Featured Undergraduate Researcher - Cana McGhee

This month's URP featured researcher is Cana McGhee, an undergraduate student whose research in Symbolist poetry and French art songs is commendable.

You may have seen Cana McGhee (19C) working in the stacks of Woodruff Library, singing in Concert Choir, or uncovering primary sources at the Contemporary Art Archives of the Royal Museum of Belgian Fine Arts. As she moves into her final semester, Cana is completing an Honors thesis which investigates the place of Symbolist poetry and French art songs (mélodie) in late-nineteenth century linguistic nationalism. Cana received funding from the Emory Department of Music and as an Undergraduate Global Research Fellow, which is the product of a partnership between the Halle Institute and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry (FCHI). With her funding, she spent this past summer in Belgium and Austria, pairing her research trip with her study abroad program. As a Global Research Fellow in the Fall, she presented her work at the first annual Fellows Colloquium in November. She also sat on the Undergraduate Research Programs Fall Panel which advised other Emory students interested in undergraduate research. 

Cana began her research in her sophomore year, continuing it in her Junior year through independent study. She focuses on Gabriel Fauré’s (1845-1924) influence on French art songs and hopes to expand her work into “a more general survey about how other composers’ settings of Symbolist poetry respond to nationalist-oriented questions in francophone Europe.” Emory’s liberal arts focus has allowed her to look at her work from a number of different perspectives. Cana has used English, French, and German in her research. She says, “Being at Emory has allowed me to pursue two study abroad programs (for two different languages!), given me the confidence to carve my own path in academic research, and enabled me to support my peers in similar endeavors as well, which has been one of the most enriching parts of my liberal arts education.” 

As a scholar who cares about the influence of her work, Cana also engages with her community. She is currently the president of Emory Concert Choir, sings as a Choral Scholar at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church, and works as a student assistant for the Music Department. Cana also serves on the Music Advisory Board, where she has coordinated departmental colloquiums that encourage the value of conducting music-related research. During the Spring semester, Cana will be preparing for her thesis defense in March as an FCHI Humanities Honors Fellow. She will also be moving through the application process for PhD programs in Musicology. In what little spare time she has these days, Cana loves to read, cook, and admire cute pictures of dachshunds.