Announcing the 2019 ACLS Fellows
04/02/2019

A photo of Native American author and activist Zitkala-Sa (Yankton Dakota Sioux). ACLS Fellow Laurie Arnold (Sinixt Band, Colville Confederated Tribes) explores her works and legacy, along with those of Sarah Winnemucca and Mourning Dove, to reframe the narrative of Native American cultural activism and recognize these women as historians of their time.
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is proud to announce the 2019 ACLS Fellows. This year’s 81 fellows were selected by their peers from over 1,100 applicants in a review process with multiple stages. Awards range from $40,000 to $70,000, depending on the scholar’s career stage, and support six to twelve months of full-time research and writing.
“The 2019 ACLS Fellows exemplify ACLS’s inclusive vision of excellence in the humanities and humanistic social sciences,” said Matthew Goldfeder, director of fellowship programs at ACLS. “The awardees, who hail from more than 60 colleges and universities, were selected for their potential to make an original and significant contribution to knowledge. They are working at diverse types of institutions, on research projects that span antiquity to the present, in contexts around the world; the array of disciplines and methodologies represented demonstrates the vitality and the incredible breadth of humanistic scholarship today.”
The ACLS Fellowship program, the longest-running of our current fellowship and grant programs, is funded primarily by our endowment. Institutions and individuals have contributed to this program, including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Arcadia Charitable Trust, the Council’s Research University Consortium and college and university Associates, past fellows, and individual friends of ACLS.
ACLS Fellows, including those with named fellowships, are listed below; for more information about the recipients and their projects, click here.
Francesca Russello Ammon (Assistant Professor of City, Regional Planning, and Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania) Preserving the City: Urban Renewal and Restoration in Society Hill, Philadelphia
Adrian Anagnost (Assistant Professor of Art, Tulane University) Organic Architectures
Kevin B. Anderson (Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara) Mapping the Late Marx: On Colonialism, Gender, Development, and Multilinear Concepts of Revolution
Laurie Arnold (Associate Professor of History, Gonzaga University) Native American Cultural Activism as Historical Text: From Sarah Winnemucca to Twenty-First Century Drama
Yury P. Avvakumov (Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame) Ukrainians, Russians, and the Holy See, 1900-1939: Metropolitan Sheptytsky’s “Orthodox Catholic” Project and Its Post-Confessional Challenge
Anthony Barbieri-Low (Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara) The Black Land and the Middle Kingdom: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient Egypt and Early China
ACLS Yvette and William Kirby Centennial Fellow in Chinese Studies
Janine G. Barchas (Professor of English, University of Texas, Austin) Renting in the Age of Austen
Marsha E. Barrett (Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) The Decline of Centrist Politics and the Rise of the Punitive State: A Political History of Nelson Rockefeller
Erin Beeghly (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah) What’s Wrong with Stereotyping?
Shanna Greene Benjamin (Associate Professor of English, Grinnell College) Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay
Susanna Berger (Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Southern California) Visual Expertise and the Aesthetics of Deception in Early Modern Italy
Allan M. Brandt (Professor of the History of Science, Global Health, and Social Medicine, Harvard University) Enduring Stigma: Historical Perspectives on Disease Meanings and Their Impact
Susan Burch (Professor of American Studies, Middlebury College) Committed: Native Self-determination, Kinship, Institutionalization, and Remembering
Christopher Collins (Professor of Linguistics, New York University) The Eastern Khoisan Languages of Botswana
Catherine Conybeare (Professor of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies, Bryn Mawr College) Augustine the African
Jay Crisostomo (Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) The Social Lives of Sumerian
Joanna Dee Das (Assistant Professor of Performing Arts, Washington University in St. Louis) Dancing for God and Country: Performing Politics in “A Perfect American Town”
Marlene L. Daut (Associate Professor of African American Studies, University of Virginia) Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of Haiti
Joshua Foa Dienstag (Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles) The Human Boundary: Freedom, Citizenship, and Democracy in a Post-Human Age
