Faculty Sponsor: Andrew Quintman
Kolby Durocher
Kolby Durocher (’25) is a rising senior from Columbia, CT. At Wesleyan, he is double majoring in Religion and Sociology. Their academic interests include religion and technology, indigenous studies, and media studies. During his senior year, he will be completing a thesis within the Religion department, examining the ways science fiction helps drive religious thinking about Artificial Intelligence.
Abstract: The Life of Milarepa is a Buddhist text chronicling the life story of the siddha, Milarepa. The story itself is famous in Tibet with the version told by Tsangynyön Heruka being one of the most famous. While the events of the story might not reflect a historical truth of Milarepa’s life, they represent a narrative truth that is valued in conjunction with the text in Tibet. Hence the actual chronology of the book can be used to analyze his life story through the the twelve chapters and the various paragraphs within those chapters rather than calendrical time. Using Nodegoat, a data management and network analysis software, this chronology serves as a way to develop a database to analyze various aspects of the text across the life story. This database provides opportunity for textual, character, and geographic based analysis.
QAC-Internship-Presentation