Courtney Andree

During my time at the center this semester, I’ve written the last two chapters of my dissertation, titled “Disabling Modernity: Disability and Sexuality in British Literature, Film and Culture, 1880–1939.” In this project, I trace the literary and cultural history of disability in modern Britain through a study of novels, domestically produced films and periodicals. As I contend, disability increasingly acted as a point of imaginative and creative interest for British writers and filmmakers—at the very moment when the bodies and sexualities of the disabled were most stigmatized in society. Disability narratives not only problematize understandings of character development, narrative completion and temporality, they often reveal that there are alternative paths to maturity, and that a life’s story need not end with heterosexual love and reproduction. As I demonstrate, the disabled body takes on different valences of significance for Edwardian writers, who imagined alternative developmental (and sexual) paradigms for their physically disabled male protagonists; for disabled veterans of the Great War, who projected images of “whole” male bodies in the nation’s cinemas; and for queer and disabled women novelists of the interwar period, who began to construct a literature where disability and bildung were compatible for the first time.

This fellowship allowed me to complete my dissertation in a supportive, interdisciplinary environment and workshop a chapter-in-progress.
My favorite thing about my fellowship was connecting with graduate students and faculty members in other fields. The writing process can be isolating and insular at times, so I welcomed the opportunity to learn from and respond to other fellows’ research.
The most unexpected thing about my fellowship was the emotional and intellectual support I received at the center. It was great to be able to talk over writing trials and tribulations, the job search and life in general with fellows and staff at the center.
I would recommend this fellowship to graduate students who value collegial exchange … and a steady stream of free snacks, hot chocolate and sparkling water.

Sara Jay

In my dissertation, I argue that the Algerian Jewish communities that settled in France and Israel after Algerian independence in 1962 represent a mobile, transnational collective that served as conduits of French, Israeli and Algerian culture to their new homes. At the Center for the Humanities, I worked on chapter four of my dissertation, entitled “Lyrics and Recipes: The Somatic Experiences of Algerian Jewish Life in France and Israel after 1967,” which follows the cultural impact that trans-Mediterranean Algerian Jewish networks had not only on the Algerian Jewish migrant community, but the national cultures of France and Israel, their two host states. This cultural transfer was not unidirectional, and through the crisscrossing and intersecting of trends, such as food recipes, clothing accessories and music, things often became misidentified with a culture, group, or people with whom it had not in fact originated. For example, in France falafel was identified as a North African Jewish cuisine, when it had in fact been imported by Jews and others from Israel and the former French Mandates in Syria and Lebanon. Naomi Shemer’s 1967 anthem, a song received as quintessentially Israeli, finds its roots in a French (non-Jewish) lullaby. This peculiar phenomenon, I think, speaks to one of the ways transnational identities function, which is through the accidental misattribution of cultural forms.  What was once French became Israeli, and what was once Middle Eastern became Algerian, and in the case of Cheb Khaled, an individual who was neither born a Jew nor a convert, is now viewed as a Jew by his fans in the Algerian-Jewish community living in France, Israel, the United States and Canada. The specific examples offered in this chapter point to a larger important trend in the construction of transnational post-colonial identities that involve the misidentification of material goods and cultural forms.

The fellowship allowed me to complete my dissertation and defend at the end of the semester.
My favorite thing about my fellowship was engaging in interdisciplinary conversations with professors and graduate students in the center. The lunch presentations helped me think about how audiences outside of my own field will receive and understand my own work. 
The most unexpected thing about my fellowship was the support from Barb, Kathy and all of the professors and students associated with the center.
I would recommend this fellowship to graduate students who are in the final stages of writing and editing their dissertation. 

Jennifer Westrick

My dissertation, “In the Blood: Breeding Vice and Virtue in Early Modern Britain,” reconstructs early modern assumptions about blood and the inheritance of qualities that were spiritual and moral as well as physical. It then traces the ways in which those beliefs were put into practice. I argue that the 17th century presents a moment of syncretism between scripture and science. Older ideas about original sin and inheritance mixed with newer physiological and philosophical understandings of body and blood, each reinforcing and lending conceptual legitimacy to the other. According to both learned medicine and popular belief, blood was literally constitutive of the self. It formed the parents’ seed and the substance the seed shaped into a fetus, it carried the vital spark of life, it solidified into organs, and it was refined and concocted into breastmilk. The early modern discourse of blood, body, nature and nurture—in which sinfulness could be passed through either reproduction or contagion—carried visceral meaning; it was an amalgamation of spiritual and biological determinism. Sources for this project include an extensive range of legal, medical and religious texts, as well as archival documents such as diaries and commonplace books, criminal depositions and midwifery notes. My research reintegrates the disparate fields of medicine, law and religion, working toward a new understanding of early modern thought and experience.

The fellowship allowed me to complete two chapters and to prepare one of the two for submission as an article.
My favorite thing about the fellowship has been the mental and physical space in which to think and to write. Focus can be hard to come by, and the center is an ideal place in which to find it. I’ve been calling this the magic office.
The most unexpected thing about my fellowship has been the environment of the center: warm, welcoming and enormously supportive. It’s a wonderful place to work.
I would recommend this fellowship to graduate students whose work will be enhanced by vibrant interdisciplinary conversations.