Meet the Fellows
Senior Fellow
William Freehling
VFH Senior Fellow
Lincoln’s Growth - and America's
I’m writing a book titled Lincoln’s Growth—and America’s, which I hope to finish by the summer of 2010. As the title suggests, the book focuses on Lincoln’s growth during his presidency. The later presidential part of the story is well known. But the earlier part of Lincoln’s life that I will emphasize has not been adequately handled, and it throws great light on how far Lincoln—and the nation he all too well epitomized —had to travel.
Fall 2009 Fellows
Hanadi Al-Samman
Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures - University of Virginia
Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women’s Narrative
My forthcoming book examines the literature of Arab women writers of the European and North American Diaspora. These contemporary Muslim and Christian female authors use their engagement with Western societies to reclaim their voice not as exiles, but as continuing participants in their homelands’ intellectual life. Their double obsession with the motifs of the medieval Shahrazād and the pre-Islamic wa’d al-banāt (female infanticide)—literary and physical annihilation of women—is a fascinating and creative force in their writings. My research analyzes their narrative strategies and provides a framework for deciphering the persistence of the aforementioned motifs.
Eric Gary Anderson
English- George Mason University
On Native Southern Ground
I'm an associate professor of English at George Mason University, where I also direct our new program in Native American and Indigenous Studies. My book project is an interdisciplinary analysis of literary texts ranging from pre-1700 southeastern captivity narratives to contemporary Native artistic and intellectual works. My through-line is that the American South has long been a thriving locus of American Indian writing. In bringing Native and Southern Studies together, I foreground the many ways Native writers and writings challenge received notions of what the South is, what it means, and even where it is.
Theodore C. DeLaney
History- Washington and Lee University
School Desegregation in Western Virginia and Southern Identity
In 1944, the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal called racial prejudice the American dilemma. Though my work involves historical narrative rather than sociological theory, I plan to tell the story of school desegregation in four Virginia counties where low population density and even lower numbers of African Americans forced consolidation of white and black schools as the only option. My study area differs significantly from large urban areas and provides better terrain for the study of race relations. I believe school desegregation was a necessary first step toward equal opportunities, but much of its legacy is troubling.
Corinne T. Field
History - Independant Scholar, Charlottesville, Virginia
Perpetual Minors: Women’s Rights and the Struggle for Equal Adulthood in America
I’m finishing a book about American feminists’ struggle to win women respect as fully realized adults. From the 1790s to the 1930s, feminists fought the persistent association of women with children, protested the praise lavished on girlish beauty, and demanded women’s right to develop their talents as they aged. By emphasizing their status as adults, feminists gained political rights and access to the professions, but only at the cost of distancing themselves from women who could be construed as more childlike because of their race, poverty, or domesticity.
Mitchell S. Green
Philosophy - University of Virginia
The Evolution of Language
I’m the NEH/Horace Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. My research is primarily in the philosophy of language and communication. At the VFH, I’m working on two projects: (a) conceptual issues in the evolution of language, and (b) broadening and enhancing the teaching of philosophy in Virginia's secondary schools. The former project is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Provost of the University of Virginia, and the latter is supported in part by UVa's College of Arts and Sciences and Teaching Resource Center.
Maurie McInnis
Art History - University of Virginia
Slaves Waiting for Sale
I’m completing a book focused on the visual and material culture of the American domestic slave trade. The book centers on a series of images made by British artists in the 1850s, primarily of Richmond, Virginia. The book will explore the works from multiple angles including the artists’ biographies, other British and American images of the slave trade, and the British anti-slavery movement. It will also examine the material experience of those involved in the trade by virtually reconstructing the slave-trading district in Richmond through maps, photographs, and documentary evidence.
Resident Fellows - Summer 2009
Laura Browder
English and American Studies - Virginia Commonwealth University
When Janey Comes Marching Home: Stories of American Women in the Iraq War
Ellen Contini-Morava
Anthropology - University of Virginia
Noun Classification in Swahili
Don DeBats
History - Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia)
Town and Country: Using New Sources and New Methods to Analyze Tradition and Modernity in the Politics and Society of 19th Century Virginia
Caroline Janney
History - Purdue University
The Civil War in Memory
Katherine McNamara
Literature - Independent Scholar, Charlottesville, Va.
From the First Beginning: A Literary Memory of Peter Kalifornsky and His
Discovery of Writing
Hermine Pinson
English - College of William and Mary
A Memoir of Healing
Sabra Statham
Music - Lock Haven University
Digital Access to American Composers in Letters and Documents
Kathleen Wilson
Material Culture - Independent Scholar, Alameda, Calif.
Irish People, Irish Linen
