This story appeared in the Spring 2020 Letters & Science magazine.
Two years ago, Rania Huntington and Yixian Gan embarked on a mysterious journey. Together, the professor of Asian languages and cultures and the freshman international student set out to map “records of the strange” from ancient China, using QGIS, an open-source, state-of-the-art software program. These stories appear in a volume known as Ertan leizing (Tales for the Ear, Expanded by Categories), first published in 1603.
While many of the stories contain elements of the supernatural—ghosts, reincarnations—they were not considered fairy tales or fables.
“They are more like what we’d call urban legends,” Huntington explains. “They are purported to have really happened. Someone heard the story from someone else. It wasn’t thought to be made up out of thin air.”
For Huntington, where these stories happened in China is of great scholarly interest, because locations can help fill in missing gaps in her study of this literary genre. She calls it a window into the “geographic imagination” of the people who lived then.
The project was launched through the Undergraduate Research Scholars program (URS), which connects undergraduate L&S students with opportunities to work one-on-one with faculty on research projects across a wide spectrum of disciplines. The program can be exciting—even life-changing—for students and faculty alike.
Gan, whose knowledge of Chinese allowed him to take part in translation and transcription, as well as mapping, was surprised to discover that quite a few “horrific” tales were clustered in his hometown of Beijing.
“That was interesting and creepy at the same time,” he admits.
But Gan, who is a double-major in computer science and applied math and engineering physics, acknowledges a more profound impact as well. This year, he applied for, and received, a prestigious Sophomore Research Fellowship to continue the project. He says the benefit of working with a renowned expert in Chinese literature on a humanities-based project has been invaluable.
“At first, I was drawn to the project because of the computer science, working with QGIS,” Gan says. “But as I went further, reading and transcribing these stories, I gradually started to appreciate the literary and artistic value of the tales. This project helped me gain a deeper understanding of my own culture.”
A “high-impact practice”
One of the benefits of studying in the College of Letters & Science at a university the size of UW-Madison is the wealth of opportunities for undergraduate research. URS, which started in the late 1990s, offers a highly rewarding framework for students interested in research—many of whom have very little idea what it entails. Some may think it’s just for STEM majors—a misconception that URS director Hannah Bailey is eager to correct.
“Research is for anyone,” says Bailey. “And while the hard sciences have a strong infrastructure for collaboration, some of our richest mentoring opportunities have come from the arts and humanities.”
Students earn credit while gaining valuable experience interacting with faculty, honing their research skills and learning to articulate the goals and outcomes of a research project.
URS has become a signature high-impact practice within the College of Letters & Science. The program encourages participation by students from underrepresented groups and provides support through a weekly seminar with fellow program participants and peer mentors.
Rewards go both ways
Faculty, too, benefit from the URS experience.
For example, Huntington is finding that the computer sciences expertise of her student team allows for more interesting ways of interacting with the software she’s using to map the ghost stories. And she says that her undergraduate researchers bring an “openness” that is refreshing.
For them, anything is possible,” she says. Alfonso Morales, a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, has been involved with URS for the past 10 years. Currently, he’s working with URS student Mingqi Yan on a toolkit that supports farmers market managers in the United States and Canada. But he always appreciates seeing how students grow from conducting research and collaborating with graduate students and older undergraduates, many of whom are former URS students.
“I get a special pleasure when I see insight developing in a student from the work they do,” he says. “I often see that light bulb moment when they interact with me and other students—it’s a thrill and always makes me smile.”
Fellows model inquiry
To ensure URS students get the most out of their research positions, the program requires that students gather each week in seminar sessions led by URS fellows, typically juniors and seniors who have been through the program.
In a safe space guided by fellows who have walked in their shoes, students gain confidence, and a community, Bailey says.
“It’s a testing ground for ideas,” Bailey adds. “They learn to ground their ideas with evidence and challenge each other. It’s a different kind of thinking than most are used to.”
Janiece Piolet counts her two years as a URS Research Fellow as among the most rewarding of her UW-Madison career. She’d done social science research through the program as a freshman and wanted to “give back.”
“I wanted to help others understand the power of critical discourse,” she says. “Part of the URS mission is to create a diverse and inclusive community that includes students from underrepresented groups, and I wanted to be a part of a program that recognizes the agency of marginalized communities and the invaluable knowledge that they possess.”
Piolet, who graduated this past December as a double major in psychology and sociology with a certificate in educational policy studies, will head to graduate school in the fall, and she credits URS for setting her on a fulfilling path.
“URS taught me that graduate school is possible, even for a Black girl from the west side of Chicago,” she says. “It is undoubtedly a part of my continued success as a scholar.”