Grad Student Accomplishments
Here is a list of graduate student accomplishments during the Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 quarters. This impressive record makes the department proud. These achievements have been won during a difficult time for all. Kudos, everyone!
Chernoh Alpha M. Bah continues to publish hard-hitting reporting on Sierra Leonean politics and to be interviewed on Sierra Leonean TV. Several of his articles have been published on the Africanist Press website, and he features in interviews by the BBC and Deutsche Welle. The audio for the DW interview can be found here: https://www.dw.com/en/africalink-on-air-23-february-2021/av-56665628.
The Africanist Press reports are no longer available (updated 2023).
Elizabeth Barahona was inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society for those who demonstrate academic and personal excellence and who exemplify leadership, character, service, and advocacy for traditionally underrepresented students. TGS’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion celebrated the 2021 Bouchet Honor Society Inductees at the 3MT Speaker Series on Thursday, April 1, 12:00–1:00 PM CDT. Each inductee presented their research in a three-minute presentation and took questions from attendees. See the blurb about Elizabeth here: https://www.tgs.northwestern.edu/about/news/2021/03/2021-edward-a.-bouchet-graduate-honor-society-inductees.html.
Anisha Bhat was a recent TGS Spotlight student.
Carl Creason has received a Research Travel Grant from Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism to support his dissertation research.
Ruby Daily published an article about Kinsey's Anglo-World correspondents in Twentieth-Century British History. The Times (London) wrote a piece about her research on responses to Alfred Kinsey’s research on sexuality. The article can be found here. She is also a finalist for the WW Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies.
Dexter Fergie published a review in The New Republic of Samuel Zipp’s book on Wendell Willkie: https://newrepublic.com/article/159441/wendell-willkies-world-without-borders-samuel-zipp-book-review.
Matthew Foreman was awarded the WCAS/TGS Teaching Fellowship for 2021 for which he will teach a first-year seminar on Maoism in the Spring.
Bright Gyamfi had his article, “From Nkrumah’s Black Star to the African Diaspora: Ghanaian Intellectual Activists and the Development of Black Studies,” accepted for publication in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of African American History. He was one of Northwestern's two honorable mentions for the McBright Award, an award to the TGS graduate student who most goes “above and beyond in any or all of the areas of diversity, service, and engagement.” In addition, his recent blog post for Africa Is a Country about Anani Dzidzienyo (https://africasacountry.com/2021/03/pioneers-in-black-studies) has now been translated into Portuguese for the Projeto Cultural Dacosta: http://www.dacostaex.net/bright.pdf.
Bright will also present on a panel, “Rethinking Black Internationalism: New Directions in Historical Radicalism,” organized jointly by Africa is a Country and the Ghana Studies Association. He has also published a review of Jeffrey Ahlman’s Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana in the African Studies Review, available in pre-print form here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/jeffrey-s-ahlman-living-with-nkrumahism-nation-state-and-panafricanism-in-ghana-athens-ohio-university-press-2017-ix-305-pp-maps-illustrations-notes-bibliography-index-3295-paper-isbn-9780821422922/63AA17D423D9842BE3BC5569C350E35D.
He was a recent TGS Spotlight student.
Lois Hao recently presented a paper at the 2020 December conference of the Oxford Women's Leadership Symposium (OWLS) based on her first dissertation chapter, titled “the Pure, Pious, and Patriotic: Morality and Religiosity in Chinese Women’s Committed Singlehood at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” She has also been invited to attend OWLS’s March conference where she will present another chapter.
Marcos Leitão de Almeida (2020) had an article on slave sacrifices in the Upemba Depression in the 10th century CE accepted for publication in Azania.
Youjia Li organized a panel with Guangshuo Yang (see below), "The Questions of East Asian Animalities: Capital, Politics, and Entangled Cultures across Species Boundaries," for the recent American Academy of Religion annual meeting. The panel will also be featured at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies in early 2021. Youjia has had her article, “The Flowing Chō: Cart Transportation and the Redefinition of Early Modern Urban Space,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Japanese Studies, tentatively scheduled for publication in the winter (February) 2024 issue, Volume 50, Number 1. She has also been offered a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute for 2021-2022.
Hope McCaffrey, who has been working as a researcher with the Chicago History Museum, is one of the contributing writers for their new online exhibition "Concert is Power" on the first generation of Black Chicagoans and their activism: https://www.chicagohistory.org/exhibitions/concert-is-power/.
Jayson Porter was offered and accepted a position on the Editorial Committee of the North American Congress on Latin America. He also published a co-authored article on environmental racism in Mexico for OkayAfrica, which can be found here: https://www.okayafrica.com/environmental-racism-in-mexican-lagoons/. He was also the recipient of the 2020 WCAS Graduate Teaching Award! Last, but not least, he published an essay in the Washington Post’s “Made by History” section: “The problem of environmental racism in Mexico today is rooted in history.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/11/problem-environmental-racism-mexico-today-is-rooted-history/.
Teresa Alvarado Patlán has received a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship which provides three years of external funding. Congratulations, Teresa!
Charlotte Rosen won a Northwestern University Presidential Fellowship, the highest honor the university bestows on its graduate students. She also published an essay in the Washington Post’s “Made by History” section on the disenfranchisement of those in pretrial detention (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/21/disenfranchisement-jails-weakens-our-democracy/) and a critical review in the Nation of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 (https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/aaron-sorkins-inane-history-lesson/).
Melody Shum has had both a panel/roundtable proposal and a paper accepted by the “Engaging with Vietnam” conference, to be held in conjunction with the International Convention of Asia Scholars in Kyoto in August. Her paper is "Remembering the Underground in South China: Memoirs, Autobiographies, and Biographies of Revolutionaries from Central Vietnam (1880s to 1940s)” and the panel is “Saigon Social Sciences Hub: Conflict, Memory, and Identity in Modern Vietnam.” She is also part of a European Commission-funded team that submitted a European Policy Brief on Vietnam’s Covid-suppression efforts which will be presented to the European Union External Action Service and then published as an academic article: (no longer available, updated 2023). Lastly, she has been invited to join a multi-university French research project, “L’intermédiation dans l’organisation du travail migrant au sein de l’empire colonial français d’Asie et du Pacifique, du début du 19e au milieu du 20e siècle.”
Angela Tate is starting a position as the Curator of Women’s History at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her work there will include research, programming, teaching, and exhibition development and will provide her with direct access to materials she will be using for her dissertation research.
Marquis Taylor has had a peer-reviewed data article published in the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation: https://jsdp.enslaved.org/fullDataArticle/volume1-issue2-contested-freedom.
Guangshuo Yang presented a paper at the American Academy of Religion's annual conference entitled “Protecting the Mind, Civilizing the World: Buddhist Pro-Animal Activism in Republican China." The panel, "The Questions of East Asian Animalities: Capital, Politics, and Entangled Cultures across Species Boundaries," was one he organized with Youjia Li (see above) and will also be featured at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies in early 2021.