Titled “The Historiographical Journey of La Malinche,” the paper states that the historical narrative projected “contradictory constructions of La Malinche” that reflect the attitudes of those who wrote her story and reveal biases of ethnicity, gender, and class.

The paper received a Highly Commended award from the Dublin-based Global Undergraduate Awards in 2018, an honor bestowed on the top 10 percent of entries out of thousands of submissions from hundreds of colleges and universities. The awards program recognizes top undergraduate work from around the world and aims to connect students across cultures and disciplines.

A Variety of Perspectives

For the paper, Anthony examined books and texts from the 1500s to the 21st century and found the portrayal to be initially respectful, but progressively derogatory as the centuries passed, culminating in a Victorian-era publication that portrayed La Malinche as something of a “loose woman.” It wasn’t until recently that she received sympathetic treatment, with the publication of Camilla Townsend’s Malintzin’s Choices (University of New Mexico Press, 2006), which provided a 21st-century feminist view of her.

Anthony said that La Malinche was far more than a translator; she was akin to an adviser to Cortés and an intimate confidant. She had two children with him and yet her “importance was denigrated,” he said, and treated historically as though she “didn’t have any agency and was a hanger-on.”

“I think part of the reasons I was drawn to the stories was to see these different perspectives,” he said. “It’s also interesting to see how much control she wielded as the sole source of meaning for Cortes”

He said the different characterizations of La Malinche speak to the changes in society, and noted how looking at her through various lenses provided him with a clearer picture of the writers’ political motives.

“This research was pivotal work for me because it helped me with feminist perspectives,” said Anthony, whose work in the past focused primarily on general indigenous perspectives.

Looking Through the Lens of Native Peoples

Last spring, at Fordham College at Lincoln Center’s research fair Ars Nova, Anthony presented “Aztecs in Nuremberg: The Humanist Interpretation of the Conquest of Mexico,” which examined the humanist interpretation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He noted that 16th-century scholars from Europe viewed the experiences of the Aztecs through the lens of ancient Greece and Rome.

“My favorite historians of this period can read the Aztec language, look at their writings, and contextualize those,” said Anthony, who is double majoring in history and classical languages and literature with a minor in Latin American and Latino studies.

He noted that Aztecs were far from a homogeneous culture, but instead represented a variety of cultures and languages, not unlike Europeans.

“Studying the Aztecs showed me how many different sides of the story there are,” he said. “That’s crucial to understanding history and not getting bogged down by your preconceived beliefs.”

A Fresh Focus on Museums

Over the last few months, Anthony has been busy applying for graduate schools and thinking about his final project for his senior year. He’s been accepted to one doctoral program already, and he’s waiting to hear from others. Research-wise, he said he’s been concentrating on how museums display Aztec art and culture.

Museums often contribute to an “American exoticism” of indigenous cultures, he said, more often telling the story of the ancient cultures through the prism of U.S. sensibilities. He also noted that the way museums acquired such treasures needs to be highlighted in order to truly understand their colonial context.

“I want to look into how all these explorers in the 1800s discovered these artifacts and acted as if they were the sole owners,” he said.

He added that he sees his final project as a continuation of the work he started in his junior year and wants to examine, as he did with the 17th-century humanists, how contemporary historians and museums understand their holdings.

“In many ways, they emphasize that the so-called discoverers are heroes, as if discovering Aztec art were a form of finding Atlantis,” he said. “We need to see how, in some ways, the culture is unknowable and fundamentally different from the West, not something to exoticize.”

2019 Competition Is Open

Assistant Dean Josie Gregoire, who coordinates FCLC’s participation in this program encouraged other students to apply for the awards this year.

“We are so pleased and proud of all of our Fordham students who submitted their best work to the international Undergraduate Awards program; over 50 Fordham students submitted their best work last year! In 2018, for the second year in a row (and Fordham’s second year of participation) FCLC has a second Undergraduate Awards Winner,” said Gregoire.

“This year’s competition is now open and we encourage all students to submit their work.”

“This is such an unexpected and exciting honor, especially since this was Fordham’s first year having students submit to the awards,” said Fisher, who is studying at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, and working part-time as an English teaching assistant in Seville.

Fisher, who studied comparative literature and behavioral development, originally wrote her paper as part of a semester-long capstone project in an honors seminar taught by English professor Shoshana Enelow. The course, Person, Place, or Thing, explored human beings’ relationships with the environment. With guidance from Enelow, the winner of the 2015-2016 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, Fisher said she was able to explore new ways of reading literature, criticism, and the world.

“In every class session, Professor Enelow manages to create the ideal space for creative thought and discussion, fostering an environment of exciting possibilities and potential connections,” she said.

UA, a leading undergraduate awards program celebrating outstanding undergraduate coursework, received 6,472 entries from applicants around the world. The top 10 percent of papers in each of the 25 categories, which includes history, economics, philosophy, and literature, was recognized as “Highly Commended.” Fisher and others at that level have been invited to attend this year’s UA Global Summit, a four-day networking and personal development event in Dublin, Ireland in November.

Marilynne Robinson’s classic 1980 novel, Housekeeping, the focus of Fisher’s paper, tells the story of Ruth and Lucille, two orphaned sisters who are raised by a series of relatives in Fingerbone, Idaho. Among their many caretakers is their unconventional aunt, Sylvie.

In her thesis, Fisher drew on writings by French philosopher Jacques Derrida and American scholar Donna Haraway to examine how Sylvie’s “boundary-less existence” challenges and shapes each girl’s personal identity.

“I argue that Sylvie occupies one extreme on a spectrum of transient existence,” said Fisher. “She eschews all conventional human connection for the sake of forming new, surprising connections with nature and the non-human specters that haunt Fingerbone. She stands in direct opposition to Lucille and the rest of the townspeople, who hold fast to their concrete human world and ignore the possibility that the non-human and spectral have a legitimate place in their lives.”

Fisher, a recipient of FCLC Dean’s 2016 Undergraduate Research Grant Awards, said she believes that those who are open to “boundary-less love” often find themselves caught between two worlds. In this instance, while the character Ruth is naturally drawn to her aunt’s eccentricity, she also craves the familial intimacy she finds in her sister Lucille.

“As the novel’s narrator, [Ruth] engages in deeper self-examination than any other character and is able to face her most painful desires and failings,” she said.

Fisher found Haraway’s concept of “making kin,” or connections, particularly influential. She said she circles back to Haraway’s philosophy whenever she encounters a relationship that seems rigidly fixed—whether in literature or in life.

“In this paper and in others, I try to convey that life is much less fixed than we often wish it to be and much of what separates us from other people, non-humans, [and our]environment, we construct for our own comfort,” she said.