The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded prestigious NEH Fellowships to three faculty members from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Arts and Sciences.
UT is one of just two universities to receive three NEH fellowships in 2023, a reflection of the high quality of work being conducted there in the humanities. The competitive awards are granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional research, rigorous analysis and clear writing.
Alan Rutenberg, research development manager in UT’s Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development, said, “In 2004 the Office of Research initiated a program to support humanities fellowships. In the period since 2004, UT ranks 10th in the country among all universities, public and private, in the number of NEH fellowships received.”
Manuela Ceballos, assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, was selected for her project “Between Dung and Blood: Ritual Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Mediterranean.” Ceballos will use her fellowship to produce a comparative history of Spanish Catholic Saint Teresa de Ávila, who died in 1582, and Moroccan Sufi Sīdī Riḍwān al-Januwī, who died the following year.
Daniel Magilow, professor of German in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, was selected for his project “Disinformation and the Illustrierter Beobachter, 1926-1945.” He will use his fellowship to produce a book on the Nazi Party’s official press organ, Illustrated Observer, and techniques of disinformation in German print media.
Mary McAlpin, professor of French in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures, was selected for her project “Rationalizing Rape: The New Logic of Sexual Violence in Enlightenment France.” McAlpin will use her fellowship to produce a book on the scientific, literary and philosophical discourse on sexual violence during the French Enlightenment.
UT’s 2023 NEH Fellowship recipients are receiving a total of $150,000 in awards to conduct research and produce books that will add value to humanities scholars and general audiences.
Ceballos, Magilow, and McAlpin mark UT faculty’s continued success in winning NEH awards. Last year, Mary Campbell, art history associate professor, won an NEH Fellowship and Nicole Eggers, history assistant professor, was awarded a collaborative research grant.
In this most recent January 2023 cycle, UT was one of only two higher ed institutions in the nation (the other being the University of Southern California) with three faculty members receiving the highly prestigious NEH Fellowships. The university also was the only institution in Tennessee to receive any NEH awards this latest cycle.