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Assistant Professor of French Daniel O’Sullivan (center) reviews a rare text with students Dru Ashoo (left) and Douglas Ray (right). Last summer, they were granted rare access to view medieval texts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. |
The documents inside the manuscript room at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris are so rare that researchers usually need a doctoral degree just to get into the same room to look at them.
However, three undergraduates were given special permission to study medieval manuscripts. Under the direction of Assistant Professor of French Daniel O’Sullivan, the students—Dru Ashoo, Roland Mullins and Douglas Ray—spent the two-week May intersession researching primary sources in the prestigious French library. They presented their findings at the Southeastern Medieval Association meeting in October, hosted by UM in October.
“At first, I was nervous about bringing students into the manuscript room at the Bibliothèque Nationale,” O’Sullivan said. “But my students were poised and serious. I was impressed.”
The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, of which Ashoo and Ray are members, helped sponsor the trip. “This has been a remarkable opportunity for our students. It was an incredible feat to allow undergraduate honors students in the Paris archives. They are doing graduate-level work,” said SMBHC Dean Douglass Sullivan-González.
Ashoo, an international studies and French major from Albuquerque, N.M., studied the portrayal of King Louis IX in 14th- and 16th-century manuscripts. “It’s intimidating and also a true honor and privilege to be in a room with people who have devoted their whole lives to this study,” he said. “I’ve only devoted about eight months to it, but I’ve developed a huge respect for written work, and I understand the importance of the preservation of history.”
Having studied Latin for eight years, Ray focused his research on a Latin manuscript produced circa 1270 in Rome and its specific role in spreading ideas about the Byzantine tradition in Rome. Ray’s argument is that these particular texts were bound together to legitimize Rome’s appreciation of a new, highly prized Byzantine relic into its own liturgy for the glory of the Roman Catholic Church.
“I’ve seen how language can be crafted to truly influence an audience in a way that mere advertising cannot,” said Ray, a senior classics and English major from Jackson. “I now understand the ability of a writer to shape perception through his choice of words and diction.”
Mullins, a Biloxi native and 2006 classics and history graduate, examined a 12th-century Latin manuscript and its representation of how Julius Caesar and the Roman world may have been viewed during the medieval period. He is now pursuing a master’s degree in classics at Florida State University.
“The whole experience of traveling and researching in Europe instilled my own understanding of the professionalism needed in this field,” Mullins said, “It helped prepare me to face graduate school, not only intellectually but professionally.”
While at UM, Mullins received the Alfred W.F. Milden Scholarship from the Department of Classics, which helped fund his Paris research trip and also allowed him to travel independently to ancient sites in southern France, Italy and Greece.
“We are very pleased we were able to support Roland,” said Aileen Ajootian, chair and associate professor of classics. “He really showed us how valuable this support could be for students.”
Before the trip to Paris, the group learned about medieval manuscript culture in O’Sullivan’s advanced linguistics course. The course provided necessary background, teaching them how to decipher the handwriting of medieval scribes and develop a research hypothesis. The students plan to publish their papers with O’Sullivan in a scholarly journal.
“I wanted to give [my students] insight into what professors do when they are not standing in front of a class,” O’Sullivan said. “We are sitting in libraries, traveling and doing research. A professor is a student throughout his life.”