Le's long-term goal is to earn a PhD in English, with a specialization in folklore. “Ultimately, I plan to become a professor of English literature at an undergraduate institution, where I will teach and research fairy tales with particular attention to social justice issues,” she explains in her Keasbey essay.
Perhaps, she adds, some of the magic of these tales can heal what is broken in our world. “I think that fairy tales offer valuable insights because they code systems of power and oppression, which, critically, may be recoded in new, reparative stories,” she says.
Each year, the awards scholarships to two graduates of American colleges or universities to support their postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom.
“From budding opera singers, to medical researchers, to economists, social workers, and philosophers, there is no one type of Keasbey scholar,” according to the foundation's website. “What they share in common is academic excellence, the desire to embrace college and university life in the UK, and the ability to serve as ambassadors who promote better Anglo-American, and indeed global, relations.”
Since 2007, four ³Õºº¾ãÀÖ²¿ students have received the Keasbey: Samuel Lewis ’19, Haley Miller ’16, Tenzing Lama ’10, and Mary Hartley Platt ’07.
Though Le is majoring in English and minoring in dance, she initially came to ³Õºº¾ãÀÖ²¿ to study neuroscience. But her love of stories lured her to the humanities, and she is now interested in applying the concept of neuroplasticity, which she learned about in the class Biological Psychology, to literature—specifically to folk tales.
“...How do stories rewire themselves, and us?” she writes. “Transformation is both a theme integral to fairy tales and a part of their literary-historical transmission. As such, my proposal examines the always unfolding transformation of the fairy tale, illuminating the enchanting plasticity of stories, genres, and readers.”
This year, Le is working on an honors project, advised by Professor of Asian Studies and English Belinda Kong, that explores the olfactory sense in contemporary Asian diaspora literature. She received a Goldsmith Adams Research Fellowship from ³Õºº¾ãÀÖ²¿ to support her research.
The project “examines smell in terms of marginalization, namely, how scent is a denigrated sense that may also be weaponized to oppress,” Le writes. “...I also argue that contemporary Asian diaspora writers have reclaimed olfaction as a tool to address racial/gendered othering and rethink the Asian body, landscape, and identity—in their own terms.”
For Le, attending Cambridge is her own personal fairy tale, where she hopes to launch her career as a literary scholar and cultivate her intellectual growth. “At the same time, this project is for a younger version of myself, who was fascinated by the fairy tales my mother read to me before bed, endlessly enchanted by their mystery and their magic, always inspired by the beginnings that followed 'The End.'”