Italian minor Kristjana Hyka is the first digital humanities intern with the Centro Studi Sara Valesio
In Fall 2019, the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and the College of Arts and Sciences piloted an exciting new internship program in collaboration with the Centro Studi Sara Valesio, a cultural hub and center for the humanities with a focus on comparative literature based in Bologna, Italy. Senior Kristjana Hyka, a Behavioral Neuroscience major with a minor in Italian, is the first QU student to take on this new learning opportunity in the digital humanities. Kristjana applied the interdisciplinary knowledge gained throughout her studies in the CAS to become manager of the Centro Studi’s multilingual website, translating press releases and other materials from Italian to English and creating original multimedia content for dissemination on its web site and other social media accounts. An integral part of the internship was also the critical exploration of contemporary Italian poetry and scholarship.
Here are Kristjana’s own thoughts about her studies and the internship experience:
What did you do during the course of this internship? How did your internship relate your studies to the professional experience you gained?
At the beginning of this internship, I was still trying to understand and get familiar with the goals of Centro Studi Sara Valesio and the way it worked. As the weeks went by, I was starting to do different things, which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed having this internship so much. I really like that I got to practice with translations and learned about managing a website and video editing.
What was the most challenging part of the internship? What did you learn from the experience, academically as well as personally?
One of the most challenging tasks I was faced with was translating some of Paolo [ed.: Valesio]’s poems, a process from which I learned a lot. For me, it was a privilege to be able to learn more about contemporary poetry. I even felt lucky for having ended up doing an internship related to an organization that makes it possible for people to gather from around the world and talk about things or topics which I think matter the most and are the essence of life. It was an amazing coincidence because I had recently started reading some poetry in Spanish and it seemed incredible to me that I was now doing something for an organization that even has an event series called Officina della Poesia. Reading and discussing was one of my favorite parts of this internship, because I never had the chance before to talk about things that might need a lot of wondering and questioning. And I’m so thankful for having been given the opportunity to deepen my knowledge and also find myself a little through this internship!
