From superhero syllabi to library archives, English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies double major Stephanie Martinez has supercharged our campus and surrounding community by combining the joy she found in reading with a deep-seated concern for equality and justice.
Martinez first discovered her passion for literature when she found a book from the Percy Jackson series—though not its pilot. Once a friendly librarian identified the first installment in the series, she immediately “[fell] in love with literature” and became a voracious reader. She spent all of her free time “picking up a bunch of books to the point where,” she says, “I became known for how much I read. I would have, like, four books on cycle, and I’d be done with most of them by the end of the week.” She credits storytelling as the main element of literature that brings her joy: “The idea of telling a story and being engaged with it really made me fall in love with [reading], and that [love] kind of just eventually fell into literature.”
When asked about the highlights of her undergraduate experience thus far, Martinez says, “The little things I’ve been able to do while I’ve been at TCNJ have been really engaging and informative in building myself.” She points to a specific assignment given in her LIT 101: Approaches to Literature course taken during her freshman year. Students designed their very own five-week syllabus for a class on any topic, at any level. Syllabi requirements included the crafting of a course description, course goals, assignments, required readings, assessments, and grade distribution. The final portion of the exercise was to provide rationale for certain choices made. Martinez found a way to weave her own interests and passions into the assignment.
“The [other] thing that made me fall in love with storytelling was the cartoons that I watched as a kid, and especially the superhero cartoons that I watched,” says Martinez, “so the idea came in my head” to use comics as a form of superhero media to include on the syllabus. She further explains that this creative concept “started gestating, especially as I was hitting the headspace of, hey, this can be important literature.” The idea then evolved into an entire course on American Comics from World War II to present day, using figures like Superman to exemplify responses to the historical context of war. Martinez focused on three overarching units: 1) Captain America and World War II, 2) Watchmen and the Cold War, and 3) Miss Marvel and Modern Day.
“Even within the realm of comics, you can talk about so much because it’s such a unique and fantastic avenue to talk about modern politics and also fun things,” she emphasizes, “You can still have fun with comics for school [purposes].”
Martinez says her education in the English Liberal Arts program has helped to “reconfigure [her] entire worldview.” However, what she has learned at TCNJ has not been her only valuable experience. Last summer, Martinez was selected to participate in Princeton University’s Aspiring Scholars and Professionals (ASAP) Program. The cohort program, which takes place at Princeton’s Emma Bloomberg Center for Access & Opportunity, brings together 13 undergraduate students from colleges and universities in New Jersey for 9 weeks over the summer. Students participate in a series of professional development, research methods, and wellness workshops, which introduce them to higher education careers. Each student is paired with a Princeton faculty or staff member for a research or professional internship. In the following semester, students continue their research with a faculty or staff member from their home campus.
Martinez’s practicum placement was in Princeton’s Firestone Library and Mudd Manuscript Library, where she worked alongside librarians and archivists to examine library archives. “I had two supervisors,” she explains, “who introduced me to a new wealth of information because TCNJ—I love TCNJ—[but] we don’t have much of an archive space, especially compared to Princeton.”
When asked what advice might offer to other students interested in pursuing the ASAP Program, Martinez encourages them not to let imposter syndrome stop them: “It’s still possible for second hand doubts to creep in. So my main advice would be to see what happens. Apply. If you get in, try to ground yourself in the sense that they took you in for a reason. It might be Princeton—it’s an Ivy League, it’s very important—but you are there for a reason, and that’s an account that you’ve done work at TCNJ.”
Similarly, she reflects, “First gen kids—I get it, it’s rough right now.” She continues, “My big advice would really just be to find what you want to do, and try to balance familial expectations with your own desires as best as you can, which is a really hard thing to do. You are the first person in your family to get a degree, so no matter what, you’re already breaking that cycle just by being here. So just do your best, do what you can, and do what you enjoy to the best of your ability.”
Martinez has one year left in her undergraduate education at TCNJ. She is searching out options for a future career, but without a doubt, she will continue to stand out as an exceptional student, leader, researcher, and changemaker.
– Talia Verrecchio ’23, ’24