Undergraduate Fellows: 2009-2010

Anuk Arudpragasam is a senior from Sri Lanka studying philosophy, focusing particularly on the philosophy of language. The work with which he is presently occupied is concerned with pragmatist approaches to understanding meaning and normativity. He will try to defend the accounts of meaning and normativity presented in the work of Robert Brandom. He will do this by arguing first that Brandom's non-naturalistic explanation of normativity is better than its current naturalistic competitors and second that, at any rate, metaphysical naturalism is not as persuasive a doctrine as it might seem. Anuk is working with Rebecca Greene.

Alexandra "Xandra" Clark is a sophomore majoring in Drama and planning to pursue an acting career. She is a member of the Stanford Shakespeare Company, with which she has performed as Mistress Page in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and Lear in "King Lear." She is currently playing Cressida in "Troilus and Cressida," a collaboration project between Stanford and The Public Theater of New York, and an old convict named Meg in "Our Country's Good," also with the Drama Department (go to drama.stanford.edu for more details on these productions and to reserve tickets). She is also a member of the Stanford Theater Activist Mobilization Project (STAMP), and hopes to explore more deeply how theater can be a medium for social activism. Her other major interests include creative writing, psychology, and fiddle-playing in a bluegrass band called Nimbleweed. Alexandra is working with Gwyneth Lewis.

Bea Gordon is a B.A. candidate in English Literature with a focus on Modernist Literature and in Environmental History more particularly concentrated on the North American West. Her academic interests include outdoor education, the broadening spectrum of conservation in the West, and narrative time in early 20th century literature. Gordons’ research focuses on the translation of early American Civic Republicanism into modern American society. Understanding private property and more particularly land-ownership as central to the founding fathers’ model of Civic Republicanism, Gordon’s research will look at the ability or inability of public lands to function as private property in a more contemporary model. Within the context of America’s increasingly urban character, this will explore the National Parks as an instrument in the development of equal citizenship, national personality, and civic virtue. These questions will be addressed in two case studies: 1) the Brucellosis conflict in Yellowstone National Park and 2) minority recruitment in Yosemite National Park. Beatrice is working with Lael Weis.