Adventures in Early Modernity

Hey there! To those who already know me, hi again! I’ve been working on this project for the last week and a half. For those who don’t know me, welcome! My name’s Enzo Acosta Cunanan, and I’m from Orlando, Florida. I’m currently studying for an MPhil in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge, and I graduated this July from the University of Oxford with a BA in History. Those of you reading who aren’t familiar with my academic history might wonder how I got to this point, or why I’m studying history. Both of those topics have rich and complex stories behind them and will undoubtedly be the source of many blog posts to come, but here’s a brief summary for now.

I was born in 2003 in Sydney, Australia to Filipino immigrants. At just eleven months old, my parents and I moved to the United States, first to Indiana and then to Florida when I was two years old. This means that since I was a toddler, I’ve had roots to three different countries – the Philippines (by heritage/culture), Australia (by birth/citizenship), and the United States (by residence, and later, citizenship). My love for history started when I was six and I picked up a Scholastic children’s book on Henry VIII. It was almost certainly inappropriate for a six-year-old, as it didn’t gloss over Henry falsely accusing his second wife Anne Boleyn of adultery and incest, but it sparked in me a lifelong passion for the past. I wondered, “Who was this man, who married six women and beheaded two of them? What was his world like?”

From sixth grade until eleventh grade, when the COVID pandemic put an end to it, I competed in the National History Bee and Bowl, quiz competitions only on history. I won’t brag, but you can find my results online if you’re so interested. Needless to say, winning the National History Bee in sixth, then seventh grade, and similar success in the History Bowl (a team competition) required intensive study of all facets of history, including areas I didn’t particularly care about. Still, these experiences only stoked a fire inside of me. I also competed in the Commissioner’s Academic Challenge (i.e. the state-wide Florida quiz bowl) in ninth and tenth grade, my team winning both times. Of course, I specialized in history. Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that when COVID struck and everyone was confined to their houses, I realized that I didn’t want to stop studying history. Indeed, having run through several other careers in my head, I knew that none would bring me the happiness and intellectual satisfaction of going into academia. This was (and still is!) a risky move. God knows neither the pay nor job market in academia is great, to say the least. But my parents had also never known someone who went into history, either as an undergraduate or as a career. Given that they’re both doctors, I’m still so heartened that they allowed me to take this risk and study the thing I’m most passionate about.

In high school, I became fascinated with the early modern period. My interest began with a narrow focus on Henry VIII, due to his larger-than-life persona and marital history. However, it quickly extended to the Tudor era as a whole, as I soon became a fervent fan of Anne Boleyn. In my quest to learn everything I could about the Tudors, I eventually began reading books about early modern Europe to place them in a broader context. While I would never want to have lived in the early modern period, I find it irresistibly fascinating, a source of endless variety and my intellectual comfort zone.

I applied to Oxford in the first semester of my senior year of high school. I hadn’t yet become an American citizen, but as an Australian citizen, going to college in Australia would’ve been far cheaper than studying out-of-state in the United States. I was set on going to Australia, but the deadline wouldn’t open until that spring. It was actually my mother who persuaded me to apply to Oxford as a sort of practice run for graduate school. This was both because I was determined to go to England for that and because at Oxford, you can request feedback from the college in the University which reviewed and rejected your application. I went through the whole application process in a sort of dream-like haze, never letting myself believe I could get into Oxford. Neither I nor anyone I knew was closely acquainted with anyone who’d been to Oxford. Imagine my shock, then, when I got in! I couldn’t commit fast enough.

I’ll save a detailed account of my time at Oxford and Cambridge for another post, but I’ll quickly discuss it here. I’ve never felt more academically fulfilled than at these two universities. I love the tutorial system as an undergraduate, the exclusive study of history without a core curriculum, and the freedom to conduct independent research as an undergraduate, and to a far greater extent, as an MPhil student at Cambridge. I even appreciate all those weekly tutorial essays I had to write in my three years at Oxford! But above all, I’ve made friends for life at both universities. I’ll shout out in particular Jamie, Adam, and Max from Oxford, as well as the early modernist MPhil cohort at Cambridge. Together with the Butterfly Garden, Jake, and Connor from high school, I couldn’t do without the support and love of my friends. They’ve been my rock amidst the stress of my studies, and my cheerleaders in my triumphs. If they’re reading this, I want to say this: I’m so grateful you’ve come into my life.

And that’s really where my story is right now. I’m applying for a History PhD in seven different universities, both in the U.S. and U.K., and I’m also currently researching my MPhil thesis on posthumous representations of Henry VIII in sixteenth-century English and Spanish historical writings. I’ve also appeared on both the ITV quiz show University Challenge in the U.K. and the cable game show Jeopardy! in the U.S. I’m actually appearing on the latter for a second time on January 7, so mark your calendars. I’m so, so fortunate to have gotten to where I am now, and I’m so excited for you all to follow my journey here.