The Kluge Center welcomes six new fellows into residence this February. Get to know them and the projects they will be working on.
Michael Collins, a Kluge Fellow, comes to the Kluge Center from the University of Gottigen. Michael will work on his project, “From Boycotts to Ballots: Democracy and Social Minorities in Modern India,” which examines democratic politics and minority representation in modern India. Michael will make use of the Library’s rare collections of Tamil-language newspapers.
David Johnson, a J. Franklin Jameson Fellow in American History, arrives from Rice University. David will conduct research on his project, “Descent into the Lowcountry: Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of South Carolina, 1659–1750.” While in residence at the Kluge Center, David will examine several manuscript collections, including the Tomas Amory Papers, the Sir Thomas Phillips Collection, the Woodbury Lowery Collection, the Charles McLean Andrews Collection, and the Domingo Del Monte Collection.
Lucy Mounfield, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellow, arrives from the University of Nottingham. Lucy will work on a project titled, “Investigating Early Photographic Practice and Amateur Photographic Discourses.” She will spend her fellowship examining several periodical and newspaper collections that trace the development of photography from 1839 to the early 1900s, as well as the Charles F. Himes collection of stereographs by amateur photographers and the Daguerreotypes Collection.
James O’Leary, an incoming Kluge Fellow, arrives from Oberlin College and Conservatory to work on his project, “America’s Classical Avant-Garde: The Federal Music Project and the Politics of Performance.” While in residence, James will examine the Library’s Federal Music Project Collection in order to investigate the idea that the Federal Music Project programmed traditional music in unexpected ways in order to position the United States as both the protector and the future of a Western tradition.
Bethany Rebisz, an AHRC Fellow, comes to the Library from the University of Reading. Bethany will work on “Humanitarian Involvement in Counter-Insurgency Warfare, Kenya and Zimbabwe c. 1952-1980,” using the library’s holdings in Kenyan and Zimbabwean newspapers and the United Nations Collection.
Sarah Thompson, an AHRC Fellow, arrives from the University of Edinburgh. Sarah will concentrate on “A Transformational Conservative? Constructing Ronald Reagan’s Political Legacy, 1980-1998.” She will work with several collections, including manuscript collections of Jack Kemp, Daniel Moynihan, Caspar Weinberger, Linda Chavez, Alexander Haig, Robert Bork, William Rusher, Edwin Feulner, and many others.
Check back next month for more arriving scholars. Click here for the full list of scholars currently in residence.