Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships honoree Fabrice Szabo.
Fabrice Szabo
Western graduate student wins Vanier Scholarship
Western student Fabrice Szabo has been named one of six recipients of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, the country’s most prestigious scholarships for doctoral students.
Szabo, seeking a PhD in French, studies adaptations of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Misérables.
His thesis, Toward a Better World for Les Misérables, establishes adaptation as a mirror that deforms, reforms and informs the original work, thereby making the importance of choice in that adaption quite clear. His research then explores what filmmakers keep from an original work, how they deviate from it and what they choose to transform.
“I chose Western to benefit from bilingualism,” he says. “Les Misérables is a French novel, but many of its adaptations are in English, so it was important for me to join these two worlds.”
Beyond the books, Szabo enjoys the French Department tradition of ‘Atelier des Cinéphiles,’ a bi-monthly French movie night. He participates in the selection of the movies and its organization.
“The road toward a doctorate can be long and tortuous,” he says. “It’s a good idea to have it pass through Western.”
About Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships
Launched in 2009, the award is designed to attract and retain world-class doctoral students from Canada and around the world. This year, 167 Vanier scholars were announced at 26 universities, with graduate students from the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa choosing Canadian universities for their doctoral studies.
Vanier scholars receive $50,000 annually for up to three years, and each is selected based on his/her demonstrated leadership skills and high standard of scholarly achievement in the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, engineering or health sciences.
See the full list of honorees at Western News »
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