English Student Wins Hudson Doctoral Fellowship

Photo by Leigh Sparks

Garrett Jeter

University of Arkansas graduate student Garrett Jeter has been selected for the 2016-17 James J. Hudson Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities.

Jeter is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in English, in the Department of English of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

His dissertation focuses on both the reading process and experience in Gothic literature, particularly 19th-century texts such as Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Jane Eyre. His project explores Gothic, not just as an emotional-response genre, but as an intellectual, empirical endeavor because of writers' tendency to create and plant narrative voids in their texts.

His dissertation asserts that Gothic writing stimulates reader participation in creating narrative along with the writer through speculation and conjecture. He argues that Gothic transforms the reader into an empirical investigator. With this fellowship, he intends to pursue further, in-depth study of narrative theory through enrollment in intensive coursework.

The Hudson Fellowship is awarded to outstanding doctoral candidates who have completed their coursework and are working on dissertations in comparative literature, English, history or philosophy. The fellowship, which comes with a cash prize of $1,500, was established in 1986 in memory of James J. Hudson, a longtime professor of history and former dean of the University of Arkansas Graduate School.