Polina Dimova (Visiting Scholar of German, Russian, and East European Studies, Vanderbilt University) At the Crossroads of the Senses: The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism
Laura F. Edwards (Professor of History, Duke University) Only the Clothes on Her Back: Textiles, Law, and Commerce in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Jonathan E. Elmer (Professor of English, Indiana University, Bloomington) Remedial Poe
ACLS Carl and Betty Pforzheimer Fellow in English and American Literature
Amy Erdman Farrell (Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Dickinson College) Girl Scouts of the USA: Democracy, Sisterhood, and Empire
Julia Fawcett (Associate Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, University of California, Berkeley) Unmapping London: Performance and Urbanization after the Great Fire of 1666
Amanda H. Frost (Professor of Law, American University) Unmaking Americans: A History of Citizenship Stripping in the United States
Matthew John Garcia (Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations, Dartmouth College) Eli and the Octopus: The Man Who Failed to Tame United Fruit Company
Valentina N. Glajar (Professor of Modern Languages, Texas State University, San Marcos) The Afterlife of Files: Herta Müller's Story of Surveillance
Andrea S. Goldman (Associate Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles) The Frenchman and the Chinese Opera: Imperialism, Homoeroticism, and Transnational Masculinities in China, 1900-1950
ACLS Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr. Fellow in Chinese History
Isabel Cherise Gómez (Assistant Professor of Latin American and Iberian Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston) Cannibal Translation: Literary Reciprocity in Contemporary Latin America
Cam Grey (Associate Professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania) Living with Risk in the Late Roman World
Christopher Hager (Associate Professor of English, Trinity College, CT) Illiterate: An American History
Amy A. Hasinoff (Associate Professor of Communication, University of Colorado, Denver) The Traffic in Images of Women: Revenge Porn and Shared Accountability for Online Harm
Matthew S. Hedstrom (Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, University of Virginia) The Religion of Humanity: Spiritual Cosmopolitanism, Politics, and the United Nations
James Heinzen (Professor of History, Rowan University) Underground Entrepreneurs and the Soviet Shadow Economy under Late Socialism, 1950s-1980s
Anna Henchman (Associate Professor of English, Boston University) Tiny Creatures and the Boundaries of Being in the Nineteenth-Century British Imagination
Isabel Huacuja Alonso (Assistant Professor of History, California State University, San Bernardino) Radio for the Millions: Hindi-Urdu Broadcasting and the Politics of Sound in Modern South Asia
Calvin Hui (Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures, College of William and Mary) Useless: Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China
Jennifer Jahner (Assistant Professor of Humanities, California Institute of Technology) The Medieval Experimental Imagination: Scientific and Literary Method in Later Medieval England
Richard Janko (Professor of Classical Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) The Derveni Papyrus: A New Edition with Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary
ACLS Barrington Foundation Centennial Fellow in Classical Studies
Katie L. Jarvis (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame) Democratizing Forgiveness: Reconciling Citizens in Revolutionary France
Jeannette Eileen Jones (Associate Professor of History and Ethnic Studies, University of Nebraska, Lincoln) America in Africa: US Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1821-1919
Hilary Falb Kalisman (Assistant Professor of History and Endowed Professor of Israel/Palestine Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder) Standardized Testing: An Imperial Legacy of the Modern Middle East
Ippolytos Andreas Kalofonos (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles) “All I Eat Is ARVs”: Surviving the AIDS Economy in Central Mozambique
Catherine M. Kearns (Assistant Professor of Classics, University of Chicago) Unruly Landscapes: Environment and Society on Ancient Cyprus
Greta L. LaFleur (Assistant Professor of American Studies, Yale University) A Queer History of Sexual Violence
Priya Lal (Associate Professor of History, Boston College) Human Resources: Professional Labor and Nation Building in Southeastern Africa
Melinda Latour (Assistant Professor of Music, Tufts University) The Voice of Virtue: Moral Song in Late Renaissance France, 1574-1652
Keith D. Leonard (Associate Professor of Literature, American University) Black Avant-Gardism
James S. Leve (Professor of Music, Northern Arizona University) Disability Musical Theater: Dramaturgy, Performance, Accommodation, and Access
Darryl Li (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago) The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity
