Faculty U.S. Fulbright Scholar Awards
Please join me in congratulating four members of the faculty who have received 2016–2017 U.S. Fulbright Scholar Awards: TJ Boisseau, Angelica Duran, Melanie Shoffner, and Brian Smith.
TJ Boisseau, associate professor and director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), has been awarded a Fulbright to coordinate a transnational feminist theory module for the United Nations University (UNU) M.A. trainees program in Iceland. TJ will fulfill this appointment at the request of the UNU Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme, the EDDA Center of Excellence in Critical Contemporary Research, and the Faculty of History and Philosophy at the University of Iceland. Additionally, TJ will develop ties between the Gender Studies Program at the University of Iceland and Purdue University to produce a gender studies study abroad program to Iceland for WGSS majors and minors.
Angelica Duran, professor in English and the Comparative Literature and Religious Studies programs in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, has been awarded a Fulbright–García Robles Grant. She’ll spend the 2016–17 academic year in Oaxaca, Mexico, completing an archival and teaching project entitled “Benito Juárez’s Schooling and Cultural Education.” For the research portion of the grant, Angelica will complete research on the uncatalogued archives of Juarez (known as “the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico”) for a chapter titled “Voices of Personal and National Liberty.” The chapter will appear in her book project Milton in Hispanoamerica, the sister volume to Milton among Spaniards, which is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press. For the teaching portion of the grant, she will lead four literary studies doctoral students at the Autonomous University Benito Juarez of Oaxaca in a seminar course required in their final year.
Melanie Shoffner, associate professor of English education, has been awarded a Fulbright for the 2016–2017 academic year for her project “Adjusting the American Lens: Literature and Pedagogy as Cultural Study in Romania.” She will hold a teaching position in the Faculty of Letters at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, located in northwest Romania in the province of Transylvania. Working with both undergraduate and graduate students, she will teach classes in U.S. young adult literature, U.S. educational culture, and the pedagogy of literature teaching and learning.
Brian Smith, assistant professor of communication, has been awarded a Fulbright to serve as a visiting professor at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. In addition to teaching, Brian will implement his project “Connecting for Social Media Influence: Creating a Collaborative Research Initiative between JKU-Linz and Purdue University” to create a bridge between students at both institutions as they develop research on social media influence and culture. This collaboration will culminate in a virtual presentation session at the end of spring 2017.
Our warmest congratulations to Dr. Boisseau, Professor Duran, Dr. Shoffner, and Dr. Smith!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts