Our Associates work hard behind the scenes to review submissions, to copyedit pieces published on KROnline, to help coordinate outreach and community events. They are among the most passionate and talented of Kenyon College students. We’re introducing a new feature on our blog highlighting the voices and achievements of our Associates–in and out of their time with the Kenyon Review. For our inaugural Associate Spotlight, we’re talking to Samantha Culbert ’19, English and psychology double major from Lynnfield, Massachusetts.
You’re an English and psychology double major. How do these disciplines interact?
People have this misconception that I’m psychoanalyzing or diagnosing characters in literature, when I’ve found that English actually has more of an impact on my psych work. Creative thinking in research is really important, especially in psychology–like, how are we manipulating these variables? Because of my work in English I’ve been able to take more risks in the way I think about psych literature and psych research. You know, in English classes you’re constantly pushing back on a text or pushing back on a classmate or just engaging in these really intense dialogues, while psychology, and the sciences in general, sometimes take a more sterile approach to material. But there are bigger questions you can really dive into–like, What are the implications of this study? What does this tell us about human nature? English has helped me think about the literature of science, and to think more critically about the facts and what we’re choosing to explore. That was really surprising to me. Psychology definitely does come up in my English work. I’ll talk about the different phenomena of the human experience. But English’s influence on my psychology work was definitely something that surprised me and I think surprises other people.
Tell us something about your senior projects both in psychology and English.
Right now I’m in the midst of working on three final projects. One of them is for my psych senior seminar. One is my English comps. One is my honors project in psychology, which I’m really passionate about. I’m looking at the relationship between behavioral regulation, social skills, and academic success in three- to five-year-olds. My inspiration was how standardized testing has infiltrated into every level of education, including preschool. It’s kind of nuts to assume that a four-year-old–before they’re able to share their toys and sit still–is able to prepare for standardized testing that comes in elementary school. I hope that this addition to the research supports the idea that before we can even start thinking about test preparation, we need to invest in the socio-emotional learning that is so critical at this age. It’s not necessarily a takedown of standardized testing, but rather a question: what are we focusing on? If we’re not spending time on socio-emotional learning, the students who are most at risk are the ones who don’t have that experience at home. So, there could be someone who’s doing great on standardized test prep and that might be because when they go home they have a family whose parents don’t have to work two jobs and can really invest in reading bedtime stories and encouraging them to play nice with their siblings. Another kid’s only opportunity for socio-emotional learning might be in that classroom, and if they’re not getting that there, they’re never going to be able to catch up because those regulation skills are so important for test-taking and academic success.
My English project is completely different. It’s on maternal infanticide in literature. It’s about the way the archetype of Medea was created, and, with it, how we represent mothers who kill their children both in the media and in literature. What’s exciting about this project, and what I find so fascinating, is that literature opens up a discussion about motherhood and the institution of motherhood that’s really difficult to talk about when you’re watching firsthand accounts of this. It’s so hard to separate the institutionalized oppression of mothers from over-idealized representations of motherhood when you’re faced with tragedy. When something gruesome happens, it’s really easy to isolate those women in the media as “insane” or “mad,” to turn our backs on: what are the root causes besides individual mental states? Going back to literature, we’re able to discuss that in a way which is removed from the very personal tragedy that journalism is perpetuating. We’re able to have a more nuanced conversation about the way that marginalized women cannot achieve this idealistic motherhood that we have, as a culture, decided is “natural.” I’ve been looking at what Adrienne Rich talks about in her book Of Woman Born, the two types of motherhood, the experience of motherhood which is the potential bond any mother could have with their children and all the emotion wrapped up in that, and the institution of motherhood which is the societal expectations of what makes a good mother. It’s been a really difficult project, but interesting and eye-opening. Infanticide, is, you know, fairly rare in our culture today, but postpartum depression and general struggles women have relating to their children or the institution of motherhood in general are not. While I’m looking at this really intense subject, I’m also looking at how problematic it is to assume that the ultimate nurturing mother is a natural occurrence.
Why did you become a KR Associate?
I was always interested in the Associate program. But every year the application would come around and I would think, “Oh, maybe I’ll do that,” and then the time would pass and I would think, “But I’m so busy anyway.” This summer, I was working as a teaching assistant at the Center for Talent Development in Evanston, Illinois. I was working with two writers–they were teaching, and they were published poets, which was really cool. And they asked me, “Do you do anything with the Kenyon Review?” I said, “No, no, I don’t really have time to.” And they both said, “Wow, you should really get on that. It matches with your interests really well.” And they said it was a renowned literary magazine, which I was always aware of. But, you know, when you get to your sophomore or junior year at Kenyon, you start to take things for granted–and that was one of the big ones. So it’s my senior year and I decided to apply. And now I’m an Associate, and it’s great.
