National Humanities Center Announces 2021–22 Fellows | National Humanities Center

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National Humanities Center Announces 2021–22 Fellows

April 20, 2021

The National Humanities Center is pleased to announce the appointment of 36 Fellows for the academic year 2021–22. These leading scholars will come to the Center from universities and colleges in 16 U.S. states as well as from Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and Taiwan. Chosen from 638 applicants, they represent humanistic scholarship in African American studies; Africana studies; classics; dance studies; diaspora studies; European studies; geography; history; history of art and architecture; history of science; indigenous studies; languages and literature; Latin American studies; medical humanities; medieval studies; Middle East studies; musicology; philosophy; and religious studies. Each Fellow will work on an individual research project and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center.

Apply for 2022–23

The Center will begin accepting applications for the 2022–23 academic year on July 1, 2021 with a deadline of October 7, 2021. Details about NHC fellowships, including application instructions, are available here.

These newly appointed Fellows will constitute the forty-fourth class of resident scholars to be admitted since the Center opened in 1978. Robert D. Newman, president and director of the National Humanities Center, said, “We are proud to support the work of these exceptional scholars. They were selected from an extremely competitive group of applicants, and their work covers a wide gamut of fascinating topics that promises to shape thinking in their fields for years to come. I look forward to welcoming them to the Center in the fall.”

The National Humanities Center will award nearly $1,500,000 in fellowship grants to enable scholars to take leave from their normal academic duties and pursue research at the Center. This funding is provided from the Center’s endowment and by grants from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as contributions from alumni and friends of the Center.

About the National Humanities Center

The National Humanities Center is the world’s only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through its residential fellowship program, the Center provides scholars with the resources necessary to generate new knowledge and to further understanding of all forms of cultural expression, social interaction, and human thought. Through its education programs, the Center strengthens teaching on the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the Center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.

Contact

Don Solomon
Director of Communications
919.406.0120

NHC Fellows and Their Projects, 2021–22

Project disciplines and home institutions are parenthetically noted for each Fellow.

