Meet Abby Brown, who is currently a 2025-2026 Undergraduate Humanities Honors Fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry! Abby is writing her honors thesis in non-fiction through the English and Creative Writing program. Here’s what she had to say:
“My project aims to illuminate the impacts of the death penalty and the larger carceral state on individuals with loved ones formerly executed or currently incarcerated. While I have personal convictions against the death penalty, my thesis is not argumentative. My goal is to convey these individuals’ unique experiences as honestly as possible. I have been interviewing mothers, pen pals, friends, activists, and others invested in death penalty work. My fellowship through the Fox Center has allowed me to bounce ideas off peers pursuing humanities theses. Conversations with my fellow fellows have been interesting, as all of our projects and fields of study are wildly different. My main takeaway from the fellowship thus far has been the value of trial and error. Hearing my peers share different iterations their ideas have gone through has helped me recognize the value of an adaptable mindset, especially during the thesis process.”