Holly Burgess earned her Master of Arts in English at Marquette University and returned to the department to join their doctoral program in 2018. Burgess has recently been awarded the prestigious Arthur J. Schmitt Fellowship. The Arthur J. Schmitt Fellowship identifies talented Marquette doctoral students and fosters their development as socially responsible leaders in the Marquette community and beyond. One of the goals of the fellowship is to further students’ formation as leaders working for positive social change in the spirit of Marquette University and Arthur J. Schmitt. This vision is accomplished through supporting their doctoral studies and promoting leadership development and opportunities.
Burgess’s dissertation examines police brutality, revolutionary violence and hip-hop from The Black Power Movement to The Black Lives Matter Movement. She previously earned the Diversity Fellowship at Marquette from 2018-2022. In the spring and summer of 2023, she presented two invited lectures on The History of Hip-Hop at Graham Public Library and Mercer County Library System. In October 2023, Burgess will present her paper “‘Batons, Bullets, Triggers’: Black Women Activists and Police Brutality in Rapsody’s and Janelle Monáe’s Music and Writing” at The University of Missouri’s Peace and Security in Africa and the African Diaspora Conference.
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