange? Given our interconnected modern world, it is all the more important and interesting to discover the layers of history and culture beneath the modern.”

For Michael Ginsberg (C’20), who is majoring in global medieval studies, the change also served as an effective reminder that “the Middle Ages” is not a Eurocentric term.

“Medievalists around the world wanted to stress the facts of global exchange and connection during this period, in addition to areas outside Europe, which is typically thought of during discussions about this time period,” Ginsberg said.

Students enrolled in the minor can expect to get an interdisciplinary experience, as its courses are taught by professors from a number of different fields, including but not limited to history, law, art history, archaeology, manuscript study, theology, philosophy and languages.

The material itself encompasses a vast period of time and space. The term “Middle Ages” encompasses the period of time between 500 to 1500 C.E., and the program has expanded the study past Europe into Asia and much of Africa. Students are exposed to numerous unique travel abroad opportunities and grants connected to the minor and the program, and many see the experience as a way to stand out in interviews.

“It’s an offbeat minor — and an excellent one to pair with some of the more ‘practical’ majors,” said McNamer.  â€œOur students report that recruiting season becomes more fun when the question turns to, ‘So, you minored in Global Medieval Studies? Tell us about that!’”

Yasaswini Dandu (B’19), a Global Medieval Studies minor, emphasizes how the major has been how it changes her perspective on history.

“The Medieval Period is a period where we really started to develop some of the critical institution, ideas, and belief systems that we even see or use today,” she said. “Most importantly, the program taught me that the past is not as barbaric or simple as we believe. Our history is a lot more complex, dynamic, and exciting, and it never really leaves us.”

March 26, 2018 — Earlier this semester, Georgetown College and professor was awarded the 2017 ‘s for her latest book, Meditations on the Life of Christ: The Short Italian Text.

The book is a critical edition, translation and commentary on what she argues is a previously unpublished original version of Meditations on the Life of Christ, a 14th-century devotional text considered to be the most popular influential work of its kind in the late Middle Ages.

After centuries of assumption that Meditations was composed by Saint Bonaventure, scholars in the 19th century determined it was actually the work of an anonymous Franciscan friar.

McNamer takes the question of the author’s identity a step further: She argues not only that this previously unpublished Italian version is in fact the earliest draft of the Meditations, but that its author was a woman.

“Livelier and far more compact than the Latin text, the Italian “short text” possesses a stylistic and textual integrity that appears to testify to its primacy among early versions of the Meditations,” reads the book description. “The evidence also suggests that it was composed by a woman, a Poor Clare from Pisa — an author whose work McNamer contends was obscured by the anonymous Franciscan friar who subsequently altered and expanded the text.”

The book represents an extension of research McNamer had published before, in the 2009 article for the journal . In that piece, she presents evidence that the short Italian text — a piece arguably superior to the Latin version in many ways — may have been composed by a nun.

This perspective, expanded upon in her new translation and commentary, earned her the prestigious MLA Scaglione Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies. .