FROM a course on the transatlantic slave trade that inspired a summer research project TO a Ph.D. dissertation on intimate connections between enslaved people in Colombia and Spain
Bree Booth ’19 knew they wanted to pursue a Ph.D. from age 14. They were part of a scholar program, and the director had a Ph.D. in English. Booth loved to learn, and through this program, they saw it was possible to make learning a career.
What they wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in — and write their dissertation on — came into focus at Muhlenberg. They self-designed a major in Africana studies, which brought in courses from the Africana and Latin American & Caribbean studies minors as well as history, sociology, English and other disciplines. Their junior year, they took a course with Professor of History Cathy Ouellette called Life & Death in the Atlantic World.
Listen to a more extensive interview on the alumni podcast 2400 Chew.
“It was my first time taking a class that discussed my research interests: the transatlantic slave trade and gender and sexuality. It felt like something I could continue to do after undergrad,” says Booth, who is now a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Booth also had a grant-funded summer research experience at Muhlenberg before their senior year, which provided fodder for their capstone project and strengthened their grad school portfolio. When it came to the application process, Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies Emanuela Kucik, who came to Muhlenberg in 2018, was like a “guardian angel.”
“I feel like I was able to replicate the community dynamics that I had at Muhlenberg here in my program.”
—Bree Booth ’19
“We didn’t really know each other, but I told her that I was interested in applying for grad school and she asked me, ‘Do you have anyone helping you? Do you know what schools you’re going to apply to?’ She was asking me questions I hadn’t actually thought about quite yet,” Booth says. (Kucik has since formalized this type of mentorship into the Graduate School Preparatory Program.)
Booth is now in the final year of their Ph.D. program. Their dissertation began taking shape when they won a research fellowship to Spain in 2021. The experience, rendered virtual by the pandemic, allowed them to dive into digital archives and discover criminal case records as critical source material: “Enslaved people weren’t always able to tell their own stories,” they explain. They completed a nearly six-month research trip to Colombia in the first half of 2023 and are presenting a chapter of their dissertation at a conference this spring.
Part of what drew Booth to the UCSC program is its similarities to their undergraduate experience: “I feel like I was able to replicate the community dynamics that I had at Muhlenberg here in my program,” says Booth, who was part of the Emerging Leaders Program, the Tri-Alpha Honor Society for First-Generation Students and the Black Students Association at Muhlenberg. “The way the community looked and the way the community felt and the values of the people in the community are affirming to how I see myself as a person and also how I hope to navigate my academic career.”
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