President's Showcase
Colson Gantt she/her
Supervising Professor: Dr. Irene Zanini-Cordi
Colson Gantt is a junior from Tampa, Florida, double majoring in International Affairs and French. After graduation, Colson plans to attend law school to pursue international law. She has always known she wanted to earn a degree in the social sciences because of her interest in politics and cultures. Colson studied abroad in Paris in summer of 2023 with FSU International Programs. During the 2023-2024 academic year, she worked as a research assistant for Professor Zanini-Cordi as part of the UROP program where she became interested in social network theory and 18th century sociability. Colson and her UROP team co-authored a pedagogical peer-reviewed article that will appear in the spring 2025 edition of the journal of Eighteenth-Century-Studies. With her team, Colson won an IDEA Grant to produce a podcast series on 18th-century Italian culture during summer 2024, an experience that helped hone invaluable research skills.
Abstract
A grand tour into the intricate networks of 18th-century sociability reveals the social connections that shaped the modern intellectual and cultural fabric of European society.
This IDEA Grant project continues our UROP research and podcast experience, which focused on how Italian Salonnières contributed to the Enlightenment. By developing the podcast series Sip and Connect: Social Networking Italian Style, we examine cultural components that shaped Italian Sociability during the eighteenth century and consider how they embodied Enlightenment Ideas. Our episodes explore the origins and growth of these innovative technological and cultural developments facilitated by social connections. We discuss topics like coffee culture, journalism, politics, early science, religion, fashion, social etiquette, art, and opera.
We researched these themes, interviewed experts, and drafted and edited scripts, culminating in our production of twelve podcasts over the summer. This series will be an integral part of an undergraduate course on 18th-century Italian Enlightenment and Sociability. In addition to our primary goal of helping students explore Enlightenment culture, we learned how to engage a broad public in intellectual topics in a conversational way and to utilize modern media to disseminate knowledge.
By considering the efforts of women artists, writers, and scientists in our podcasts, our contribution aims at reshaping the androcentric conversation on Italy's cultural and scientific development during the Enlightenment. Through the revision of our peer-reviewed Eighteenth-Century Studies article "Conversations That Shape Identity," we reflected on how these goals and outcomes related to the overall meaning of our pedagogical experience, concluding with the IDEA Grant.
Presentation Materials
Project Materials
