Thouron alumnus Daniel Davies (Br’13) grew up in a small village outside of Manchester and now he is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Houston. His journey began with the help of our fellowship award and has turned into a gift that seems to keep on giving.
Recently Daniel published an edited collection of essays titled Literatures of the Hundred Years War, which is available via Open Access from Manchester University Press. It is a collaboration with Daniel’s friend R.D. Perry of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and their contributors.
“The essays seek to expand the way we think about literary history and the Hundred Years War. I [also] was recently awarded an NEH Summer Stipend and received a Solmsen Fellowship at the Institute of Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. These awards will provide the time and resources necessary to complete my monograph and I’m very grateful for the support,” Daniel shares.
Time, resources, and gratitude. These are commonalities shared among billions of people in our global society. Our Thouron Scholars, past and present, are afforded a considerable wealth of time and resources through our fellowship award program. Daniel Davies’ story shows how gratitude can have multiplying returns hand-over-fist when compared to many other things that the world can offer.
“The Thouron Award funded the first two years of my Ph.D. in English at Penn. In addition to this, being part of the Thouron community helped me adjust to life in the U.S. and I always appreciated being able to ask for advice,” Daniel shares.
Privileges Afforded with The Award
During his early years, Daniel attended Glossopdale Community College where he learned about the importance of public education. From Glossopdale, Daniel went on to study English at the University of Edinburgh with a year spent at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. With consistent studies for several years, Daniel decided to take a gap year. “I decided to take a gap year to figure out what I wanted to do next. I knew I wanted to apply for postgraduate programmes and because I had the full year in front of me, I decided to try my luck at American programmes too,” Daniel shares.
Through word-of-mouth, Daniel heard about the Thouron Award from a friend who applied the year prior. It still amazes him the little awareness he had about American graduate programmes then. Thankfully, he applied to and was accepted into the English PhD programme at Penn.
“Penn was truly the perfect place for me! Not only did I get to work with incredible scholars, but I met my partner, Sunny Yang, who was also a graduate student in the program. Financially, the Thouron was transformative — beginning a PhD programme in the U.S. requires a lot of upfront costs, especially if you are an international student,” Daniel recalls.
The majority of PhD programmes pay the first stipend to students in October, which is well over a month into the semester in the US. This can create significant difficulties. For Thouron Scholars, they receive their support immediately. This is what allowed Daniel to settle in before the start of the year at Penn. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without their support. Later in my program, I came to be even more thankful for the Thouron, as it provided an extra year of funding,” Daniel shares.
With that extra year, he was able to concentrate 100% on his scholarship versus juggling multiple teaching assistantships, part-time work, and other means of finding income that PhD students usually have to pursue. “This is particularly true in my field of English literature, and the humanities more broadly: postgraduate funding in Britain is very scarce, and the Thouron offers unparalleled support for British students to continue their studies,” Daniel explains.
History Repeats Itself
As an academic who has centered his research on studying the impact of war, how it shapes life and society, and how people have written about war across history, it should come as no surprise that Daniel wants to leave a positive impact on society through his teaching and scholarship.
“One of the main ways the Thouron has impacted my life after graduation is that now I am able to reap the benefits of the extra time and support it provided in graduate school. Because I was able to concentrate on my research during my PhD, I built up a large body of work that I am able to draw on now [that] I’m on the tenure track,” Daniel details.
As anyone in academe knows, the saying goes “publish or perish” when on the tenure track. This is because professors must produce work or else they might be denied tenure. As any Thouron Scholar knows, quality research takes time. Thus this type of pressure cooker requires finding a balance with the demands of teaching and service when in your professorship. “Thanks to the Thouron, I’ve been able to start my research career with a firm foundation,” Daniel shares.
“I’ve realized that my research into the literary history of the Hundred Years War resembles the origin story of the Thouron Award, which was born from a desire to rekindle the transnational cooperation created by World War II. One reason why I am drawn to study the Middle Ages is because you have to work with medieval sources as well as the post-medieval contexts that have shaped the historical narratives about those sources,” Daniel discusses.
Without modern historical narratives, we wouldn’t be able to place some semblance of stability on past events in our global history. The details can disintegrate over time without careful examination and improved application to present day.
Paying It Forward
After he completed his PhD programme at Penn, Daniel joined Sunny as an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Houston. The city is the fourth largest in the US, and quite soon will be the third! It has a diverse blend of cultures and communities as one of the major cities in Texas. “Houston is a fascinating city, unlike anywhere in the U.K. Teaching at UH means being part of this community, and I have loved working with our undergraduate and graduate students,” Daniel states.
With his life in Houston, Daniel also has been very involved with nonprofit organizations. Particularly PAIR Houston, which is a nonprofit that serves the city’s refugee youth by providing middle and high school students with mentorship and education opportunities. Houston has a significantly large population of people who have resettled in the U.S. from other countries.
“I started off by mentoring a high school senior named Samweli and learned more about the challenges he and other students faced as they navigated life in Houston. Since then, I joined the board and have strengthened connections between PAIR and UH English. In April 2023, this culminated with a visit to Houston I organized with British poet Patience Agbabi,” Daniel shares.
Agbabi has a long history of supporting and contributing to a British project called Refugee Tales and is the author of a modern adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, so having her deliver a creative writing workshop with PAIR students plus a series of events at the University of Houston — including a public poetry reading, was thrilling for Daniel.
“Each year PAIR organizes a tour of UH and getting to talk to students on the tour was always a highlight for me: the students always had so many questions about college and clear ideas about what they wanted to do in the future. It was humbling and inspiring to hear about their plans to become doctors, entrepreneurs and educators,” Daniel fondly recalls.
Sound familiar? Most notably, Daniel is exceptionally proud of his students. It has been the most gratifying experience for him as a professor – helping his students find their footing in their academic research or in life. His students juggle many different life demands, yet maintain focus on what matters most. “I always want to make sure my students can see the path in front of them and do what I can to clear the way,” Daniel states.
Life Journeys On
For the 2024-2025 academic year Daniel will be a Solmsen Fellow in Wisconsin. There he will focus his fellowship on finishing his first book, Under Siege: Perpetual Warfare and Late Medieval Literature. Along with this pending milestone, Daniel is also taking on another project with an UH English MFA candidate, Marshall Woodward: Space City Medievalism.
As part of the Medieval Academy of America’s 2025 centenary celebration, Daniel and Marshall received funding for UH graduate students to create new poetry in dialogue for the Middle Ages. “During the year we will arrange workshops with leading scholars of medieval literature and Houston’s Menil Collection, before we host a final reading in April 2025,” Daniel joyfully shares.
Outside of literature, professorship, and paying it forward, Daniel does have hobbies! Shortly after moving to the U.S., he took up running, but it expanded more when he moved to Houston in 2019. Daniel ran his first marathon in 2023 and plans to sign up again next year. “There are a lot of similarities between running and writing. The two activities are both about how grinding, consistent work pays off — there are no shortcuts, and failure is part of the process,” Daniel philosophizes.
And what about the original gift that has continued to give years later in multiple areas of Daniel’s life?
The Thouron Award brought lasting friendships into his life and full enjoyment working and collaborating with other Thouron Scholars, especially those in the Penn English programme. “I’m always thrilled to learn about the amazing things alumni are doing. I am excited to see the Thouron continue to create opportunities for students who would not otherwise receive them.”
“At a time when academia is facing challenges in both Britain and the U.S., the Thouron enables British and American scholars the chance to experience academia as it should be: well-supported and consistently funded,” Daniel affirms.
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