  • Jacqueline Alvarez-Rosales (Diaspora Studies, Spelman College) Discourses around the African Diaspora in Bolivia: From the Colonial Period to the Dawn of the National Life (Mellon-HBCU Fellowship)
  • Jacob M. Baum (History, Texas Tech University) The Deaf Shoemaker: Ability, Disability, and Daily Life in the Sixteenth Century (Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellowship)
  • Mark Evan Bonds (Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Music’s Fourth Wall and the Rise of Modern Listening (Delta Delta Delta Fellowship; NEH Fellowship)
  • Irus Braverman (Geography, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York) Settling Nature: The Biopolitics of Conservation in Palestine/Israel (Hurford Family Fellowship)
  • Vance Byrd (European Studies, Grinnell College) Listening to Panoramas: Sonic and Visual Cultures of Commemoration (John G. Medlin, Jr. Fellowship)
  • Maggie M. Cao (History of Art and Architecture, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Painting and the Making of American Empire‚ 1830–1898 (Allen W. Clowes Fellowship; Kent R. Mullikin Fellowship)
  • Yinghong Cheng (History, Delaware State University) “Two Lives for a Mile”—African American Soldiers Building the Burma Road (Mellon-HBCU Fellowship)
  • Howard Chiang (History, University of California, Davis) A Transcultural Revolution of the Unconscious: Psychoanalysis and Chinese Culture across the Pacific (Henry Luce Fellowship)
  • Lorraine Daston (History of Science, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) Science Goes Global (Birkelund Fellowship)
  • Oscar de la Torre (Africana Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte) Enyoró: A Collective Biography of Black Matanzas (Cuba) from Slavery to Nation-Making‚ 1835–1898 (Anthony E. Kaye Fellowship)
  • Johan Elverskog (Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University) A History of Uighur Buddhism, 800–1800 (Geiss Hsu Foundation Fellowship)
  • Tony Frazier (History, North Carolina Central University) Slaves Without Wages: Runaway Black Slaves and Servants in Eighteenth-Century London (Mellon-HBCU Fellowship)
  • Will Guzmán (African American Studies, Prairie View A&M University) Raymond A. Brown and the Black Power Movement (Mellon-HBCU Fellowship)
  • Ana Paula Höfling (Dance Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) Dancing Brazil’s Other: Choreographies of Race, Class, and Nation (Trustees’ Fellowship)
  • Po-Yi Hung (Geography, National Taiwan University) Placing Tea: Mobility, Territory, and the Agri-food Transfer between Taiwan and the Southeast Asian Highlands (Luce East Asia Fellowship)
  • Jessica Hurley (Languages and Literature, George Mason University) Nuclear Decolonizations (Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams, Jr. Fellowship)
  • Barbara Kowalzig (Classics, New York University) Gods around the Pond: Religion, Society and the Sea in the Early Mediterranean Economy (Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship)
  • Mbaye Lo (Middle East Studies, Duke University) Blacks in Arabic Sources: An Intellectual History of Africanism in the Arab World (Duke Endowment Fellowship)
  • Nancy MacLean (History, Duke University) Capitalism and the Constitution: An Overlooked American Lineage and a Looming Peril (John Hope Franklin Fellowship)
  • Elizabeth S. Manley (History, Xavier University of Louisiana) Imagining the Tropics: Women, Tourism, and Caribbean Island Fantasy, 1890–1980 (Mellon-HBCU Fellowship)
  • Victoria McAlister (Medieval Studies, Southeast Missouri State University) The Insular Globe: Environmental Change and Landscapes of Colonization‚ Ireland, 1000–1700 (Donnelley Family Fellowship)
  • Kelly S. McDonough (Indigenous Studies, The University of Texas at Austin) Indigenous Science and Technologies: Nahuas and the World around Them (Founders’ Fellowship; Frank H. Kenan Fellowship)
  • Brenna M. Munro (Languages and Literature, University of Miami) Queer Writing in Digital Times: The Mobile Nigerian Present (NEH Fellowship; Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship)
  • Rashna Darius Nicholson (History, The University of Hong Kong) “Helping Hands”: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy, Soft Power and Theatre for Development (Luce East Asia Fellowship)
  • Ifeyinwa Genevieve Okolo (Languages and Literature, Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria) Sexualities and (Dis)Abilities: (Re)Valuing Being Sexual Humans through Body Narratives (STIAS Iso Lomso Fellowship)
  • Gregory Fernando Pappas (Philosophy, Texas A&M University) Injustice: An Inter-American and Community of Inquiry Approach (GlaxoSmithKline Fellowship)
  • Samantha Pinto (African American Studies, The University of Texas at Austin) Under the Skin (Delta Delta Delta Fellowship; William J. Bouwsma Fellowship)
  • Christian Raffensperger (Medieval Studies, Wittenberg University) Political Culture in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000–1300 (Archie K. Davis Fellowship)
  • Juan G. Ramos (Latin American Studies, College of the Holy Cross) Andean Modernismos: Affective Forms in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (M. H. Abrams Fellowship)
  • Julia L. Shear (Classics, American School of Classical Studies at Athens) Creating Collective Memories in Ancient Athens (Robert F. and Margaret S. Goheen Fellowship)
  • Timothy L. Stinson (Medieval Studies, North Carolina State University) Avenging Christ: Vengeance, Devotion, and Violence in Late Medieval England (Research Triangle Foundation Fellowship)
  • Paul S. Sutter (History, University of Colorado Boulder) Pulling the Teeth of the Tropics: An Environmental History of the U.S. Sanitary Program in Panama (NEH Fellowship)
  • Krista K. Thomason (Philosophy, Swarthmore College) Worms in the Garden: Bad Feelings in a Good Life (Philip L. Quinn Fellowship)
  • Jane F. Thrailkill (Medical Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) The Agony of Empathy: A Health Humanities Intervention (John E. Sawyer Fellowship; William C. and Ida Friday Fellowship)
  • Paul Ushang Ugor (Languages and Literature, Illinois State University) The Cinema of Femi Odugbemi: Screen Media and Popular Culture in Nigeria (Fellows’ Fellowship)
  • John D. Wong (History, The University of Hong Kong) Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of Hong Kong, 1930s–1998 (Luce East Asia Fellowship)