FAMU student wins national Lambda Iota Tau scholarship

FAMU student Clare Mobley has been awarded one of two annual $1,000 scholarships presented by Lambda Iota Tau (LIT), a national literary society.

Mobley is a senior English student from Kingston, Jamaica and member of the Beta Delta Chapter of LIT at FAMU. She decided to enter the national competition as a part of her personal preparation to develop a thick skin and learn to receive constructive criticism.

“I am an aspiring creative writer anticipating graduate school, and I wanted to become accustomed to complete strangers critiquing my work,” said Mobley. “When I learned about the competition, I realized that this forum would be a good place to start.”

The national competition requires students to submit an 8-10-page writing sample of a creative or critical essay. Mobley’s winning critical essay titled, “The Performance of a Lifetime: The Enactment of Black Masculinity in Suzan Lori Park’s Topdog/Underdog” explored the two brothers in the play and their struggle with personal and historical identities and embodying their own masculinities in a society that privileges whiteness and wealth. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, Top Dog/Underdog focuses on the depiction of Black manhood in literature, in the media and in American society.

“I found that topic interesting because as a student concerned with the position of women in the world, I never gave much thought to the plight of the Black man in American society,” said Mobley.

LIT advisor Natalie King-Perdroso is proud of Mobley’s accomplishment.

“Lambda Iota Tau member and advisors are all proud of Clare Mobley and her outstanding achievements in the areas of scholarship and service,” she said.  “On a national stage, Clare’s work has revealed the fine caliber of students and faculty on Florida A&M University’s campus, as well as the level of intellectual rigor cultivated in FAMU’s Department of English and Modern Languages.”

For her future plans Mobley says, “I would love to be a reclusive author living on the beach and writing under a nom de plume. At the moment, I plan to become an English professor or a teacher of English as a second or foreign language so that I can fund my blissful ‘starving artist’ phase.”