Faculty Shout-out by Ellen McCallum
Sydney excels in tackling difficult, abstract, and/or complex texts and rendering a clear view on them through her eloquent prose. Sydney’s close readings of writers like Gladman, Calvino, Freud, Derrida, Wynter, or Moten demonstrate her acute understanding of challenging texts, and her analyses have incisively modeled for her colleagues how to do close reading. My favorite moment with Sydney in a class is her response to an assignment that asked students to translate their essay into another medium–with an eye to, say, creating a poster for UURAF. Sydney made us cookies, presenting them with a detailed and persuasive exposition of how they exemplify the layers of Ravicka’s built environment, the crisis the novel tells, the convolutions of human relations that organize its narrative (the subject of her essay). Such marvelous creativity and original thinking! Also, formidably delicious.
How would you describe your time as an English or Film Studies major at MSU?
I actually came into MSU enrolled in Lyman Briggs, and I thought I would study neuroscience. However, I took a few English electives freshman year, immediately fell in love, and have been an English major ever since. I think that realization is pretty representative of my time in the department. Every semester, I enroll in classes thinking I know what I’m getting myself into, and I come out the other side having learned something completely unexpected (in the best way possible). I’m always pivoting what I want to focus my papers and research assignments on because there are so many things to explore, and I can’t think of a time when a professor did not support me in this discovery process. I find it really exciting to make a connection between a text I’m reading for class and an assignment I did a semester or a year earlier. In a few words, I would sum up the last four years as exploratory, transformational, and collaborative.
Which classes, instructors, or experiences particularly stand out for you and why? How did they prepare you for the next phase of your life?
The most influential experience of my time at Michigan State has been the opportunity to work in the English department’s Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab. Not only did I get to work on multiple exciting, interdisciplinary projects, but I also experienced what learning and research looks like in a professional setting. Without the DHLC, I don’t think I would have developed nearly as many interpersonal and intellectual skills as I have over the past four years. I didn’t even know that humanities research was a thing before I came to MSU, and now I’m working on making a career out of it. In terms of courses, I would definitely say my creative writing classes have been the most impactful to my education. My lit studies courses taught me the content I was most interested in, but learning how to write in formats other than an academic essay developed my confidence as a writer exponentially. I firmly believe that if you’re going to study an art form, you should also have experience creating that kind of art. (And shout-out to Tim Conrad for putting up with me for five classes!)
What advice would you give future English or Film Studies majors, based on your experiences in the department?
Get involved! (Please!) There are so many ways to get to know your peers and professors outside of the classroom, and the moment you start to get involved you’ll feel so much more connected to your MSU and CAL communities. Also, take classes in as many different topics as you can! The classes I took for the creative writing concentration fundamentally inform how I approach the academic writing process. I also have a secondary major in environmental studies, and there are so many unexpected connections between that field and English. Try to see how you can fit your English ideas and skills into other disciplines. Make connections! Meet people with different interests from you!
What coursework-related projects were/are you working on this year, and what interests or excites you about them? (capstone courses, honors thesis, independent studies, etc.)
I’ve been working on a lot this year! Right now, I’m in the process of finishing up an honors thesis that investigates the role of the environment in novels depicting human rebellion. I’m also enrolled in an independent study based on Comics as Data, a new project in the Digital Humanities and Literary Cognition Lab. We’re working on an exploratory pilot study of the MSU Comic Art Collection’s digital archive, so I’m doing an independent study on 20th-century comic censorship to provide historical context for our research. I’ve also been taking a few grad classes, and although they aren’t necessarily independent projects, these courses have really shaped my understanding of the English discipline and prepared me for continuing my education.
What are your hopes and aspirations, post-graduation?
I’m getting my PhD! (It still feels so surreal to say that.) I’m attending the University of Michigan’s English Language and Literature doctoral program, where I’ll have six years to read, write, and teach about the topics that interest me most. Right now, I’m thinking of drawing on my environmental studies training to focus my research on place-based narratives from the Great Lakes region. I also plan on working in the Detroit River Story Lab while at UM. Long term, I’m not sure where I’ll end up—but I’m excited to figure it out! (And I hope it will involve public humanities work in some shape or form.)