Current IRWG/Rackham Research Award Recipients (2011-12)

Matthew Blanton

(American Studies)
Leveling the Playing Field? College Football and Making Hierarchy in the Progressive Era United States

Janna Bray

(Political Science)
Friend or Foe: Muslim Immigrants and Center-Left Political Parties in Western Europe
This paper argues that center-left behavior on Muslim issues is a strategic response to electoral competition from other parties on the far-left as well as the far-right, rather than a direct response to Muslim demands.

Ayanna Brown

(History)
That peace shall always dwell among them and true love be upheld: Charity, Neighborliness, and Lay Fellowship in Late Medieval and Early Reformation England

Alison DeSimone

(Musicology)
The Myth of the Diva: Female Opera Singers and Collaborative Performance in Early 18th-century England
Using musical and archival sources gathered in England and Italy, I challenge the dominant perspective of the female performer as “diva.”  I argue that through their collaborative performances, rather than their individual careers, these women shaped and influenced the development of theatrical music in early 18th-century London.

Jane Menon

(Political Science)
Women's Activism in Islamist Organizations: A Comparative Study of the Jamaat-e-Islami in South Asia
Women’s activism in the Jamaat-e-Islami (“Islamic Party”), the largest Muslim social organization and political party in South Asia, varies dramatically.  In the Pakistani and Bangladeshi Jamaats, women play supporting roles in religious outreach and protests focused on public morality.  By contrast, men in the Indian Jamaat share decision-making power with women and promote their substantive inclusion in all aspects of the organization.  I argue the advanced stature of women in the Indian Jamaat was an unintended consequence of a national growth strategy.  My research broadens views of Islamist feminism, provides a model for moderates seeking to increase women’s participation in Islamist groups to a reduction in political violence. 

Isabel Millan

(American Culture)
Ninas Raras: Mediated Que(e)ries in Latina Kidizenship
This dissertation investigates children’s literature, television, and short-films produced in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, which feature Latina animated characters.  I converge my analysis around three contemporary characters: (1) Dora, the protagonist in the Nickelodeon’s children’s animated television show, Dora the Explorer (United States), (2) Meli, the protagonist in Patlatonalli’s children’s book, Tengo Una Tia Que No Es Monjita (Mexico), and (3) Alex, the protagonist in the animated short-film Tomboy (Canada).  Although each is rooted in a particular nation-state, each of these characters also defies bounded notions of citizenship, cultural belonging, and borders.  I focus on the following as evidence of this defiance:  identify markers (e.g. at the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, and citizenship), material productions (e.g. as consumable goods, such as children’s books, DVDs, and toys), and political ideologies (e.g. power relations between adults and children, or the construction of “normative” family formations).

Tracy Pearson

(Dance)
Personal Culture and Its Effects on the Creative Process of Female Choreographers: A Journey into the Rabbit Hole

Christine Sargent

(Anthropology)
Debating the Domestic: Labor, Citizenship, Race, and Female Migrant Workers in Lebanon

Ryoko Sato

(Economics)
Salient Role Model and Its Effect on Immunization Behavior

Stephen Spiess

(English)
Shakespeare's Whore: Sex, Language, and Epistemology on the Early Modern Stage, 1576-1632
My dissertation locates the whore as a central vehicle through which writers in early modern England explored not only sexual practices and identities, but questions of knowledge and epistemology.  “Whores” saturate discourses of the period, yet no definitive study (historical, feminist, or literary critical) currently exists.  Addressing these gaps, my dissertation: provides a social history of sex work in early modern England; interrogates relations of sexual terms to gendered bodies; positions the whore as a site for productive dialogue between feminist and queer scholars in early modern studies; offers new insights to canonical texts; proposes new methodological approaches to an “empty” historical archive; and, as an historical analysis interrogating labeling practices within a specific culture, provides a comparative case study addressing topics of critical concern to women’s studies scholars, including: sex work, sexual stigma, reputation, knowledge, slander, and violence.

Marie Stango

(History)
Rejoicing to Meet Their Brother and Welcome Him Home: Masculine Ideals in the American Colonization of Liberia
While other scholars have examined the West African nation of Liberia in the late-19th century, few have focused specifically on the turn of the 19th century to examine how colonization shaped relationships between men and women as well as white and black antislavery activists.  Placing this early period of Liberian colonization at the heart of my study, I examine the ways that colonization constructed and contested normative notions of race, gender, and empire not only in the colony, but also at home in the American metropole.

Lara Stein Pardo

(Anthropology)
Artists, Aesthetics, and Migrations: Caribbean Women Artists in Miami, Florida, and the Aesthetics and Politics of Cultural Production
This is an ethnographic study of women visual artists of Caribbean origin who live and work in Miami, Florida.  Through an analysis of their artwork, personal experiences, and social contexts my dissertation seeks to understand the interplay between immigration and visual art, and the interconnections of gender, race, class, nationality, citizenship, and sexuality in their artistic production and in the establishment of their lives and professional careers as contemporary artists in the United States.

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