Welcome to the _LFP Update_, an e-publication from the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts to keep LFP representatives and others informed about the activities of 1) LFP National Network institutions, 2) present and former Lilly Fellows and, 3) the LFP office at Valparaiso University.
______ New Lilly Postdoctoral Fellows Selected ______
This year the Program received 115 applications from prospective candidates in humanities and arts disciplines vying for one of the three Postdoctoral Fellowships the Program awards each year. A selection committee of six
Valparaiso University faculty, with Project Director Mark Schwehn and Program Director John Steven Paul, winnowed the number of candidates to 25 semi-finalists and then to six finalists who visited the Valparaiso University campus on February 1-3. We are now extremely pleased to announce that the committee's three choices have each accepted the Lilly Fellowship offer. The 2008-2010 Lilly Fellows are:
Samuel Graber, who earned his B.A. from Saint Olaf College in English and American studies, an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School, and will earn his Ph.D. in American studies from The University of Iowa in the summer of 2008. Graber's research and teaching interests include nineteenth-century American literature and culture, transatlantic studies, national memory, and religion. His dissertation, "Twice-Divided Nation: the Civil War and National Memory in the Transatlantic World" explores how transatlantic communication and the special relationship affected the early cultural representation and commemoration of the American Civil War.
Susanna Childress, who earned dual degrees in writing and English literature from Indiana Wesleyan University. She received a Master's in Creative Writing/Poetry from The University of Texas at Austin, where she was awarded a thesis fellowship from the James Michener Center for Writers; her first volume of poetry, Jagged with Love, published by the University of Wisconsin, was an exploration of human portraiture and sundry relational complexities. Childress graduated in April of 2007 from Florida State University with a PhD in English/Creative Writing. Her major field is Poetry as a Genre, with Medieval and Early Modern Women's Writing as her minor field. Her creative dissertation, Hyssop, draws on Mary Sidney Herbert's Psalter to investigate hyssop as a means of cleansing and resilience in matters of familial and political tension.
Karin Fransen, who earned a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy from Gordon College, an M.A. and M.Phil. in Philosophy from Yale University, and will complete her Ph.D. in Philosophy at Yale University this summer. Karin specializes in ethical theory, and her dissertation, "Take All My Guilt Away: The Transformative Project and Promise of Forgiveness," looks at how the objective moral guilt of a wrongdoer is affected when she is forgiven by the person she wronged.
In 2007, the Program received more applications from Philosophy PhDs than we have had for some years. Numbers of Theology and History applicants continued to be strong, though there were lower numbers of English candidates. The ratio of male to female applicants was closer to 50-50 than a year ago when women made up only 15% of the pool. The numbers of Foreign Language and Fine Arts applicants continue to be relatively low, though we had very strong applications in all of these fields. We welcome your wisdom about increasing the attractiveness of the LFP Program to PhDs and PhD candidates, especially in the Foreign Language and Fine Arts disciplines.
____ The Online Directory of Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship Applicants____
Each year, the Program receives more applications from highly qualified post-doctoral students than can possibly move to the on-campus interview stage. When the committee composes a cohort of Fellows it applies a complicated calculus of factors that includes discipline, Christian denomination, and gender. It is inevitable that highly qualified candidates who have indicated their desire to teach in church-related institutions will not be interviewed. In order to provide Lilly Fellows National Network representatives with access to this rich pool of post-doctoral scholar-teachers we have created an
on-line directory
of applicants categorized by discipline.
_____ News from Former Lilly Postdoctoral Fellows _____
As a new feature of the _LFP Update_, we would like to include information on what former Lilly Postdoctoral Fellows have been doing. So to that end, here is some news we've heard from former fellows over the past year.
Mary Henold (LF 03-05), Assistant Professor of History at Roanoke College writes that her first book is coming out in the fall from UNC Press entitled, Catholic and Feminist: the Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement.
John Fea (LF 00-02), in the Department of History at Messiah College, announces the publication of his first book, The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
Also reporting the publication of her first book is Maria Lamonica (LF 99-01), in the Department of English at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina. The book is entitled, Masked Atheism: Catholicism and the Secular Victorian Home, and is forthcoming from Ohio State University Press in June of this year. She and her husband John also welcomed the arrival of their first child, Robert Hugh Wisdom, on January 25th.
