University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa honors graduate Jonathan Omuro has been named a 2016 Portz Scholar by the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). Omuro, who graduated with a BA in English in fall 2015 and was advised by Associate Professor Cynthia Franklin, wrote his honors thesis on “Queering the Gay/Christian Intersection: An Exploration of Celibacy, Ex-gay, and the Christian Closet in Gay Christian Narratives.”
Omuro is one of four 2016 NCHC Portz Scholars who will give presentations of their papers at the 2016 NCHC national conference in Seattle, Washington, in October 2016. He will be introduced by UH Mānoa Honors Director Vernadette Gonzalez.
“This is an example of the wonderful accomplishments of our students who are able to achieve with support from faculty,” said Gonzalez. “Jonathan Omuro’s timely thesis wedded the sophistication and urgency of queer theory with a sensitivity to close readings of Christian memoirs.”
There were a total of 39 institutional nominees for the national accolade. It is the first time a UH Mānoa student has been named a Portz Scholar. Omuro, a Mililani resident, is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. He will be pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Oregon in Eugene this fall.
