Faculty Affiliate -Dr. Kellie Jones wins 2008 Alphonse Fletcher Fellowship
Dr. Steven Gregory's, "The Devil Behind the Mirror" wins the 2007 Leeds Award
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
2007 Leeds Prize Awardee
Dr. Steven Gregory's, "The Devil Behind the Mirror"
IRAAS Director, Dr. Steve Gregory was awarded the Leeds Prize for his recent publication, "The Devil Behind the Mirror: Globalization & Politics in the Dominican Republic; (University of California Press, 2006) .
Gregory provides a compelling and intimate account of the impact that transnational processes associated with globalization are having on the lives and livelihoods of people in the Dominican Republic. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the adjacent towns of Boca Chica and Andrés, the study demonstrates how transnational flows of capital, culture, and people are mediated by contextually specific power relations, politics, and history. He explores such topics as the informal economy, the making of a telenova, sex tourism, and racism and discrimination against Haitians, who occupy the lowest rung on the Dominican economic ladder.
The Leeds Prize is awarded each year by the Society for Urban/National/Transnational/ Global Anthropology (SUNTA, formerly known as the Society for Urban Anthropology) for the outstanding book in urban, national and/or transnational anthropology published in 2007. The prize is named in honor of the late Anthony Leeds, a distinguished pioneer in urban anthropology. SUNTA: society for urban, national and transnational / global anthropology
2007 Ralph J. Bunche Award Presented to Fredrick C. Harris
Dr. Fredrick C. Harris, Columbia University -Political Science and IRAAS Affiliated Faculty & Research Fellow with his co-authors, has received the American Political Science Association's 2007 Ralph J. Bunche Award for "Countervailing Forces in African-American Civic Activism, 1973-1994 " (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
The Bunche Award honors the best scholarly work in political science published in the previous calendar year that explores the phenomenon of ethnic and cultural pluralism.
http://www.iserp.columbia.edu/news/announcements/bunche.html
Rosa Parks had her now-famous encounter on a Montgomery, Ala., bus more than 50 years ago, but that story has been part of social studies curricula in public elementary and middle schools only for the past two or three decades. And until recently, those history lessons only told part of the story.
Most school children have been taught that Parks was a poor, working black woman who was too tired to give up her seat on the bus, where blacks were often legally required to ride at the back or give up their seat for a white person. In reality, Parks was part of a well-organized political action movement. “This was not a woman who was tired and did it spur of the moment,” says Kate Wittenberg, manager of E-Publishing Programs at Columbia’s Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS). “She was trained by civil rights organizations, and as soon as this happened, the entire movement got involved, launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott.”
Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia University (CCBH)
Launches the Amistad Digital Resource
Now, thanks to Amistad Digital Resource, a joint venture between Columbia University’s Center for Contemporary Black History (CCBH) and CDRS, Rosa Parks’s story—and those of hundreds of other African Americans—are being told in their full scope.
“So many of the stories of these remarkable ordinary people have been buried,” says Manning Marable, Columbia University professor of history and political science, and founder of CCBH & Founding Director of IRAAS. “We’re in danger of losing touch with a central moment, a great moment in American democracy. Amistad Resource is a way to bring those stories back to life.”
Launched last month, Amistad is named in honor of the 1839 uprising on the slave ship Amistad that led to the 1842 U.S. Supreme Court decision freeing Africans who had been kidnapped into bondage. Motivation for the project is the direct result of recent legislation across the country requiring the integration of African American history into social studies curricula in public schools, to provide a more inclusive and accurate record of American history. Such teaching is currently required in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Florida.
It makes history come alive, said Marable, who tested the product in focus groups. There is a real wow factor, and teachers love it.
Amistad is designed not as a classroom text, but as a multimedia resource for teachers to enhance their knowledge of African American history. It combines hundreds of rare photographs, audio recordings, film clips and interviews with narrative text explaining significant themes and events, such as the brutal lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.
“Now students can see the bus boycott, hear the freedom marchers, watch those images from the past,” Marable says. “That way history lives.”
Amistad Digital Resource was made possible through a generous grant from the Ford Foundation, which paid for the first module of the site covering the Civil Rights era. Columbia is currently seeking funding to develop additional modules that will integrate African American perspectives into the period of American history from slavery through the present.
This story was produced by and the property of Columbia University News - Story by Donna Cornachio- Columbia News; http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/08/02/bhm/index.html
Please visit the Amistad Resource at http://www.amistadresource.org/
NEW YORK, July 1, 2008 – Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Fletcher Asset Management, Inc., today announced the selection of the 2008 class of Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellows. A charitable initiative created in 2004, the Fletcher Fellowship program commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Brown v. Board
of Education. Each of this year’s four Fletcher Fellows will receive a stipend of $50,000 for work that contributes to improving racial equality in American society and furthers the broad social goals of Brown v. Board of Education.
Regarding this newest selection of Fellows, Mr. Fletcher said, “As in former years, our selection committee has assembled a class of scholars, each preeminent in their individual field. Whether working from the discipline of art and cultural studies, history or law, each of this year’s Fellows approaches the historical and contemporary challenge of race relations through a project of current relevance.”
An important consideration within the selection process is an applicant’s ability to bring a proposed project to fruition within a year’s time frame. Mr. Fletcher noted, “Considering the past accomplishments of this class of Fellows, we greatly look forward to seeing these important projects brought to life in the year ahead."
Kellie Jones will approach race relations through a project titled, “Eyeminded: A Life of Art and Writing.” An Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology and Affiliated Faculty in African-American Studies at Columbia University, Professor Jones will unfold a dialogue on modern literary and visual culture through the compilation of personal, family essays spanning nearly 50 years, including the work of her father, the writer Amiri Baraka.
