Katharine āKateā Taylor ā18 developed a passion for the environment growing up in Coloradoās San Luis Valley, a harsh yet beautiful landscape of mountains, sand dunes, desert plains and hot springs. At the same time, she was transfixed by the stories of her ancestors, especially the 19th century women who tamed the land and built farms in southern Illinois.
āMy life has been shaped by the women in it. I also grew up in an area of the country where people are deeply connected to the landscape. But the connection between women and nature really didnāt become clear until I was at ĢĒŠÄ“«Ć½,ā said Taylor, who is now a masterās student and teaching assistant at the University of Colorado Boulderās highly-regarded Department of English. āI knew I was interested in women writers and fascinated by the āuncivilized wildernessā trope in literature. But it took some time to find the intersection between the two.ā
Taylor, who graduated from Hastings in 2018 with majors in English and psychology, plans to pursue her doctorate in literature after completing her masterās degree this May. Her ultimate goal is to become a college literature professor, a career path inspired, in part, by Dr. Patricia Oman, associate professor of English and director of the ĢĒŠÄ“«Ć½ Press.
āDr. Oman was the most influential in my academic career,ā Taylor said. āSheās the reason I thought about graduate school. She was the first person to ask me if I was going to think about it, and she is the reason I found my passion in the field. Working with her on restoring lost texts and especially female writers changed my life direction.ā
In fact, Taylorās masterās thesis will be based on a book she read in one of Dr. Omanās classes. Sanora Babbās āWhose Names Are Unknownā is a Dust Bowl-era novel left unpublished for six decades because John Steinbeckās āThe Grapes of Wrathā hit the shelves first. For Taylor, Babbās long-ignored book about farmers fleeing Oklahoma raises important questions about borders, both natural and man-made.
āWho is allowed to be published? Who is encouraged to publish this type of writing? Iām suggesting that the borders of publication do not reflect the borders of land in terms of the women who worked and lived there,ā she said.
Taylorās work on women writers is not going unnoticed. This month, sheāll speak on Babb and borderlands at the Western Literature Association conference in Estes Park, Colorado. In November, sheāll discuss writer Judy Blume and singer Janis Joplin at āThe (re)Making of a Movement: New Perspectives of the 1960ās Counterculture,ā a conference in Toronto, Canada.
An academic life
Growing up in Alamosa, Colorado, Taylor found a second home on the campus of Adams State University, where her father, Dr. John Taylor, a theatre professor, allowed her to spend time after school and even cast her in productions.
āWe lived really close to the campus, so if I wasnāt hanging out with my dad in his office, I was running rampant on the grounds,ā she said. āI also played childrenās parts in several of my dadās shows, like Emmy in āA Dollās Houseā and Tiny Tim in āA Christmas Carol.āā
After enrolling at ĢĒŠÄ“«Ć½, she found a new group of role models in the Department of English.
āSeeing the work that the professors at Hastings do and the genuine connections they make with their students really inspired me. How many places do you go where you get to have dinner at your professorās house? Look through their book collections?ā she said. āThe professors also prepared me for graduate school because they encouraged me to do my own research and develop my own ideas. Thatās exactly what graduate school is about.ā
Last semester at CU Boulder, Taylor taught āIntroduction to Literary Theory,ā a course required of all English majors. This semester, she is a teaching assistant for an upper-division class on science fiction.
āGetting up in front of a classroom is really empowering,ā she said. āThere is just this awesome feeling about being able to share my expertise and passion for a topic. I even helped a couple of students working on their honors theses. That isnāt something TAās normally do, but our interests aligned.ā
An environment nurtured and shaped by women
Her senior year at ĢĒŠÄ“«Ć½, Taylor was one of six students selected for Irish Fellows, a competitive program blending on-campus courses with a month of independent study in County Clare, Ireland. She focused on Lady Augusta Gregory, an Irish dramatist and literary patron who lived at Coole Park, a gathering place and inspiration for writers like Yeats and Shaw. Taylor presented āLady Gregory and Natureā at the 2018 Academic Showcase, the annual celebration of studentsā original research.
āIām really interested in American women writers. For Irish Fellows, I researched an Irish writer. It was the research process that I loved,ā she said. āIt can be frustrating when you get only a limited response to your emails, phone calls and visits. But thereās one moment or discovery that makes it completely worth it.ā
As she researches doctoral programs in English, Taylor finds herself ābouncing back and forth a bitā on possible dissertation topics. But this scholar of women writers and lover of nature finds herself drawn, time and time again, to a familiar subject.
āThe thing that keeps coming to mind is researching the women who shaped the lands we love and cherish in the U.S. Most people donāt realize that several of our national parks became national parks because groups of women came together to petition for them,ā she said. āI want to look at letters, journals, articles and unpublished works to curate and frame a narrative of the women who shaped conservation in the U.S.ā