Shaun Cason ’23 and Anna Allport ’23 win Sachs scholarships

On Jan. 20, Shaun Cason ’23, a senior within the Historical past division, was awarded this yr’s Sachs Scholarship to pursue a grasp’s diploma at Worcester School at College of Oxford. Anna Allport ’23, an unbiased concentrator in efficiency research and interdisciplinary theater at Princeton, was additionally awarded the Sachs International Scholarship, which permits recipients to review at any college outdoors of the U.S.

Cason will proceed finding out the Byzantine Empire and, extra usually, the Center East in the course of the medieval interval. A recipient of a Purple Coronary heart and navy veteran, Cason is the primary switch scholar and veteran to have been awarded the Sachs Scholarship.

Cason spent 15 years in particular operations within the Marines. He transferred to Princeton as a sophomore figuring out he needed to pursue historical past. “Due to my time within the navy, you understand how wealthy and numerous the world is,” Cason famous. 

Cason, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, can also be specializing in Southern Iraq for his thesis. “[It’s] attention-grabbing how they tie into one another,” he mentioned concerning his service and analysis. “I’ve been there. I’ve been to a number of the locations that I’m researching proper now. I’m seeing the way it was lots of of years earlier than I used to be there.”

Allport will likely be pursuing a Grasp of Advantageous Arts in Shakespearean literature, with analysis specializing in “combining Shakespeare’s dramatic literature with multimedia expertise instruments in Okay-12 training curricula,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Every day Princetonian. After finishing her Masters in Advantageous Arts (MFA), she is fascinated by making a standardized Shakespeare training curriculum for Okay-12 public colleges. 

The Sachs Scholarship, which Cason acquired, permits recipients to review for any diploma from the College of Oxford, guaranteeing a full scholarship for 2 years and an allowance for different bills. Worcester School, a school inside Oxford, has been housing Sachs Students because the institution of this system in 1970. 

Oxford College has been the “golden commonplace” for changing into a Byzantinist or Medievalist, Cason informed the ‘Prince’. 

Whereas at Oxford, Cason mentioned that his research are going to be a “lot extra centered,” citing that his subsequent 10 years of academia are going to be specializing in this area of interest, which he found throughout his undergraduate training at Princeton.

Along with historical past, Cason plans to proceed finding out Greek and study Arabic. 

“Studying Arabic is excessive on my priorities as a result of there’s a treasure-trove of supply work within the Arab world,” Cason mentioned in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

“I’m an enormous nerd, I like historical past: simply all of it excites me. If you happen to informed me the historical past of rubbish cans, I’d sit right here and hear,” he mentioned. 

Regardless of his curiosity in historical past, he by no means anticipated that he would grow to be a medievalist. “I began trying to the east, and actually checked out Byzantium and the Center East and the Islamic world,” Cason mentioned. 

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“I didn’t know something, so it was all contemporary, shiny, and actually thrilling, and so I took an entire proper flip, went in head first,” Cason mentioned about his growing curiosity in medieval and Byzantine research. “We’ve got this superb center ages custom right here [at Princeton] and simply entry to probably the most sensible minds within the subject. You possibly can’t assist however get enthusiastic about it.” 

Cason focuses on “slavery within the Center Ages and center Byzantine interval, which coincides with the golden age, the Abbasid caliphate.” 

Based on Cason, medieval research within the Byzantine Empire are “missing tutorial work” proper now. He famous that, in contrast to with different durations and areas, historians in his subject need to look past written texts to artifacts and different sources. Due to this, Cason is pursuing the archeology certificates. “I actually like multidisciplinary approaches to analysis,” Cason mentioned. 

Referencing the shortage of obtainable sources, Cason mentioned that his research are “going to take quite a lot of effort. You actually have to have a look at extra of a geographic research, wanting regionally and on the interactions [between cultures]. However that is the attention-grabbing factor about this space: you will have such a mixing of cultures and folks, languages, customs. I believe the Center East was a extremely thrilling place in the course of the Center Ages,” Cason mentioned. 

Cason, who describes himself as “not the normal recipient,” mentioned that receiving this scholarship was “big” for him, his household, and his neighborhood. Accordingly, he thanked a few of his professors: Professor Helmut Reimitz, Professor Teresa Shawcross, and Professor Jack Tannous.

“Their funding in me has actually solidified that I’m making the appropriate resolution,” mentioned Cason. “In the future, I wish to be able to pay it ahead and to have the identical affect on college students’ lives and never lose sight of what is necessary in academia, which is the coed,” he added. 

Cason plans on pursuing his Ph.D. to grow to be a professor who can mentor non-traditional college students and veterans. “That’s a long run aim, to proceed to place myself able to advocate — to do good,” Cason mentioned. “I aspire to dwell as much as this legacy that has been positioned earlier than me.”

Simone Kirkevold is a information contributor for the ‘Prince.’