SC Humanities Announces its 2023 Student Scholarship Recipients

South Carolina Humanities offers an annual scholarship for one undergraduate and two graduate students who have declared a major or are enrolled in a Master’s degree program in the humanities. After careful consideration, the Board of Directors of SC Humanities chose Frances Ludwig, an art history major at Coastal Carolina University, as the recipient of the Undergraduate Student Scholarship. Colton Greganti, who is pursuing a PhD in English: Language & Literature at the University of South Carolina, and Justine Truc, who is working on her PhD in history at the University of South Carolina, were chosen as the recipients of the Graduate Student Scholarship.

Frances Ludwig is persuing a double major in Art History and Studio Art at Coastal Carolina University. She is a Student Felllow for the Edwards Center of Inclusive Excellence and a Media Manager and Tutor for the Department of Art History. Frances has received the Visual Arts Performance Scholarship and Presidential Scholar Award, among other awards and recognitions.

Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Colton Greganti received a Bachelor of Arts in English: Language and Literature and Philosophy from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2018. After receiving his undergraduate degrees, he worked as an educator and spent a year teaching English as a second language in South Korea. Currently, Colton is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the University of South Carolina, with research interests in 20th-century American literature, Southern literature, and literary theory. His current research projects include an ecocritical study of Mat Bell’s Appleseed, which he will present at the 2023 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, and a psychoanalytic exploration of aesthetic estrangement, which he hopes to present at the upcoming Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts conference. 

Currently a PhD student in History at the University of South Carolina, Justine Truc is persuing research focused on African American history, racial disparities, and the carceral state in the late 20th century. She wrote her master’s thesis on the Black Lives Matter movement and analyzed the role of hitherto marginalized communities (women, LGBTQ) in the movement. She is an experienced teaching assistant and has mostly taught U.S history to and since 1865. She volunteers in her community as a tour guide for Historic Columbia and for her university as a cultural ambassador since she is an international student. She is always willing to offer her time to help other have access to history, and she has sought to educate and engage different communities outside of the traditional academic classroom during her time in graduate school. With the help and support of SC Humanities, she is hoping to take her research to the next level and to keep on doing what she loves: learning about the past.”

Scholarship winners are selected by the Board of Directors, who enjoy learning about the work of our state’s budding humanists. “The board members of South Carolina Humanities are thrilled to be recognizing Jordan and Gabrielle in this significant way while encouraging other students to pursue studies in the humanities,” said Board Chair David Hodges.

For more information about the SC Humanities Student Scholarship, visit https://schumanities.org/grants/studentscholarships.