Succeeding With Narcolepsy
Famous Narcoleptics and Famous People with Narcolepsy
Nicole Eugene
M.A. American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University, OH
“Potent Sleep: Cultural Politics of Sleep” American Cultural Studies Masters Thesis, Chair Erin Labbie and Advisor Don McQuarie, Bowling Green State University.
B.A. Sociology and Art minor, Spelman College; Atlanta, GA
“Eugenics and the Genetic Age: An Exploration of the Attitudes of Geneticists and Lay People towards Genetics and Eugenics”, Sociology Undergraduate Thesis, Spelman College.
One of Many Publications:
Nicole Eugene, “Working While Narcoleptic”, Anthropology of Consciousness Journal, Volume 24, Issue 2, pp 158-177.
Nicole Eugene
B.A., M.A., PHD Student
Ohio University, School of Communication Studies
Athens, OH
“During my Master’s program at Bowling Green University (BGSU) I researched social and cultural understandings of sleep and sleepiness. This research topic was inspired by the many curious and intense conversations I had as an undergraduate about narcolepsy, the neurological sleep disorder I was diagnosed with as a teenager...." Nicole Eugene
As an undergraduate sociology major with an art minor at Spelman College, I participated in the Ronald McNair Summer Research Fellowship at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. As a first-generation college student and an African American woman, this was critically important to my development because this program allowed me to acknowledge my desire to pursue a PhD, and it provided me with some of the tools and support to buttress this lofty goal. At Spelman I helped with two campus organizations: Diverge, the Spelman Art club; and The Dark Tower project, a visual and literary arts organization for students at the four historically black colleges and universities in Atlanta. I served as president
of Diverge for a year and I helped found The Dark Tower project, which organized events for students. I also volunteered at a local school, helping elementary students who were reading below grade. During my Master’s program at Bowling Green University (BGSU) I researched social and cultural understandings of sleep and sleepiness. This research topic was inspired by the many curious and intense conversations I had as an undergraduate about narcolepsy, the neurological sleep disorder I was diagnosed with as a teenager. As an instructor of American Cultural Studies I introduced students to diversity through reading fiction and non-fiction works that, when woven together, painted a picture of America culture as inherently diverse yet interrelated. At BGSU I participated in the Graduate Student Senate as the department representative and as the senate secretary. During this time we passed several resolutions that affected the student and greater community, including a resolution opposing the Iraq War, and a resolution in support of same-sex benefits. After my Master’s program, I took a one-year break and moved to New Orleans, the estranged city of my birth. The week after I arrived, I evacuated to Houston because of Hurricane Katrina; joining the New Orleans diaspora in their efforts to make sense of what happened to their city and their lives. This is how I came to work with the University of Houston’s folklorist, Carl Lindahl, on the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston (SKRH) project. I worked as an interviewer and as the project archivist and interviewed a very diverse group of people, including an established business owner, a college-aged gospel rapper, an art curator, a retired seaman, and a disabled high school janitor. While in Houston, I volunteered with St. Luke’s Hospital with their art cart program, which offered patients an opportunity to change the artwork in their rooms. The art cart not only gave these patients a measurable sense of control of their environment, but it also aided in the healing process by exposing them to ameliorative power of nature in the form of photography.
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