International studies benefit from grants

Select graduate students have received the opportunity to pursue their foreign studies due to funding from the Mellon Innovating International Research and Teaching Award.

The grant winners, students and professors who are conducting international and area studies, were decided earlier this month. According to a press release, the recipients of the grants will use the money in curriculum development, innovative workshops or fellowships for research. 

The MIIRT grants are funded by a $750,000 award given by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation last year. The goal is to use the money to foster new directions in international and area studies among IU faculty in humanities, social sciences and professional schools throughout the Bloomington campus, according to the press
release. 

“The people who are involved in international programs (qualified for the scholarship),” said Ruth Stone, associate vice provost for research. “And, for the students, they had to be Ph.D. students.”

The students and professors had to apply for the grants early October 2012. 

“They wrote applications and got letters of recommendation,” Stone said. “Then, those were evaluated by a committee.”

Among the people receiving the grants is assistant professor of history, theory and literature Jennifer Goodlander, who received one of the faculty short-term fellowships to pursue her studies in southeast Asia. 

“I received the grant to look at traditional performance and national identity through shadow puppetry in southeast Asia,” Goodlander said. “Shadow puppetry is very ritualistic in southeast Asia.”

Goodlander said she already has many plans for her money.

“I’m going to Indonesia this summer, where they use shadow puppetry to express culture,” she said. “Then, I’m going to Cambodia next summer to study the puppetry that’s making a come back.”

Margaret Remstad is another Ph.D. student who received money from the MIIRT grant to fund research. 

“I’m doing six months of field work in Peru that will lead to my dissertation,” Remstad said. “I’m studying human rights and issues of language of culture in education — an understanding of education.”

Remstad said she’s been working on the project for a long time.  She did preliminary work in the summers of 2001, 2002 and 2003 in Peru. She said this has allowed her to begin work and established relationships with the people she’s studying. 

Remstad said she already has plans for the funding.

“I’m going to use it for travel expenses and living expenses,” she said. “Some of the locations I study at are remote, so I may need a driver and perhaps an assistant to accompany me.”

Another associate professor, Alex Lichtenstein of the history department, also received money for his innovative workshop that will ship photographs to South Africa.
 
“I’m taking an exhibit of Margaret Bourke-White’s photos to South Africa.  It’s open at Mathers Museum, but they’ve never been on display in South Africa,” Lichtenstein said. “The pictures were taken in 1960, and I want to bring them back.”

Lichtenstein said he is using his money to help pay for shipping of the photos out of the country.

“A lot of it will pay to put on the exhibition in South Africa,” he said. “It will also help pay for the rights to the company that owns the photos, for framing and for me to travel to South Africa to set it up.”

“The money is going to be incredibly useful,” Remstad said.