One Third

Jumping back to my Cotlow which, as I detailed above, couldn’t in reality be about conservation and primates: I went online and found an abstract of my project that I wrote on GW’s Anthropology website. Here goes: Flamenco has emerged as a product of the dialectic confrontation between Gypsy and non-Gypsy societies in Andalusia. This project addresses how flamenco works to undergird Spanish and Gypsy identity; how flamenco performers consciously/unconsciously conceptualize it/its origins; how Spanish society comes to terms with a performance culture that intensely appropriates and may even co-opt the cultural traditions of its much-maligned "other." It investigates whether there is a distinction — from emic (the performers) and etic (the tourists) perspectives — between flamenco puro and that which is performed in the commercialized venues. Reading over that abstract again after five years, it sounds so gosh-darn dry? The flamenco idea came about after Dr.

When I first heard of GW's Cotlow grant program, I thought, I have to apply. I guess even then I had the idea of possibly aspiring to get my PhD and thought this was a natural step: Get a small-scale grant, do something of my own creation; a solid first step. I felt the pressure as I was supported by the university's Anthropology department on a fellowship. This meant that my tuition was paid for and I was given a monthly stipend. I worked, of course, for the department as a teaching assistant and I loved it. For four semesters, I was a graduate teaching assistant for a large undergraduate course, Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology. As I was funded by the department (which meant that they believed in my abilities as there were only three other TAs similarly supported by the department), I felt I needed to nail the Cotlow. But, the question nagged at me, what to study? Throughout my academic training, sometimes I’ve been at a loss in terms of what to research and wri