Caryn Riswold (LF 00-02), in the Department of Religion at Illinois College, reports the publication of her second book: Two Reformers: Martin Luther and Mary Daly as Political Theologians (Cascade Books, 2007), as well as a contract for her third book, Feminism and Christianity, also with Cascade Books. She also published "What America Needs in 2008: Educated Problem-Solving and Kitchen Table Values" in Political Theology 8:4 (October 2007), and "Imago Dei and Coram Mundo: Theological Anthropology for Human Life Today, or The World is the Woman" in The Journal of Lutheran Ethics 8:1 (January 2008). This article will also appear in a forthcoming book from the Lutheran University Press, titled Probing Theological Foundations in an Age of Biological Intervention. Caryn was also awarded tenure in 2007.
Matt Hedstrom (LF 05-07), along with Darren Dochuck (LF 04-05), was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, for 2007-2008. His first book, Seeking a Spiritual Center: Books, Book Culture, and Liberal Religion in Modern America is now under contract with Oxford University Press, and should be published sometime in 2009. Matt has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of American Studies and History at Roger Williams University.
Paul Harvey (LF 93-95), in the Department of History at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, is one of two mentors for the latest class of "Young Scholars in American Religion," a group of ten premier younger scholars in the field who will meet 5 times over the course of two years at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis to discuss issues of teaching and research in the field.
Marti Eads (LF 01-03), in the Department of History at Eastern Mennonite University, was honored this year to have had an essay in a collection that was named a finalists for the Arlin Meyer prize: "Prosaic Grace in Doris Betts's Souls Raised From the Dead" in The Gift of Story: Narrating Hope in Film and Literature (Eds. Mark Eaton and Emily Greisinger. Waco: Baylor U P, 2006). Marti also has an essay entitled "Mrs. Dalloway Goes to Prison" coming out in Approaches to Teaching Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. (Eds. Eileen Barrett and Ruth Saxton. New York: MLA) this spring, as well as a course plan for "Ways of War and Peace" in Peace, Justice, and Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide. {Eds. Julie B. Garber, Welling Hall, Joseph Liechty, and Timothy McElwee. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner). Marti and Christopher welcomed Elizabeth Margaret Eads on March 29th.
Susan Russell (LF 93-95) in the Department of Theater Arts at Gettysburg College reported on the March 14, 2008 world premiere of a musical that she has written about the friendship between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan at a staged reading at the Majestic Theater, downtown Gettysburg, PA. Susan has also received a Mellon grant to fund a reading of the musical with professional actors over the summer. Susan will become the Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts in July 2008, and she directed a production of JUBILEE by George Tabori, which she directed at Valparaiso University 14 years ago-the production at Valparaiso University was the American premiere of this play.
Susan will be joined at Gettysburg College by Joanne Myers (LF 05-07) who has been named Assistant Professor in the Department of English there. Joanne also has an article forthcoming in Gender & History on the case of James Hackman, a late-18th century murderer and media darling.
As we reported in December, Tal Howard (LF 97-99), in the Department of History at Gordon College, won the Second Biennial Lilly Fellows Program Book Award for Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford, 2006). We can all afford to read it now, as Tal happily reports that Oxford is putting this award-winning volume out in paperback. Tal is also co-editor with Mark Noll and James Turner of the forthcoming The Future of Christian Learning: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue (Brazos, June 2008).
Finally, James Kennedy (LF 95-97) was appointed Professor of Dutch History Since the Middle Ages at the University of Amsterdam in September 2007! Since 2003, James had been professor of contemporary history at the Free University of Amsterdam. We all congratulate James on this incredible honor!
_____Update on the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program_____
As we reported in the January _LFP Update_, that we received 67 nominations from 39 network schools for the first cohort of Lilly Graduate Fellows. Of those 67, 57 applied, and from the those 57, the selection committee named 24 finalists, who met in person or by phone for an interview weekend on April 11-12, 2008, at the University Conference Center and Hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana in Indianapolis, Indiana. This was a wonderful time, and the finalists agreed that, regardless of who was selected, coming together with the nine members of the selection committee, the LFP staff, and the mentors of the first cohort--Michael Beaty of Baylor University and Jane Kelley Rodeheffer of St. Mary's University of Minnesota --and the other finalists was inspirational and enlightening. The committee has selected 15 Fellows and 4 alternates, and we will be announcing the Fellows in August on the LFP website and in the September _LFP Update_, so please be looking for that announcement.
