Saleha Fakih

Project Description:

I assisted my supervisor and her teammate with their research, which entailed exploring evidence of girls performing on Early English Stages (around the 16th-17th Century). Since such evidence is not compiled or recorded directly, I had to parse through large archival volumes (specifically "The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First" by John Nichols) for records of female performance, whether it be song, dance, or even being a playwright. Along with this research, I also assisted the team with updating and streamlining the GEES Project website to make the information more accurate and uniform, as well as making it easier for other scholars to use the website for their own research. I did this through creating visual mockups of potential design changes. As for my personal project for DARE, I am creating a directory of performances that a number of female performers have taken part in, whether through creating it or performing in it. I wanted this to be a companion project to my fellow student researcher, Atena Bazergan, who is also participating in this DARE project with me. As she is researching the relationships between female performers, I thought that it would be incredibly helpful to have a directory that would not only compile significant performances in our research, but would also record all the important women who took part in it and detail the actions they took. This would allow researchers to not only recognize how a performance may have had significance to girl performers at the time, but also appreciate their involvements and to gain a deeper understanding of the relationships that girl performers may have had with each other as they would act in performances together.

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The Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE) - Undergraduate enables our students to meaningfully engage in research projects supervised by LA&PS faculty members. Find out more about DARE.