This summer, you said you were working at the Center for Talent Development. How do you see teaching as a literary practice?
That’s a great question. I wish there was more emphasis on teaching as a literary practice because I think it’s really important. I was a creative writing TA, and encouraging new voices is vital. Teaching feels like an investment in the future. Maybe in your classroom–or maybe not–students aren’t going to go on to become accomplished authors or publish the next “great American novel,” but their interest in literature, and their interest in both investing in it and creating it, will have repercussions that you can’t see but are really significant in both representing new voices and expanding the conversation about literature and about writing. So much of the time we’re focused on what is being produced right now–which, of course, is really important. And usually high schoolers aren’t writing at the level to be published in journals like the Kenyon Review, but by teaching you can encourage a greater investment and a greater personal relevance that I think is really important.
I know you’re involved in a theater program called the Billy Shakes Project. Would you mind telling me a little about that?
The Billy Shakes Project was started in 2011. It’s not the newest and not the oldest club on campus, but it’s really evolved a lot since it started. I joined my freshman year, and back then we would do two shows each year. There would be six troupe members performing multiple roles in abbreviated Shakespeare plays, using handmade props and costumes. Then we would travel around to different areas in Knox County to perform. We’d go to the library, to schools like the middle school and high school, to the nursing home–which is always a good time. Then, my junior year, we realized just how busy Kenyon students are and that a traveling theater troupe was something people worked on as a full-time job. It takes a lot of investment. We decided to accomplish our goal of reaching the community and promoting theater to people who might not have access to live theater, we decided to start a youth troupe. So now we’re working with Wiggin Street Elementary School. There are about twenty-five students in our youth troupe, twice as big as we thought it would be. It’s a blast. We go to the school weekly and we have rehearsal with the youth ensemble. Some of them have speaking roles, some of them do movement–like being waves and a ship–and they are serving as an addition to the six college actors who do the bigger parts. There are opportunities to do theater in Mount Vernon, for sure. But a lot of them aren’t connected to schools, so we really wanted to do that educational outreach and we’re really excited that this program got off its feet.
I feel like with the new model, it seems like you’re hitting the best of both worlds. You’re introducing literature to the community, but you’re also offering an opportunity for students to really immerse themselves in that literary world.
Yeah, it’s really cool. A lot of times we underestimate kids. At first I was skeptical about handing out speaking roles, but they completely dove into it. It’s important to remember that they really like challenges, and if a group of college students come and say, “Hey, you can do Shakespeare,” it’s not this very adult high-class thing that only certain people have access to for them. We can say, “You, Wiggin Street Elementary, are perfectly capable of understanding this play.” And that’s really exciting.
What do you look for in a Kenyon Review submission?
I look for something new and risky. Those are sort of my go-tos. I also look for something captivating right off the bat. I’ll give any story or poem a chance, but when a story takes me by surprise in the first few sentences I’m usually there for it. We get a ton of submissions that are really polished. It’s clear that this person has done well in the MFA program or has a lot of experience writing, but you can write a perfectly wonderful piece without taking any risks. That’s something I value about KR, and it’s not just us as Associates. With KROnline, the editors, too, are really open to new voices who bring us those unconventional pieces.
As a writer or a reader, how can you tell when a risk has paid off?
Oh, that’s a good question. I think, as a writer, you know, you take a risk and it flops. You can tell, usually, in workshop scenarios when you think something is so cool but people are saying, “I just don’t see it.” As a reader, it’s when I just can’t stop thinking about a piece. There are times when I read a submission and I step away and I let it sit in my doc for a minute. If I’m in class and I’m just thinking about this submission, then I know it wasn’t just this weird crazy piece that was just trying to be sensational. If I’m still trying to make sense of the piece, or make connections, the more the piece exists off the page, the better the risk has manifested.
What’s something you’ve read recently, from KR or anything else, that you just can’t stop thinking about?
I will probably never be able to stop thinking about this piece called “O-Rings,” and I read it, originally, for [the class] Science Writing. It’s about–and I’m going to butcher the science here–how, in rocket engines, there are mechanisms called o-rings. They provide seals, and if they get messed up, they can cause major explosions. That’s what happened with the Challenger explosion. The piece uses o-rings as a way into major historical events and how we mythologize them. So, there’s this widespread notion that in the Challenger explosion the astronauts inside died instantly, but the evidence shows that they were probably alive until the rocket hit the water. I read that and it was so terrifying. And to put something into a piece that completely challenges a popular narrative and one that I would never even think to challenge, one, because I wouldn’t be thinking about it if I hadn’t read the piece, and two, because that’s such a horrific memory. But it was something that has stuck with me in the face of national tragedies. Like, how are we talking about them? What stories do we tell ourselves to placate ourselves, and what stories are perpetuated by the forces around us that conceal the truth? That piece definitely hit me hard.