Marc Matera (Associate Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz) The African Grounds of Race Relations in Britain
Ndubueze L. Mbah (Assistant Professor of History, State University of New York, Buffalo) Rebellious Migrants: Forging Cosmopolitan Identity and Postcolonial Spaces in the Bight of Biafra, 1840-1960
ACLS Centennial Fellow in the Dynamics of Place
Julie A. Minich (Associate Professor of English, Mexican American, and Latina/o Studies, University of Texas, Austin) Health, Justice, and Latina/o/x Expressive Culture
Ada Palmer (Associate Professor of History, University of Chicago) Why People Censor, from the Inquisition to the Internet
Nandini B. Pandey (Associate Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison) Diversity and Difference in Imperial Rome
Sun-Young Park (Assistant Professor of History and Art History, George Mason University) The Architecture of Disability in Modern France
Gerard Passannante (Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Maryland, College Park) God is in the Detail: Cosmic Order and the Sense of Scale
Nathalie M. Peutz (Assistant Professor of Arab Crossroads Studies, New York University Abu Dhabi) Gate of Tears: Migration and Impasse in Yemen and the Horn of Africa
Anne Pollock (Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, UK) Race and Biopolitics in the Twenty-first Century
Emily Remus (Assistant Professor of History, University of Notre Dame) Charge It: Women, Credit, and the Making of Modern America
Jennifer Rhee (Associate Professor of English, Virginia Commonwealth University) Counting: Cultures of Measurement, Quantification, and Surveillance
Sara Ritchey (Associate Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville) Communities of Care: Women, Healing, and Prayer in the Late Medieval Lowlands
Kathryn Susan Roberts (Assistant Professor of American Studies, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands) The New Monastics: Creative Community and Literary Form
Joshua D. Rothman (Professor of History, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa) The Ledger and the Chain: A Biography of the Domestic Slave Trade
Britt Rusert (Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) The Afric-American Picture Gallery: Imagining Black Art, circa 1859
Rashmi Sadana (Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University) Gender, Urban Space, and Everyday Life in the Age of the Delhi Metro, 2002-2018
Joel Alden Schlosser (Assistant Professor of Political Science, Bryn Mawr College) Refusing Mere Existence: Philosophical Asceticism and the Politics of Refusal
Erik Rattazzi Scott (Associate Professor of History, University of Kansas) Soviet Defectors and the Borders of the Cold War World
Samantha Katz Seal (Assistant Professor of English, University of New Hampshire) Chaucerian Dynasty: The Father of English Poetry and His Family
W. Anthony Sheppard (Professor of Music, Williams College) The Performer's Voice: Timbre and Expression in Twentieth-Century Vocal Music
ACLS Susan McClary and Robert Walser Fellow in Music Studies
Satoko Shimazaki (Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California) Kabuki Actors, Print Technology, and the Theatrical Origins of Modern Media
Heather Streets-Salter (Professor of History, Northeastern University) The Chill Before the Cold War: The Noulens Affair and the Global Struggle Between Communism and Anti-Communism in the Interwar Period
Xiaofei Tian (Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University)Writing Empire and Self: Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China
ACLS Donald J. Munro Centennial Fellow in Chinese Arts and Letters
Katherine Unterman (Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M University, College Station) The Colonial Constitution: Law and Empire in the US Territories
Don Edward Walicek (Professor of English and Linguistics, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras) Speaking ‘American’ in Samaná: Migration, Freedom, and Belonging
Keren Weitzberg (Teaching Fellow of History, University College London, UK) Marketized Identities: A History of ID Cards, Registration, and Biometrics in Kenya
Kimberly Welch (Assistant Professor of History and Law, Vanderbilt University) Lending and Borrowing Across the Color Line in the Antebellum American South
ACLS Oscar Handlin Fellow in American History
Claire Wendland (Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison) Partial Stories: Maternal Death in a Changing African World
Ashli White (Associate Professor of History, University of Miami) Revolutionary Things
Michael E. Woods (Associate Professor of History, Marshall University) The Business of Bigotry: John Van Evrie and the Rise of a Racist Publishing Empire
Marcia Yonemoto (Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder) The Ties that Bind: Adult Adoption and Family Formation in Japan, 1700-1925
Contact: Matthew Goldfeder, fellowships@acls.org