2014 Fulbright recipients: Kathryn Ailes
Katie Ailes ’14 is a 2014 recipient of a Fulbright grant. (Sarah Crosby/Bates College)
A double major in English and dance, Kathryn Ailes ’14 of Swarthmore, Pa., is Bates’ first Fulbright recipient to enter a master’s program in the U.K. She will enter the Masters of Research program at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
With the ultimate goal of teaching literature and creative writing at the university level while continuing to write and perform her own poetry, Ailes’ research will examine how contemporary Scottish performance poets define national and cultural identity, and how poetic notions of “Scottishness” have evolved in recent decades.
“I will specifically examine literary reactions to the September 2014 independence referendum,” she explains, “and how contemporary Scottish poetry both feeds into and responds to nationalistic sentiment.”
As she researches local slam poetry culture, she will work closely with Glasgow’s St. Mungo’s Mirrorball Society, a literary organization, and with the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. Ailes will also provide spoken-word workshops at local schools.
Known at Bates for her performances of dance and poetry, Ailes’ numerous achievements and awards at the college include the English department’s Alice Jane Dinsmore Wandke Award, recognizing excellent female poets. She won the University of Edinburgh Literature Society November Poetry Slam in 2012.