| We also want to inform you about an important change regarding the nomination process for Lilly Graduate Fellows. As was the case last year, each network school can nominate up to 3 students for the Lilly Graduate Fellowships, but this year, we are extending the window between undergraduate degree and matriculation into a Ph.D. program from 2 years to 5 years, so please be aware that graduates of your institutions who were not eligible last year might be eligible this year. Students who plan to enter Ph.D. programs in fall, 2009, and received a bachelors degree from your institution as far back as spring, 2004, are eligible now for the Lilly Graduate Fellowship. |
Also, please note that nominations will be due about 3 weeks earlier this year so that nominees can gather letters of recommendation prior to Christmas break--the deadline for 2008-2009 Lilly Graduate Fellowship nominations is November 21, 2008.
Please watch your e-mail for more information in late summer regarding this process.
____Information regarding the 2008 LFP National Conference and the Administrators Workshop____
2008 LFP National Conference
If you haven't yet, please mark your calendars for the 2008 LFP National Conference, which will take place October 10-12, 2008, at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle Washington. This years conference is titled: Beauty: What's Justice Got to Do with It?(PDF) with the keynote address by Nicholas Wolterstorff, Faculty Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale Divinity School. Additional plenary sessions will examine "Beauty and Truth" through consideration of literature and film, and "Beauty and Suffering in the Music of the Holocaust." There is no registration fee or cost for lodging or food for LFP Network representatives to attend. For more information, click here or here for the conference website.
2008 LFP Workshop for Senior Administrators
Immediately preceding the
National Conference
will be the Ninth Annual Workshop for Senior Administrators on the topic, Diversity and Mission. The Workshop will be held at Seattle Pacific University, October 9 and 10, 2008. Addressing the workshop will be Gilberto Hinojosa, Professor of History at The University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, and Margee Ensign, Dean and Associate Provost for International Initiatives at The University of the Pacific, Stockton, California. The Workshop is offered at no cost to senior administrators at Lilly Fellows Program National Network member institutions. Participants will be reimbursed for travel costs up to $600. Meals and hotel accommodations will also be paid for by the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts. For more information, click here.
______Other dates and deadlines for your calendar______
The next series of programs that will receive funding are:
Mentoring Programs, Network Exchange Programs, and Regional Conferences. Proposals are due September 15, 2008.
The deadline for nominations for the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program is November 21, 2008.
The deadline for applications for the 2007-2009 Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowships in Humanities and the Arts has been set for Tuesday, December 16, 2008.
For more information, visit the LFP website.
______From the Colloquium______
For the past several months, the Fellows Colloquium has continued its exploration of the concept of vocation through a series of readings by Roberta Bondi, Paul Griffiths, Stephanie Paulsell, and Henrik Ibsen. In the spring, the Fellows composed essays considering their own academic work as a Christian calling. The current cohort of Fellows is comprised of a theologian, a land use policy expert, a literature scholar, and two historians. This interdisciplinary mix makes for rich discussions from a variety of perspectives and an effective exercise in mutual teaching and learning. The paragraph below, taken from Matt Lundin's essay entitled "Broken Discourse," reflects the multi-faceted conversation of which he has been a part.
One characteristic of good historical writing is its ability to bring to the past to life, even as it reminds the reader of its own limitations. Such prose is rich in narrative, metaphor, and concrete imagery, inviting the reader to imagine the past alongside the author. Indeed, while it is a good and salutary thing to stake out a theoretical claim to intellectual humility, it is perhaps even more difficult to write prose that embodies such humility-that gestures at its own inadequacy before the mystery of the world. Rather than aspiring to classify and categorize past phenomena with prosaic thoroughness, the artful historian hints at the fullness and complexity of the past with skillful brushstrokes. To use a slightly different metaphor, such a historian weaves a narrative full of gaps indicating a superabundance of reality that can be imagined, but never adequately captured.
This is the time of year that we say good-bye to three of our Fellows. . We will miss the gifts and presence at Linwood House of Stephanie Johnson, Jamie Skillen, and Justin Poché . Stephanie has received an appointment to the English Department and Christ College at Valparaiso University; Jamie is off to Calvin College where he will be in the Department of Geology, Geography and Environmental Studies; and Justin will begin teaching in the History Department at the College of the Holy Cross. We pray for them as they begin new chapters in their lives All of us at the Lilly Fellows Program hope that you are enjoying the beginning of a refreshing summer season.
-- John Steven Paul
